Play-To-Wins Recap from SoBo
I miss Southern Board Game Festival already, and it’s only been two weeks. I’ll have to be content with wrapping up a few more blog posts about the event to tide me over until SoBo 2027.
(Shout out to my friend Patrick Newman who wrote up a short history of SoBo and the experiences he has had there with his wife, Cindy: Board Games, Biscuits, and Gravy by Patrick Newman.
Since it’s a board game festival, a sincere question is what games were played. I like to separate them into two lists: play-to-wins and our regular library check outs. Unfortunately, we have no way of keeping track of all the games that were played by people bringing games, but trust me, there was a lot of that going on at SoBo. Just ask Jeremy Dobler.
Let’s cover the play-to-wins first. As a reminder, through the generosity of publishers from all over the world, either in direct connection with me or Logan (who manned the Hot Games tables with Lanie and helped me with publisher communications) or through the Envoy program, we were able to put 66 games on the table throughout the weekend. We separated them by Saturday (with a sneak peek play-time on Friday night) and Sunday, and gave them all away by the end of the weekend. All players had to do was scan their badges for a chance to win.
On Saturday, here were the twelve most popular play-to-wins at SoBo, in order:
Fliptoons (16 checkouts, 31 different players) from Thunderworks Games
Propolis(15 checkouts, also 31 players) from Flatout Games
The Four Doors (13 checkouts) from Buffalo Games
Calico (12 checkouts) from Flatout Games
Flip 7 (12 checkouts) from The OP Games
Kites (11 checkouts) from Floodgate Games
Knitting Circle (10 checkouts) from Flatout Games
Origin Story (10 checkouts) from Stonemaier Games
The Yellow House (9 checkouts) from 25th Century Games
Bullet Star (9 checkouts) from Level 99 Games
Australis (9 checkouts) from KOSMOS
Gift of Tulips (8 checkouts) from Weird Giraffe Games
Some surprises? Maybe, but most were expected to me. Some of these are just great convention games, games like Kites (which has the sand timers that fascinate people that walk by) or Bullet (with the puzzly nature of the chunky pieces). Some of them had great artwork on the boxes like Australis and Knitting Circle and instantly attracted passer bystanders to check them out. And some of them had good buzz like Calico and Fliptoons and Flip 7 that people have seen on social media.
As usual, the smaller, quick-to-play games like Fliptoons and Flip 7 and The Four Doors were checked out a lot. But we had some big games just miss the rankings on Saturday, games like Spooktacular andAbove & Below Hauntedwere just outside the top twelve.
Even Euphoria had 15 different players play the game on Saturday, and that’s a game that can take 90-120 minutes with teach at a convention. Also, there was some games that had a lot of plays just by positive word of mouth. Games like Gingham from Bitewing Games just missed the list, and I saw players talk up the game to other players after finishing their own plays.
On Sunday, Mitchell (the director, who handled the PTW splits) freshened up our offerings with 33 different games from the previous two days. Of course, the list of top games checked out is radically different, too. Note that the checkouts and play count numbers were a little lower on Sunday, but for good reason. Convention goers only had about nine hours of open play before the deadline for the Sunday drawing kicked in.
Here are the top twelve play-to-wins checked out on Sunday, with some lagniappe that I had to include:
Panda Royale (11 checkouts, 26 players) from Last Night Games
Formaggio (10 checkouts, 39 players!) from R2I Games
Point Salad (9 checkouts) from Flatout Games
Overboss (8 checkouts) from Brotherwise Games
Jungo (9 checkouts) from Buffalo Games
Isle of Night (8 checkouts) from Red Raven Games
Squirrel Away (8 checkouts) from Floodgate Games
Block and Key (6 checkouts) from Inside Up Games
Nature (6 checkouts) from NorthStar Studios
Point Galaxy (6 checkouts) from Flatout Games
Pride of Ninja (6 checkouts) from Ninja Star Games
Rolling Realms Redux (6 checkouts) from Stonemaier Games
Geaux Parade (5 checkouts, 16 players) from our friends at Gentilly Games
The Flatout Games team had tons of games on both lists, which is no surprise. Flatout are big supporters of Southern Board Game Fest, and their games are very popular in crowdfunding in this area. I was also pleased that a bunch of sixty to ninety minute games were checked out and played, games like Formaggio and Nature. Plus, gamers checked out small games from smaller and/or newer companies like Pride of Ninja and Geaux Parade.
There were a couple of notable games that just missed the list, but were played by a lot of players. For instance, Dead by Daylight from Level 99 was played by twelve different players (!) even though it was only checked out a few times. It has a high play count but takes a little bit longer to set up, teach and play, so the checkout numbers were lower but it was still on the table all the time.
The same went for small games like Studies in Sorcerey from Weird Giraffe and Alpujarras from Dr. Finn’s Games. Both were played by more than a dozen players during the con, which doesn’t surprise me because they have interesting themes that stand out from the crowd.
Thanks again to all of the publishers who helped us provide play-to-wins to our festival badge holders. I’ll compile the list of library check outs, too, to give a snapshot of what was played at SoBo 2026.
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo