Saturday at UKGE2025

Zara
May 31
2 min read

Updated: Jun 3

Saturday at UKGE was a whirlwind. The halls were packed and we got to try some incredible boardgames. After a busy day of demoing, these three games stood out for Zara.

Aethermon Collect (by Aethermon Studios @ NEC Hall 2 Row 402)

I was blown away by Aethermon Collect's art, a huge shout out to the illustrator Sarah who has done an incredible job bringing the world of Aethermon to life. You collect a variety of Aethermon and build sets to score points. You can play in a competitive fashion that was a bit chess-like or opt into a co-op style. We spoke to a few people who had demoed it, and they all enjoyed it. If you're at the UKGE, be sure to give Aethermon Collect a demo. It's incredibly fun and was Amy's favourite game at the expo.*

Gatsby (by Catch Up Games | Demo @ Hachette Boardgames UK Stand Hall 2 Rows 316/416)

Gatsby is a two player game. The gameplay involves trying to spread influence over three different locations: the cabaret, the finance hub, and the racetrack, providing different routes to collect character tiles. On your turn, you’ll move the action marker to one of four spaces, which must be one that your opponent didn’t choose, and activate it. You win if you control three characters of the same color, or one of each of the five different colors. The game was easy to learn, we would have loved to have a second game.

Entombed (by Games By John Sherman @ NEC Hall 3A-119)

Entombed stood out for me as a great family friendly game. You are explorers trapped in the centre of a pyramid and need to survive long enough for the exits to open and escape before your fellow players. The pressure builds rapidly, with moving wall pieces and potential sabotage... every turn feels significant. If you like Quoridor, I think you’d enjoy Entombed!