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UKGE 2025 Day 2- Robots, Penguins & Pergolas!
- Emma Hunt
- Jun 9, 2025
- 4 min read
Day 2 at UK Games Expo kicked off with a classic mooch around the halls. Me and Lu (@short.stuff.boardgames) couldn’t resist a quick photo op with the cosplayers over at the Iconiq Studios stand — they were dressed as Tomb Raider and looked incredible!
Once we’d finished having some photos, we made our way to the Wise Wizard Games stand for a chat with Rob. Their demo area was buzzing, packed with some seriously fun games. I was obsessed with the little bots in Robot Quest Arena — they looked so adorable!
I also really liked the look of Caution Signs, which has that party-game energy I love (bonus points because it involves drawing).
And Push Push Penguin? What a brilliant twist — the winner is actually the second person to cross the finish line! Proof that the old rhyme “first the worst, second the best” finally has a game to back it up.
Rob very kindly gifted me both Caution Signs and Push Push Penguin to review — I can’t wait to try them out, especially Push Push Penguin with my pupils at school!
From there, we headed off for another wander and landed at the Molinarius Games stand where we squeezed in a demo of Shoal. It’s a strategic card game where you’re building your perfect shoal of fish to earn the highest score. I loved it — really clever gameplay, gorgeous art, and it shot straight to the top of my wishlist!
Before heading over to the Ravenburger stand, we checked in on Lorna to see how she was getting on in the Playtest zone. Lorna has created a game called Sparkle which she is still playtesting but hopefully it is something she will release in the near future!
Next up was Gloomies at the Ravensburger stand. I missed this at Airecon, so I was buzzing to finally get a demo. Gloomies are cute little creatures from space who wear galactic flowers, and the game is split into two phases — growing flowers in the first, harvesting for points in the second. It had just the right mix of chill and challenge. Me and Lu loved it so much we bought it on the spot. We also had a lovely chat with Charlotte from the Ravensburger team, who gifted me Oh My Pigeons and That’s Not a Hat: Incognito to review — looking forward to trying them out with my board game group!
After a quick food refuel at the Hilton (essential), we stopped by the Pergola stand to chat with the team at Asmodee about what games they were showcasing — another stunning stand, by the way!
Then it was time to say goodbye to Lu and Carl as they headed over to the Tettix stand to demo Personal Demons (check it out here). It looks like such a fun game and the card art is next level. I made my way over to Hall 4 to meet the creators of Kryptothera: The Cryptid Pursuit. As soon as I saw the word cryptid, I was in. In this one, you play as a hunter, capturing cryptids across the U.S., with a nice balance of luck (dice rolls) and strategy. It was a real highlight of the day — the cryptid art is brilliant, and my board game group all gave it a thumbs-up. You can check it out on their Kickstarter here.
After that, I bumped into Fi (@stackemhighgames) and we jumped into a demo of Ofrenda from Osprey Games. It’s themed around Día de los Muertos and is all about attracting and flipping spirit cards on your personal altar board. If you’ve played Canvas, it has a similar card selection mechanic — the first card is free, but you’ll need to spend marigolds if you want a card further down the row. It’s super strategic, especially when placing spirits who have preferences like “don’t sit next to green spirits.” I was running on empty by this point in the day, so I’d love to try it again fresh, but the components and theme were absolutely stunning.
As the halls started to close, I headed back to Hall 4 for a little meet-up with some of the lovely folks from the UK Board Game Review Circle. Always great to connect with fellow board game Instagrammers, swap badges, and snap a few selfies.
My evening finished in the best way possible — with some chill open gaming back at the Hilton. I joined up with my local board game group, and without realising it, we accidentally had a home improvement themed game night! First up was Pergola by Rebel Studios — a game about placing flowers and bugs in your garden to score big. The Asmodee stand had a literal pergola setup, and the full demo gave us a great feel for the game. I’ll be sharing a full review of this soon on Instagram, so keep an eye out!
Then we played Happy Home, a super fun tile placement game where you furnish different rooms of your house. I loved how easy it was to learn — plus, I’m a total sucker for tile placement games, so this one was an instant win for me.
And with that, it was back to the Forest of Arden for a well-earned sleep before the final day of UKGE!
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