The best games by John D. Clair 🇺🇸👨 2026

Players and their friends head to the races to cheer and bet on their favorite horses, with outcomes determined by dice rolls. The game is played over four rounds, each consisting of a race followed by a betting resolution. Players can place their betting tokens freely on the board during the race and earn money based on their bets, with a chance to gain a VIP club card for greater winnings in subsequent races. The player with the most money after four rounds wins.

Space Base is a dynamic and fast-paced dice game that blends strategy and luck, where players take on the roles of Commodores commanding a fleet of ships.

Cubitos presents a thrilling and colorful dice-racing game where players engage in the annual Cube Cup race, balancing strategy and luck to emerge as the champion.

Mystic Vale is a unique and innovative card game that blends deck-building mechanics with a distinct "Card Crafting System." It's set in a mystical world where players take on the roles of druidic clans aiming to restore a cursed land. The game is known for its engaging gameplay and the novel way it allows players to customize their cards.

Custom Heroes is a climbing trick-taking game where players customize their cards by inserting plastic cards into sleeves to alter the ones already inside them. Players aim to win rounds by discarding their cards as quickly as possible using classic climbing mechanics. Strategic management of resources is key, as cards are reshuffled and re-dealt each round, affecting how progress and points are distributed.

Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game takes you into the dark fantasy world of Scadrial without spoiling the novels. Players become Mistborn characters who use metal-fueled powers, improve their decks, and compete through tactical battles, influence, and dangerous missions. It is especially appealing for families with older children, teenagers, and adults who enjoy card games with a strong story-driven atmosphere.

Players roll worker meeples to build a city set in the 1920s. Standing meeples provide valuable actions and materials, while hidden ones are useless. Players can take risks for better rolls, but they might lose essential resources needed for constructing new buildings. Completing buildings earns prestige and additional workers, enabling the construction of even larger structures, like skyscrapers.

Ecos: First Continent offers players the unique power to shape a new Earth. As forces of nature, you'll compete to form landscapes, habitats, and species according to your vision. The game's beauty lies in its simultaneous play, where each round unfolds with the revelation of element tokens. These tokens enable players to activate cards in their tableau, directly influencing the creation and modification of diverse environments like mountains, jungles, rivers, and savannas, each teeming with life.

Lead a great civilization at the height of its influence, but can you prevent its collapse? In a game for 2-4 players, participants work to avert disaster by using an intuitive reverse bidding mechanism combined with machine building, long-term planning, and strategic depth. As players face common threats like famine and floods, they develop wisdom and resilience, gaining new abilities and innovations that reflect their civilization's adaptability. The game progresses through various phases, with players moving along a progress track that influences their experiences and victory paths.