Special Ops: Publishers On A Hot Streak

What makes a board game leap off the shelf and onto the table, again and again? We dig into the publishers whose choices—production quality, component feel, rule clarity, art direction, and smart release strategies—turned solid designs into go-to weeknight plays and all-day favorites. From lavish dice trays and neoprene to tight, small-box curation, this conversation unpacks how labels build trust, reduce friction, and create onramps that welcome newcomers without alienating veterans.

We start by reframing the “game of the year” idea through the lens of time, cost, and table realities, then spotlight the companies that delivered. Stonemaier’s big swing with a long-brewing passion project shows how consistent craft keeps players curious. Chip Theory doubles down on tactile joy and character growth that feels amazing in hand. Fantasy Flight steadies its flagship living card games with smart pauses, refreshed entry points, and a revived release cadence that rebuilt excitement for Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror. Alongside them, Restoration Games evolves Unmatched with a stellar TMNT co-op set that still meshes with competitive boxes.

We also celebrate boutique brilliance. Bytewing pairs Kenizia’s razor designs with modern art and clean rules that pop at any player count. Gamehead launches a cohesive lineup of small-box titles under Paul Solomon’s creative direction, balancing casual, thinky, and party experiences that teach fast and shine on repeat plays. Allplay’s consistent form factor and price make quality an easy impulse buy, while CMYK’s magenta line and inventive rulebooks prove that bold presentation can be both friendly and fresh. And 25th Century keeps important designs alive with thoughtful reprints and accessible imports, helping more players find evergreen classics.

If you care about how games teach, store, and feel—and why that matters for your group—this is your roadmap to the publishers delivering the goods right now. Subscribe, share with your game night crew, and drop a review with your top publisher picks so we can highlight them in a future episode.

Chapters

• 0:15 Setting The Stage And Recent Guests
• 0:53 Board Games Vs Video Games Culture
• 3:06 Why Publisher Matters More Than You Think
• 4:39 The Big-Publisher Visibility Problem
• 6:20 Stonemaier’s Big Year And Vantage
• 8:17 Chip Theory’s Dice-Driven Highlights
• 10:56 Bytewing’s Kenizia Renaissance
• 13:38 Fantasy Flight’s Rebound And LCGs
• 18:12 Gamehead’s Wave One Arrives
• 21:28 Restoration Games And Unmatched Turtles
• 24:50 Allplay’s Consistent Small-Box Hits

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, back in better than ever. Today, I'm joined by Clayton. How are you, Clay? I'm good. I kind of miss our friends. I know. We had the opportunity to just talk with Tiff from TIFF Tiff.board.games. And she was amazing. She plays more games than the rest of us combined. So it was awesome to get her perspective on games that are new to her this year. Jared shared uh a game that he plays with his what two-year-old, three-year-old. Yep. So yeah, that we're coming off that high, but now it's just the two of us. And we're gonna talk publishers that had a killer year this year. And I and I want to say before we get to the publishers, I I listen to a lot of like video game podcasts, and there's this weird thing now that's going on where like board gamers are talking about video games, and video gamers are talking about board games, and there's this kind of like the Venn diagram is overlapping more and more, it seems like Decision Space just talked about like board or video games that they're liking, and they had like the designer of UF UFO 50, uh, which is like a collection of smaller video games that are all kind of mashed up in this, like I don't know, cornucopia of games like from a fake video game video game company kind of re-release. It's it's really cool. V UFO 50. Uh, and then you had like Jamie Stegmeier talking about dispatch, which I have been loving, and there this Venn diagram is overlapping more and more. And I and these video game podcasts, every year they do game of the year, right? And they talk about all the hot new games that came out this year that they played, and they have the opportunity to play like all of the biggest games that come out every single year because all these big publishers put these huge games out. Stuff like that, unless you are Dice Tower and getting sent every board game that is ever created, it's so hard to do as a creator. Like you are never going to play all of the hottest games that year because it comes with like a financial burden, it comes with a time burden. And board games are not something that you can just like boot up and learn as you go, like a video game. Like you kind of meet it on its own terms, it teaches you to the mechanics, and then you kind of dive in slowly. Like you are learning by doing a board game, it's kind of different where you have to like read all the rules, and then you have to watch the videos, and then you have to like kind of slowly ease yourself into some of those heavier board games, and so we don't get to play all the hottest board games every single year. So it's cool to be able to talk games that are new to us, and I love that, and I think it's cool, and then you get to experience games that came out what 50 plus years ago, and they're new again and exciting to you because they're new. So I really enjoyed that conversation. Um, but we do get to appreciate from afar publishers that have had killer years. So I think that's what we're gonna talk about today is those publishers that have put out awesome games that are getting tons of traction that are people are loving. Um, so Clay, what do you what are your thoughts on publishers this year? Who had a great year?

