by W. Eric Martin

To follow up my item on Carcassonne Labyrinth, let's look at more upcoming games from publisher Ravensburger, starting with its alea brand for more experienced players.

While alea debuted a new Stefan Feld design, The Druids of Edora, in early October 2025, its next three titles will be German-language editions of titles released by other publishers — something alea hasn't done since the early 2000s with Edel, Stein & Reich and Adel Verpflichtet. Those titles are:

• Moon Colony Bloodbath, from Donald X. Vaccarino and Rio Grande Games
• Propolis, from Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, and Shawn Stankewich of Flatout Games
• Présages, from Maxime Rambourg and Spiral Éditions

While the first two titles might be well-known on the U.S. market, the third might not, so here's an overview: Présages is a team game for 4-6 players in which your team wins the round when one member has only a single card in hand; win two rounds, and you win the game.

The deck consists of 36 cards, with players having 4-5 cards in hand. While the deck has four suits, you're free to play any card on your turn, and once all players have played a card, you resolve the turn, with the highest-played card being discarded from play and all other cards returning to their player's hand...except that each card has a special effect — some instant, some at turn's end — and those effects have a huge impact on the game.

Calm, for example, is a green 4 that's discarded if any red card is played, so if your teammate plays Calm, you want to make that happen if you can. Don't have any red cards? Well, you might end up with some since other effects will swap cards or let you pick up a different card at turn's end. You can discard Spring if it's the only green card played; the weakest red, Day, discards the strongest played red; and Enigma discards itself if one of the strongest cards — the Absolutes — are played.

I played Présages twice at BGG.CON 2024 and thought it was brilliantly engaging, with elements of trick-taking, memory, deduction, and team play combining to twist your head around as you try and try again to ditch your few cards in hand.

Ravensburger's Katrin Seemann told me that it's not clear yet whether alea's version of Présages will be released in English. The U.S. and German sides of Ravensburger keep one another informed about what they plan to release, but not all projects make their way across the Atlantic.

▪️ Ravensburger showed off a few elements from Labyrinth: Chronicles, a co-design between Labyrinth creator Max J. Kobbert and Jan Truchanowicz, a designer with co-publisher Awaken Realms.

Jan Truchanowicz
The game starts along the lines of Labyrinth, but with a 3D playing area for the game board. Inside the game box await multiple smaller boxes that feature various campaign elements that you might dip into during play, including for use on the inside of the cavernous box.

Awaken Realms plans to run a crowdfunding campaign for Labyrinth: Chronicles in Q1 2026 and will reveal...some of what awaits. Mystery campaign boxes wouldn't be a mystery otherwise.


▪️ Designer Reiner Knizia donned welding goggles to talk about Ventopia: Die fliegende Insel, a design with an electronic game board set in a fantasy world in which "the protective light shield has collapsed".

Interesting to think that Knizia has been releasing games along these lines with Ravensburger since the release of King Arthur in 2003. As many designers have noted over the years, the key to long-term success as a game designer often involves you creating a concept that can be expanded or reinterpreted in any number of ways. That "guaranteed" royalty income gives you the ability to experiment with other designs, which might lead to another evergreen concept.


▪️ Designers Erik Andersson Sundén and Christian Kudahl were on hand at the Ravensburger press event to lead players through The Glorious Guilds of Buttonville, which debuted in German in September 2025 and will be released in English at some point.

To set up, choose 8-9 of the 25 types of villagers, shuffle them together, then deal each player four cards and lay out five as a river. On a turn, take two cards into your hand, then play as many cards as you wish of a single type. Some villagers have a come-into-play effect, such as gaining buttons, stealing buttons from an opponent, or drawing additional cards; others have actions that you can activate once per turn, ongoing effects, or endgame scoring.

Player holdings at game's end
Importantly, when you play a set of cards of a type you already have, you cannot add the newly played cards to the earlier ones and you must discard one of these sets at the end of your turn. At game's end, you score buttons for each set in your area, with larger sets scoring more buttons, so you want to hold onto cards and grow larger sets, but you're forced to play one set every turn, a smart design decision that forces you to make choices you don't want to make.

We played a four-player game with the suggested starting set, and each turn is simple — pick up two cards, play a set — with each choice being only relatively simple. Given the straightforward nature of the design, Buttonville is clearly aimed at families, yet I can imagine experienced gamers taking to the design as well, similar to how deck-building games can be played more or less skillfully by those who are looking to discover card combos and play the odds on which cards remain in the deck.

From left: Erik Andersson Sundén, Ravensburger editor Thorsten Gimmler, Christian Kudahl
▪️ At this press event, media received a promo Disney Lorcana card, and while I have multiple ways to rid myself of this card — one example starts at 24:30 of this video — this time I thought I'd take a suggestion from users and give it away.

How? Well, if you plan to attend BGG.CON and plan to participate in the blood drive that's a regular feature at such events, let me know. Show me evidence of your donation on Friday, Nov. 21, and I'll put you in a random draw for the card. GeekMail me to let me know about your donation plans and to pass along contact info so that we can connect during the event.