by W. Eric Martin

I'm still working on notes from Gen Con 2025, but in many cases those notes also serve as previews of what's coming at SPIEL Essen 25 and beyond, as with this write-up of four titles from Belgian publisher Sit Down!

▪️ This first title — Magic Maze Pocket — is a familiar one, but now available in a travel edition, with nearly all of the components of Kasper Lapp's 2017 game Magic Maze converted to cards. You use a smartphone to serve as the game's timer, and instead of smashing the giant red pawn repeatedly on the table to tell another player to do something, you will now use...your fist, or whatever other object might serve the purpose. The intent is to offer the same gameplay in a box roughly one-quarter the size of the original at a US$20 price point.

If you're not familiar with Magic Maze, your goal is to have all characters grab an item that they need, then escape the maze before time runs out — but each player is limited in what they can do. You might be able to move characters only north, for example, while another player can move them only east, as well as on escalators. As you advance through scenarios, the pawns each gain a unique power, and more complications are added to play.


As a teaser (or a mere marketing incentive), Magic Maze Pocket includes one new tile that can be added to the Magic Maze base game. Due to the component change, not all MM expansions will work with Magic Maze Pocket.

▪️ Magic Maze Pocket is due out in October 2025, as is Gilles Turbide's Tolleno, a 2-4 player game in which you build a shared city in a selfish way.

On your turn, you add the city tile in hand to the city, extending at least one canal without creating dead ends. Next, you place one of your floor tokens on an empty foundations space or one of your previously placed floor tokens adjacent to a canal that you extended.

After that, you either place another floor token or place one of three face-up contract tokens adjacent to a canal perpendicular to the one you just extended. The contract token goes on an empty foundations space, and you earn points based on the tile where it was placed and the eight surrounding tiles; you might score for certain tiles being in play, spaces being empty, tiles being full, the height of your buildings, the number of tiles holding opponents' buildings, and so on.

Why would you ever place a second floor token instead of a contract token? Because in addition to helping you score contract tokens, whoever has the tallest building on a tile earns the listed points at game's end. Additionally, each building scores equal to its height multiplied by the number of fountains pointing at it. Each player also has a unique scoring goal, and a shared contract tile starts in the center of the play area.


Finally, once you place your sixth floor token, you unlock your boat, placing it on a canal. At the end of each turn, you must move your boat from its current tile in a straight line along a canal to a boatless space. You can pick up a floor token along the way and drop it on the tile where your movement ends.

Importantly, opponents can neither add or remove tokens to the tile where your boat is located nor place a tile adjacent to that tile, which means you get to block off locations for future moves. As you place more floors, your boat can make a turn or two, giving you more freedom to reach tiles far across the city.

Tolleno also contains rules for "casual" play that does away with boats and contract tokens.

▪️ Tricky Twist, also due out in October 2025, is a new version of Taylor Reiner's trick-taking game Short Zoot Suit.

At the start of each round of this 3-4 player game, players set aside five cards from their hand in a reserve pile; at the start of each turn, each player can decide to add the top card of their pile to their hand. Why is this important? Gameplay consists of standard trick-taking, with players following the lead suit, if possible. If you can't, you'll take back your card as a "false trick", while whoever played the highest card in the lead suit claims the remaining cards as a "trick".

When someone has no cards in hand, the round ends. Player score 1 point per trick they took and 3 points per trick/false trick pair — unless they have the same number of tricks and false tricks, in which case they score 5 points per pair.

What's new in Tricky Twist is that each time you collect a 7, you take one of the bonus cards in play; these give you additional ways to score or allow you to modify your holdings at the end of the round. Each round also features one of nine scoring cards that dole out points based on false tricks taken.

▪️ Jumping ahead, ORBORA is a co-operative game for 1-4 players from Olivier Grégoire due out in February 2026 in time for the FIJ game fair in Cannes. Here's an overview:

You can see an example of this gameplay in the image below. One player has arranged four base tiles in a zigzag shape, then transferred them to the shared target planet in the same location as on their personal board. Another player has then created a group of three water tiles that would go on top of base tiles, then transferred them. I believe the mountain tiles would be placed next, then greenery.

Mock-up components at Gen Con 2025
In essence, you are collectively terraforming this planet layer by layer to achieve whatever the current mission asks you to do — and as you can see in this publisher image, the missions will add on many new gameplay elements as you progress, which should not surprise anyone who has played Magic Maze.


▪️ Finally, Sit Down! has an off-the-beaten-path item that is a game, but not a game you'd initially want to play. Here's an overview of Arcana Ludica, which was created by Vincent Bonnard and Christophe Raimbault and features an introduction by Antoine Bauza:

Arcana Ludica includes six sets of gaming components, so you can use one boxes set with 3-36 players. In the image below, you can see the initial game presented to a group of up to six players:


If you read the rules for "Toxic Potion", you'll discover that it's an awful game: Players take turns flipping over a card from the deck, and if you reveal the "toxic potion" card, you lose.

That's it, that's the game.

Except that's not it, of course. Through the Shaman, players can be confronted with questions or encouraged to discuss how the game works and doesn't work. What strikes them about the design? They'll then play a more interesting iteration of this design, then after discussion another iteration. They'll have the chance to propose rules and iterate on the design as well.

While Sit Down! is positioning Arcana Ludica for use by teachers in schools, it's also appropriate for libraries, businesses, and other organizations, with the players not learning how to play, but using play to discover how to make things that others will want to play.