SPEAKER_01: 3:21

I just want to make a statement about publishers in general before we start. Please. I board games are quite a tactile experience for me. And I I would say the publisher of a game uh might be more important to me than the designer in a lot of cases. I love some of these publishers, they're like almost insta-buys for me just because I like the production that they put on the game, the care they take with it, um, to me it makes a huge difference. I will play a game that is objectively worse but has a good production more often than I'll play a game that is a better game that has a bad production. Maybe I'm vapid, but I like to play games that draw people in. And oftentimes your crusty old uh Euro game that you know has got some grumpy looking man on the front cover. I am specifically talking about I just picked up an old version of Medici the other day, and I was like, this might be the ugliest looking game I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00: 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

Um the but anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I'm saying, like, you know, publishers are important to me, so this list is near and dear to my heart.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

Yeah, and I I was gonna do a little bit of research on this one and and look up some of the hottest new publishers. If you go to like BoardGame Geek and you do browse publishers, there are 145 pages of publishers that are listed. This is crazy. Like you could spend all day, multiple days, weeks, years, like clicking through each of these and looking through a board game catalog. And it's hard to pick out those that are like really shining. And it's kind of this interesting dynamic where like just like movies, just like board game or video games, just like all these other mediums, like the ones that throw the money at their productions and the the publicity and the you know the advertisement, those are the ones that really get traction overall. And Kickstarters kind of change that dynamic a little bit where like smaller publishers can put stuff out on Kickstarter, but you might not get all the Instagram ads and the Facebook ads and all these other things. You might not be getting the influencers, influencers out there publishing or posting about your game. So it's kind of an interesting space for publishers, and a lot of those smaller publications kind of slip by unnoticed, which is really sad. Um so I think at least on my list, a lot of these are the big boys, the big publishers. Um, but they put out good productions and they have all the money to throw out problems. So yeah, I this is not a disparaging post or or podcast about the small guy. Like, go support the little guy, go support the little publisher, and you know, try some of their games because some of them are great, but they might not have the money to throw at those publications. So, Clay, who do you have for your first uh publisher that had a great year?

SPEAKER_01: 6:20

Listen, I if you've listened to the podcast, you know I love Stonemeyer Games, and this year was a great year for Stonemeyer Games, in my humble opinion. The eight-year project by Jamie himself, Vantage, got released. It's been a mixed bag on the review side. A lot of people love it, some people hate it. Um, whether you're in either camp, you have to admit it's impressive, and I think it's doing very well. I personally have enjoyed it far more than I ever thought I would enjoy a game like that. So that's to its credit. And then Fin Span came out, I think, in 2025 as well.

SPEAKER_00: 6:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 6:59

And that's been my favorite of the Spaniverse. Um, so I really appreciate that one. There might be more, but origin story just came out. That one I didn't care for as much, but a lot of people are loving it. I saw it in a lot of the Dice Towers top 10 of the year. So um, if that's your kind of thing, I just didn't care for the special abilities, like trying to keep track of them, but it's a cool game. Um, and Stonemaier Games is a company that I've always appreciated. None of their games are like my favorite game of all time, but like is going to be a theme throughout these publishers. All of their games are games I enjoy and am willing to take a flyer on and give a whirl because I know I listen to Jamie's live streams, I listen to you know the intention he puts into his products, and I've just been continuing to enjoy Stonemaier games throughout 2025.

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

Yeah, absolutely. They had a killer year, and it was good to see them like finally get Jamie's Passion Project out after eight years. Like that that's a long time for a board game publication. Like I know people work for these work on these things for years, but with the size and scope of that game for how small their team is, that is an accomplishment in itself. Uh, my first one uh is gonna be Chip Theory. Chip Theory had a great year, and I was never really a chip theory guy until I finally got too many bones played, but they had a good year. I kind of like looked back. Um, they had uh Hoplomacus Victorum finally came out. That was a Kickstarter game that finally came out this year. Um got that played, loved it. And then they also had Roth, and Roth was like a big one that got a little more traction than Hoplomacus, a little more approachable, a little easier to pick up, a little uh simpler to understand. But that game is cool too. I and I really enjoyed that one. So uh it's they don't have like you know 10 publications, but Chip Theory is a pretty small team, and uh it was cool to see them put out some two killer games back to back.

