Geeking Out – January Board Game Review and Giveaway

January 10, 2026

4–5 minutes

A new year, and some new games? Oh, go on then! Also, thanks to our chums at Hachette you can win your choice of any of the games in this article! Read on…

Gatsby

This is a great (ahem) little game with fiendish strategy and a fab deco vibe. You’re competing high-society types trying to get the attention of the must-have guest, the Great Jay Gatsby. It’s a sneaky game which really manages to feel like poisonous upper class politicking.

There are three areas of the board, the Cabaret, Finance District and Racecourse. Each has a different influence track, and you aim to collect either 5 different suits of socialites or 3 of the same. Players alternate, picking one of the available actions, but not repeating the previous.

Each area of the board plays differently: complete a path across the cabaret floor, finished first on a racecourse, or climb the tower of finance. Placement can also trigger effects, such as swapping your influence for your opponent’s, swapping hidden or revealed characters, or even choosing their next action.

It plays like a faster, nastier Arnak, and we love it – an absolute smasher. You might even say it’s… Great!

Canal Houses

In this charming pocket game you compete to build the most attractive multicoloured street along the canal path. You score for orthogonal colours, building heights, tulips and other triggered conditions depending on the base building and the roof piece. Once a player has placed their 4th roof, that’s it!

Starting with a hand of 3 cards, each turn you all draw from the base, level or roof decks. One of the neatest things about this game is this simultaneous play, because you choose a card from your hand to keep and then pass your whole hand round clockwise. I’m a bit of a sucker for drafting, from my old ccg days, so this was a treat.

Fans of the likes of Tenby will love the vibrant art and cute, quick, and slightly cutthroat gameplay as you try to ensure you keep the best card whilst those you pass are less useful. I like it particularly at 2 as there’s only so much I can keep track of in my aged brain but I do like that 3/4 is an option. Perfect for your travels, to cities with canals or otherwise!

Moonshine

In this small box treat of a game you compete to build the most prestigious illicit drinking den for your local animals – think jazz-age zootropolis. It mixes a cocktail of dice assignment, hand management, simultaneous play, engine building, set collecting to a smooth, clean finish.

The first player rolls the dice available to them: always 3 white, whilst the better orange and blue dice can be activated as the game progresses. These can be rerolled, with ALL players taking the bonuses from the faces they can access (so if you haven’t unlocked blue you can’t take its results even if rolled by another player). The resources are used to pay for clientele, who in turn score, trigger other bonuses and/or build your engine. Once you’ve hit 12 prestige, you win!

I do love a simultaneous play game, and am a fan of dice assignment so this really caught my attention: I like games which fuse seemingly disparate mechanics. It can also be played with asymmetric starting setups so that’s another win.

It’s got a lot going on but the icongraphy is clear and very straightforward. It can feel that players who unlock blue/orange dice early gallop ahead, but that simply is itself part of the strategic balance of the game. You can also always take moon tokens, which trigger character cards, so this itself acts as a natural balancer.

Space Lab

As the name suggests, this game sees you building your ideal space station, playing different roles to the 10 slots around the 3 pods. You’re aiming to get the 3 factions to match each pod for bonus points, discarding cards from hand to buy crew, whilst unlocking the Project bonuses to score research points. It’s fast and fun that’s great for 2, although maybe drags a bit at 3/4.

The solo mode is a delight also, as you try to build a larger deep space lab, getting as a high a score as possible. Sometimes I can find these kind of puzzles somewhere between irritating and stressful – but this is a joy, as you try to balance building the best crew possible before the deck runs out.

It’s a great game, particularly at 1 or 2, with beautiful production values – check out that foiling, heavy cardstock, great dividers and genius scorepad – makes for another wee small-box treat!