208: Board Game of the Month: August 2026

episode 208 of board games with variant hex is all about what we played in august i'm kelly and in this episode aaron and i will be discussing the games we liked didn't like and what our game of the month is for august this month includes the tail end of our gen con plays so it's once again a little bit higher and there's so many good games to talk about let's get into it so without further ado i'll turn it over to myself and aaron talking about our games of the month for august Last month, I did our month in review stats by myself because we recorded with Ruel.

And I thought...

I could probably just do it by myself every month.

We'll see how long that lasts.

This month especially, because we had so many plays on so many games.

I had 78 games and 103 plays, and Aaron had 31 plays and 22 games.

Mine were split pretty evenly between Board Game Arena and actual physical games played.

I just played some more solo games than Aaron did.

Those games were Diced Veggies, Mountain Goats Legacy, Under the Leaves, Bower, Panda Spin, Bordeaux, Shards of Creation, Trinket Trove, Warp 99, Rosetta, The Lost Language, Euro, Flip Tunes, Bloom Kingdom, The Frozen Passage, Mystic Curling Club, Dino Racer, Enchanted Ivy, Venus Connection, Forest Shuffle, Smoky Mountains, Stonespire Architects, IA, AIYE.

gizmos flamecraft jewels who tan life in the rainforest ink sea salt and paper kano circadia colorado the box in the forest mojo my city roll and build night at the zoo perfect words pixies yahtzee seven wonders dice license to krill nebular colors spots delicious friendly fishing loom or oppa mine to kaido duo crumb snatchers digit code point city lucky numbers pop art reef and ruins roll to the top journeys shifting stones super mega lucky box tally up mind sweeper castle combo down up or den up Surplus of Sloss, Bandana, Coffee Rush, Grab and Go, Draftosaurus, Four Corner Detective, Odin, Orbita, Panda Panda, Pocket Cats, Pop, Comet, Q-O-M-E-T, Questline, Sushi Go, Top Drop, Use All Your Sick Days, Flowers, Le Chocolat, First Orchard, Gold Hunting, and Hamster Hammock.

We had our Gen Con plays in there, so that definitely changed who we played with and where we were playing.

And it changed how many games we acquired, for sure.

On a typical month, just a few, really.

But for August, specifically August 1st, still during Gen Con, we got Warp 99 and the Hyperdrive expansion, Top Drop, Reef and Ruins, Pop Arts.

We got my very first games to go, Pete Ahoy.

That one's for our son.

Licensed to Krill, Gold Hunting, Four Corner Detective, Flip 7, Liquid Death, because why not? Flamecraft Duels, First Orchard, that's also a hobby game for our son, First Giants, and the Newspaper Tokens mini expansion, Fire in the Library, Dino Racer, Coffee Rush, Grab and Go, and regular Coffee Rush, Le Chocolat, Bordeaux, Bloom Kingdom, Animal Upon Animal, another hobby game for our son, Wingspan Pocket, Tricarius and Dragons of Etch and Stone.

Those last three actually came in at the end of the month for the trip to the game store to get sleeves actually for Strange Slot Simulator.

But, you know, you go in the game store and you end up leaving with little something more than what you went in with.

As far as culling games, we are now more actively culling.

I didn't even keep a cull list.

I just released the games into the wild.

And by that, I mean my local half price books where they gave me a small portion of what they were worth.

Now that gets the business of the review, the statistical review of what we played, kind of where we played it over the last month.

Now we'll go ahead and dive into our picks for Back to the Table.

the game that we want to play a little more of.

Collection, one of the games that we are getting rid of, will likely get rid of, or certainly one of us has no interest in playing again.

And our game of the month.

So many good ones to pick from this month.

And I feel like I could have done this same episode four times with four unique picks for each one of these, and they would have been perfectly valid.

Excellent games.

So let's get into it.