SPEAKER_01: 9:06

Yeah, I don't know that I've ever played a single chip theory game. Oh I might need to fix that.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

Yeah, uh Too Many Bones is probably their most popular. That one's uh that one's always lauded amongst the board game community, and it's so good. Like you open up that box and you just have this huge treasure trove of dice just staring you at the face, and you can level up your character, and man, it feels so good to play with those dice. So what else you got?

SPEAKER_01: 9:33

Okay, um, big caveat here. I know it's gonna seem like I'm rooting for the home team because we just had this guy on the podcast last week. Yep, um, Nick Murray was on our podcast, but I swear to you, Bytewing games would have been on my list no matter what, because I know at the start of this all I said the production outweigh the design and designer. But when you can marry a nice production with my favorite designer, like Bytewing does, I mean, these guys make a killing on finding crusty old Kenizia games and just slapping on a new theme, ramping up the production, and putting that thing out there for an audience that demands a little more from their board games. And I've loved their cosmic Silos trilogy, Silos, Orbit, Ego. Enjoyed all three of those. Um, they've come out with Gazebo and Gingham. I haven't gotten those yet, but I hear they're doing well. Oh, yeah. Um, Mike Lip Berwin plays games, says Gaebo might be one of his favorite games of the year.

SPEAKER_00: 10:43

So, I mean, I think he said that, but I'm maybe I'm putting words in his he said it might be one of his top games, and I immediately ordered it.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

Like, yeah, yeah. So uh Bitewing, I mean, they're they're on the rise. I've pretty much back anything they do because usually it's got Kenitsi involved, and I know their production values off the charts. So yeah, shout out to Bitewing. They're definitely smaller. I mean, goodness gracious, the guys that run it are dentists for their job. So, like they're doing this in their free non-dentistry time. Uh it's amazing to see that what they're able to do, but yeah, yeah, and they're killing it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:23

Bitewing is doing awesome stuff, and they were our first giveaway that we ever did for OGN, which we gave away the Ego Silos Orbit uh trilogy. That was really cool to see. Uh, my next one is gonna be Fantasy Flight. You know I'm a fantasy flight boy, you are, you know, I'm a fanboy, yeah, and these games are not for everyone, but I I think they did something really cool this year uh that really makes them shine. So Fantasy Flight got caught up in the whole like asthma day black hole of being absorbed and reshuffled. And asthma day is such this large corporation that some of these publishers and stuff are getting shifted underneath other companies and disbanded, and all there's some weird stuff going on with asthmoday right now. And Fantasy Flight took the opportunity to kind of regroup, regather, and come back in a big way. And a lot of their franchises, they have a lot of like living card games and stuff like that, are coming back in a big way. So Marvel Champions, one of my favorites. They kind of took a little took a break. People were the fans were not happy because they're so used to this, like kind of recurring episodic releases of characters and expansions and scenario packs and all this stuff. But they kind of took a step back and they came out with uh you know the X-Men uh releases that were all killer. They kind of did a refresh on characters that had they had already published but are like coming back in a new way. Black Panther with Shuri is coming back, like they they kind of restructured a little bit, and then they just released like the X-Men, the uh Agents of Shield, and then they have the Civil War expansion coming out. That stuff is all killer, got me reinvested in Marvel Champions right when I was ready to quit. They pulled me back in, and then they did a cool thing. You know, Arkham Horror the card game is a huge franchise for them. It's right up there with Marvel Champions and the Lord of the Rings living card game. They kind of took a step back from that, and now they are um it might be coming out in 2026, so that's a little bit of a caveat, but they are like reintroducing a new starting pack for Arkham Horror the card game. And it might it might money the waters a little bit, but I think it's like an expand alone where you can buy this new set and get new investigators and new scenarios and all this stuff, but it's also another jumping in point for people that have never played this game and want to onboard. So I think a lot of that stuff is pretty cool and able to do that under all the turmoil uh that they've been under through the asthma day shuffle up. Um, also Star Wars, the deck building game is going strong. They had the Clone Wars release, they're releasing a Mandalorian expansion pack. So, yeah, they're they're coming back in a big way. Fantasy flight always is great, but they had a killer year considering the uh tumultuous corporate structuring that they had going on.

