Dice Tower East 2026 Recap: Day 0 (Cities USA, DNUP, and more!)

I’m riding up I-75 listening to Radney Foster on Playola while trying to digest the past 2.5 days of gaming bliss at Dice Tower East 2026 (“DTE”) . This was my first trip back to DTE since 2022 and there were some significant changes that I will try to highlight, although the event is still held at the Caribe Royale just ten minutes from Disney Springs so at least the lodgings felt very familiar. 

In past years, I’ve either spent the whole week demoing for companies in the vendor hall, or bringing the family along to enjoy the con. This time, we split our time between the convention and a three day trip to WDW. Since we were staying at the Coronado Springs, getting back and forth was a quick Lyft ride. 

But enough blather about LBV traffic, let’s talk about the games. 

I arrived late on day zero (Tuesday). Just as in years past, there was plenty of gaming to be had even before the con officially started. (Vets know that DTE really starts on Sunday). The Caribe has a great little little open gaming area set up right at the back exit, and I walked in to see a ton of tables filled with games, and immediately spotted a few friends from conventions past. I was able to say hey to my old Stronghold demo buddies, Meg and Jacob, and chat with Dr Steve Finn, and connect with Chuck Case (a member of a huge Florida group that attends DTE every year.) More about them later.

Mitchell was stuck in the air with bad weather, but Doug was already set up. So, we grabbed Cities USA from Chuck’s wagon (editor’s note: really??) while waiting for the open gaming to start at the convention. (That’s change #1 I noticed — the DTE had a specific room available for Day Zero diehards to game starting at 7p). 

Cities USA is a stand alone follow up to Cities, the excellent puzzle game from Steve Finn and Phil Walker-Harding published by Devir. The original game plays quickly but can be really challenging to maximize the points on your 3×3 square of city tiles, especially matching up to the city goals of each game and the objective cards you grab each round. It’s long been a favorite tapas game in the Gumbo. 

Cities USA bumps it up more than a few notches, especially if you scan the rules quickly and accidentally jump right to the advanced two player variant, where instead of a 3×3 grid, we played a 3×5 grid. The additional six tiles makes a huge difference in terms of complexity and scoring, but luckily, Steve walked by and saw us playing! He laughed at our ‘mistake’ and then helped us with the scoring. Doug took the win with a 100+ score. 

Later, I played it again with Mitchell — the correct way — and we both really dug the additional puzzle of creating neighborhoods with your streets and borders, and the “steeple” scoring, where buildings are worth more the higher you get (and go all the way to five stories if you take the right actions.) Of course, in both games, we played the “New Orleans” city card, where we had to “build” the French Quarter (very thematic — you need four different types of buildings in one neighborhood) and the MIssissippi River (we laughed at this one, because Old Man River isn’t known for yacht traffic — we kidded with Steve that he should have added tugs and container ships). 

Chuck wanted to play Fantastic Factories, and Doug had always wanted to check it out. I didn’t enjoy my first two plays (although it does bring back good memories of Pax South 2017), but I’m always up to play a game again to see if my tastes have changed. 

Unfortunately, they have not. For a short game with cute, friendly artwork, and a premise that sounds simple — draft a card, build a building, and run your engine — there’s just too much information overload for my brain. Of course, Chuck and Doug pointed out that the way I play the game exacerbates the problem, since my engine revolved around having a full hand of 10 cards each round, which means I was constantly processing almost a dozen or more cards each turn. Sorry, FF fans, this one is just not for me, but at least Doug and I kept it competitive, losing to Chuck by only a point or two. 

Steve Finn had a couple of new games to show us. We played a very cool bidding game out of his brand-new Dr. Finn’s Book of 2-Player Strategy and Word Games, which has a whole bunch of strategy games that have fairly easy rule sets and play very quickly. I’ve played games out of all three of his books, and I have yet to play a clunker, and this bidding game was no exception. The game books are inexpensive, very portable, and are bound to have a game or three that matches with your group. I can easily recommend you check those books out.

The last game he showed us is his new prototype in the Cosmic Run universe. This one is called Cosmic Revolutions, and is aptly named. Players are taking actions on a circle of planets that each have little mini games to score. None of the mini-games are brain-breaking, but in typical Finn style, each of your decisions on each planet is very significant. In fact, the action decision mechanic was the highlight — each player has a card in hand and they have to decide whether to play that action or the action at the planet they are located, which causes them to switch cards for the next turn. It’s very clever. I really enjoyed my play of Cosmic Revolutions, and here’s hoping it finds a publisher soon. 

Mitchell arrived safe and sound despite the weather, and there was just enough time to play a short game while he checked in. We played DNUP, a little card game I’ve been seeing all over the socials that was designed by Kei Kajino, who also designed Scout. It’s in one of my favorite genres, the card shedder, an intuitive mechanic for anyone who has played Uno, where players are fighting to get rid of their big hand to collect the letters DNUP before anyone else. (Ed. note: reader Stephen caught that I explained how this works incorrectly — I’ll just add the text from the publisher to be clear: When you play cards, you can play one or more cards of the same value — but if you play as many cards as another player has in front of them, your cards must be of higher value. ) I should note that playing cards that are higher value than the player before you sends those cards back to their hand, and you can even play cards on another player’s tableau, meaning when those cards get returned, they go to their hand instead of back to you (although it increases the chance that no one will be able to top their play). 

The other wrinkle present in DNUP is the way the ladder works — when cards are returned, players have to “flip them over”, with a different value on the card being revealed. Since both values are represented on the card, I guess players can get good enough to make plans specially looking at the flipped numbers, but I certainly was not good enough during my first play. Fun, but I think I’d just rather play Scout. 

Next up, we played Dumb Ways to Die, a very quick playing take that card game about survival. The description really tells you everything you need to know. It’s chaotic and back-stabby, but refreshingly plays quickly. I was the second to last player in a big group, and predictably, I was killed before I took my first turn, which I will grudgingly admit created a funny moment late at night. It’s not a game made for me; fans of games like Exploding Kittens, though, might want to check it out. Chuck was on a roll, winning all of these games all the way back to Cosmic Revolutions. 

And finally, the end of Day Zero came with another play of Haunted Mouse with just three players: me, Mitchell and Doug. Haunted Mouse is another ladder climbing, card shedder, but with a cute little mice-in-a-haunted-house theme that appeals to me. 

I think I prefer Haunted Mouse at higher player counts, because there are more opportunities to lay and play cards in front of you to entice other players to add to their sets. Doug beat me and Mitchell pretty handily, making use of the wild cards that we threw into the play from the expansion [(thing=472321][/thing]) to make some timely traps. Great way to end the first night. 

I’ll be back soon with a recap of the official Day One, including two bangers right off the back — Entropy and Tea Garden. Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler! 

— BJ from Board Game Gumbo
** Complimentary copies of some of the games were provided by the publishers. **