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

That is interesting. I did not know all that backstory. That's awesome to hear that they're still kicking and putting out that good content. You are definitely a Fantasy Flight fanboy. I I need to invest more in these publishers you speak of because what did I play from Fantasy Flight? Do they play did they make out a rim?

SPEAKER_00: 14:46

They did make out a rim, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:47

Okay, they definitely have a a vibe to their games. Like I played that, it's got the insert that's like a big valley. You know what I'm talking about? It's like two big pumps.

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

Yeah, usually they have like some weird organizers that they throw in there. Sometimes they're like the plastic with Marvel Champions, and sometimes they're just like yeah, the big cardboard valley with all the cards sitting in the middle. And yeah, they they have like big either living card games or strategic card games, like your outer rim. So yeah, yeah, some of that stuff is uh really unique and really cool, and they they take IPs that people love and they make them into great mechanics that play really well.

SPEAKER_01: 15:30

So awesome. Yeah, my next one is going to be come with another caveat. Um, I do nothing without prefacing it. Um journalistic integrity here. So Paul Solomon is a fan of the show, or uh not a fan of the show. I don't think he's a fan of the show, but he's a friend of the show, and we're a fan of Paul Solomon. That's right. And he came on our show before Gamehead had released any games at all. They were just making playmats, by my understanding, and then they wanted to get into the board gaming space. So Paul Solomon came on as creative director for that, and they released their first wave of games in 2025. Trinket Trove being the flagship, one of those. Um, and it has been doing really well. Uh, they came out with six games. It was like Trinket Trove, Venture Angels, Foolish Fool, first class letters, no loose ends, and corgi pile up, corgi pile up, yes. All like little light family games. They have like a thinky line that's still approachable, and then they have like a casual line, and then they have a party line. So they're all like these nice little six by six boxes, and I just thought they made an awesome entrance into the scene this year, especially Trinket Trove. Kudos to that. These are games that I've played many times. I bought them on my own. I have no uh financial holdings to game head. I but I got all six and I've enjoyed them all to various degrees. Probably no loose ends or trinket trove are my favorites. Um, but the other ones are still good too. And I got a preview of what's coming up in the next wave of games. They got some Kenitias coming out. There's gonna be some cool stuff for Wave 2 in Game Head. I think under Paul Solomon's creative direction, this company is gonna be in good hands. He knows what he's doing, he knows what makes a tight, little, good game. And yeah, they're right up my alley. So I'm gonna be game game head fanboying um till I hit my grave, probably.

SPEAKER_00: 17:36

So yeah, what a way to enter the scene. And he gave us like a small sneak sneak peek of some of the games that they were like fielding and tinkering with uh when he came on the podcast. So if you want to hear some more of that, go back to that episode. It was a it was a while ago. I think he was our first ever guest.

SPEAKER_01: 17:52

I think right after Amanda, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Yeah, so uh yeah, he's super smart guy. He's a great friend, great friend of the show. Um, and we loved having him on. Super excited. I will instantly pre-order that stuff when it comes online. So yeah, way to go, game head. My next one is gonna be Restoration Games. And restoration games, uh, they have their own line, they have some like older lines that they make new. Um, they're republishing Return to Dark Tower, which was a big hit when it came out a couple years ago. Um, they had their big box of Thunder Road vendetta. They published a couple of expansions for that this year, which is a great, awesome game. And uh the expansions add some really cool twists to it. They do the unmatched series, which I really enjoy, and that's a game that is easy to play, easy to get to the table, and I always love those unmatched. Yo, they came out with unmatched teenage mutant ninja turtles, and it is part of their um cooperative line of unmatched. You can take these characters and mix them in, mix them in with the competitive uh boxes, but man, I love Ninja Turtles, and this is like probably one of the best unmatched games that they've put out to date. I think it's awesome the way that it plays. The the enemies play different, the the turtles all play different. I'm a big turtle fanboy, TMNT all the way. So uh yeah, Restoration Games, they are just like kind of sneaking by. Like, I don't think that they're like the most widely published publisher out there or the widely advertised. Um, but man, they are like putting out sneaky bangers. So Restoration Games is uh had themselves a year.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

No, I just played uh Ali versus uh Yeah Lee. And that was that was my first time playing unmatched in like four years, probably.

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

Nice. Yeah, that one came out this year.

SPEAKER_01: 19:47

Yeah, I forgot what what a great system unmatched is.

SPEAKER_00: 19:50

Uh yeah, it's so simple, and anybody can learn it, anybody can sit down and play it. They have these Stars and Stripes coming out uh in 2026. That was just announced. recently and that's got like Rosie the Riveter and a couple of other like historic patriotic figures that I'm really excited for.

SPEAKER_01: 20:09

Nice man. Well my last one is going to be all play. I don't know why. I don't know that I mean they just have such a consistent output in both box size and in you know just approachable fun games. I think River Valley Glassworks is probably my favorite game from them. Yeah um that game's so quick and fun you can play with anybody it's just it kind of replaced Azul for me. But the specifically their little square box line I don't know what the size of that is might be a four by four but I will just pretty much buy those unhinged I I don't know what's in them but I have so many of them now and they look so nice on the shelf. Publishers take note like just having that consistent shelf presence like I and especially at a price point where they're like a$20 little box and I know it's going to be at least decent you know and they they are and they do a lot of trick takers um of different varieties so uh I've enjoyed playing some of those um Mori and Lunar Ghosts of Christmas like they just find these interesting little card games and put them in those four by four boxes uh it's a great company if you just want a like a consistent family weight game I don't know if they have too many like crazy complicated games which is probably why I like them um I think they did Through the Desert which is a Kenizia game that was probably last year but this year probably their biggest hit for this podcast was Ruins by John D Clare. We loved that again just another little card game in a four by four box nice production um yeah all play and then they got their teeny weenie box line now yeah where they're just like$10 little card games and again I don't at$10 with a nice cover on it and from a company I trust it's just like an instant buy I'm like soda jerk don't know anything about it. I like the art and it's ten dollars and it's gonna look nice next to all my other all play stuff. So yeah all plays a publisher that is just a a hit for me.

SPEAKER_00: 22:42

They're so consistent like every year they have probably 20 games that come out every year and they're all great and they all are worth at least trying for 20 bucks you can't afford not to so yeah yeah way that support the little guy like all play I mean that all of these companies are relatively little compared to you know a Hasbro yeah for sure um well we had very similar lists I had gamehead I had by Stonemer and I had all play on my list.

SPEAKER_01: 23:11

Wow I was gonna say man I was like I was like holy cow we didn't cross over at all that's wild.

SPEAKER_00: 23:17

Uh the last one I'm gonna shout out is 25th century games because they have been like digging up old games and giving them new life kind of similar to Bitewing yeah um but they are like importing games that don't get wide publications uh here in America and they publish them here via Kickstarter and they import just enough and it's I I love that they are like making those older games that are inaccessible accessible here in the States and accessible to those that may have tried them or found them online or something and making them like a reasonable a reasonable price point and you know available to the public. So I honestly can't shout out any of their games off the top of my head that came out this year but they are constantly um you know putting out awesome stuff and I I that's a publisher that like kind of snuck up on on me a little bit this 25th century. And man they they all all their games are like highly produced and all you gotta do is invoke raw invoke raw everybody knows what you're talking about now.

SPEAKER_01: 24:19

Yeah no they did raw they did it right yep and that I I think they re-released that one this year too was like the Faro edition gold edition or whatever that might have been 2024 but but I think they did it again this year because they sold out so quickly so yeah stuff like that like they're just giving it new life and and you have to give it up for publishers that are you know making those old board games new again yeah because board games used to look like crap and now they look pretty good yeah yeah for the most part they look pretty good pieces of art yeah I love awesome did we do it we did it we did it all right that has been our publishers that had a killer year I have been Travis oh oh Clayton one more and this might honestly should have been the first one top of mind CMYK games yeah that was on my list too dang they crushed it magical athlete hot streak winners I know the magenta line has been kind of a sore subject for some people I like that I I just re-upped my no thanks I had the old nasty looking no thanks version yeah I just got the magenta no thanks leveled up all right I want to get all their magenta boxes and sit them next to each other on the shelf it looks awesome I mean Wilmot's warehouse is so unique I mean they just there it is yeah they put out games that are fun for the family are a riot I mean just right in the weight class that I'm loving games right now and their production is top notch they just their rule books are interesting like they go about it in a way they're like not subjecting themselves to the rules like they're not just following in line with what everybody else does.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

Yeah and I love that CMYK I can't believe I almost forgot that was literally the top of my list and when I wrote down my publishers that was the first one that came to mind. So well done I think we did a pretty comprehensive look at all the publishers that did pretty good stuff this year. So yeah let's sign off I have been Travis he has been Clay this has been Operation Game Night and we're out of the