The Best Games from Zoch Verlag 🇩🇪🏢 2026

Sushi Go Party! is an expanded version of the popular card game Sushi Go!, offering more variety and accommodating more players for a larger, more dynamic game experience.

Sushi Go! is a dynamic, fast-paced card game set in a sushi restaurant. Players aim to grab the best sushi combinations as they come around. It's all about strategy, from picking the perfect sushi rolls to collecting sashimi sets. Boost your scores with wasabi-flavored nigiri, and don't forget to load up on pudding by the end!

Menara is a cooperative, physical skill-based game where players work together to construct a temple using pillars and uniquely shaped floors. The game challenges players not just with its physical demands but also through its requirement for teamwork and strategic planning. As players build the structure, they must carefully balance the need for precision with the architectural requirements to prevent the temple from becoming unstable. Mistakes have consequences, requiring the addition of new floors and making the challenge even more daunting.

Imagine a hamster's training wheel divided into multiple segments, separated by low fences. Players each receive seven wooden pieces to place into the wheel, one per person per turn, without any pieces falling out. Discarded pieces result in penalties, and the first player to rid themselves of all their pieces wins.

Gulo Gulo is an innovative and family-friendly board game that challenges players with a unique and tactile experience. In this game, players take on the roles of wolverines (Gulos) on a daring mission to rescue a baby Gulo from the clutches of a swamp vulture. However, the rescue mission is not straightforward, as the adult Gulos are tempted by the delicious eggs of the swamp vulture, leading to a series of precarious attempts to steal the eggs without triggering an alarm.

Ghost Blitz is a fast-paced and exciting game that tests your reflexes and ability to recognize shapes and colors. The game revolves around Balduin, the house ghost, who has accidentally created a set of puzzling photographs with his enchanted camera, leading to a spirited game of quick thinking and fast grabbing.

Players engage in a dexterity game where they load wooden "cargo" onto a swaying wooden ship. Items like bottles, sailors, and rats are placed on the ship's body and on three throwing arms extending from the mast.

Pickomino is a lively, dice-based game by renowned designer Reiner Knizia, suitable for players aged 8 and up. It involves a mix of luck and strategy, centered around chickens trying to acquire fried worms.

Bausack is a unique and engaging game that combines elements of strategy, dexterity, and auctioning. Players challenge each other to build precarious structures using a variety of uniquely shaped wooden blocks. The game tests your architectural skills and your ability to make strategic decisions under pressure. Players must balance the risk and reward of accepting or refusing blocks, using 'beans' as currency in auctions to influence decisions. The game ends when a player's structure collapses, leaving the last player standing as the winner.

Players can play with 2 (singles) or 4 (doubles). The rules are similar to soccer. Each player has 3 stones representing their players and a smaller stone representing the ball. Stones are flicked with a stick or fingers on the surface. Teams take turns trying to score by hitting the ball with their players. The player with the most goals wins.

This version of Boccia, also known as lawn bowling, provides players with soft, flexible balls that are safe for indoor use. Players can enjoy the game on stairs, near bookshelves, or wherever they choose to throw the target ball. Accurate throws in Crossboule can earn bonus points, and the first player to win two sets with 13 points wins the game.

Marrakech is a strategic board game where players take on the roles of competing rug salespeople in the vibrant and bustling market of Marrakech. The aim is to outsmart your competitors through careful placement of carpets and savvy financial decisions.

Players engage in a dexterity and memory game featuring a three-dimensional wooden tree that offers squirrels numerous nuts to bury and retrieve. During the autumn phase, players take turns dropping nuts into holes in the ground to earn leaf rewards. As winter arrives, they must remember the best locations to dig for the nuts, with the player collecting the most leaves and nuts ultimately winning the game.

Players take on the role of competing to grab objects from the table in this fast-paced game. Five wooden items, including a ghost, frog, bathtub, hairbrush, and towel, wait to be claimed based on the cards revealed. The game introduces new rules, including calling out objects in a foreign language and specific reactions when certain items appear. The player who collects the most cards by correctly identifying the right objects wins the game.

Chicken Cha Cha Cha is a delightful and engaging memory game that combines the whimsy of chickens learning to dance with the challenge of strategic movement and memory. Players become chickens vying to out-memorize and outmaneuver their opponents around a circuitous path, aiming to collect the tail feathers of their rivals by accurately recalling the images hidden on octagonal tiles.

Beasty Bar takes the party to the animal kingdom with a twist on the classic card game format. Picture this: animals decked out in their finest, queuing up to get into the exclusive Beasty Bar nightclub. But not all will make it past the bouncer. In this competitive and cheeky game, players use their animal cards, each boasting unique abilities to shuffle the queue's order. Your goal? Outwit your opponents to get your animals through the door, with a mix of strategy and luck determining who gets to dance the night away and who's left out in the cold.

Pick Picknic is a delightful board game that combines strategy and chance with a charming farmyard theme. Designed by Stefan Dorra, this game invites players to help their flock of hungry chickens, geese, and ducks feed on as much corn as possible while avoiding the cunning foxes looking for a feathered feast. A remake of Dorra's earlier game Razzia, Pick Picknic integrates fun poultry antics with tactical gameplay suitable for both children and adults.

The fast-paced game adds new shapes and challenges. Five wooden objects sit on the table, with players competing to grab the correct one based on the current card showing three items. The game escalates as players must navigate various rules involving color, shape, and special scenarios like identifying times or naming objects, all while aiming to collect the most cards by the end.

Villa Paletti is an engaging and whimsical game designed for 2 to 4 players, aged 8 and up, that challenges budding architects to construct a towering structure. Set in a land of blooming lemons, players follow in the footsteps of the sage "Paletti" who sought to complete his grandfather's unfinished castle in the sky. The twist in Paletti's plan is to reuse old columns from the lower levels of the castle to build higher floors, creating a daring and precarious architectural marvel – the Villa Paletti.

Players roll dice to collect "Sushi" and "Fishbone" stones from the center of the board, with the type of stone depending on their roll. They can steal stones from others by rolling three or more colored "Chopsticks," allowing them to take a tile from an opponent's stack. At the game's end, players score points based on their collected stones, but having more blue stones than red results in losing excess blue stones.

Potato Man is a trick-taking game centered around the theme of potatoes, where the smallest cards can score the highest points. Players play one card into the middle to form a trick, but each of the four colors can only be played once per round, except in a five-player game where one color may appear twice. Winning a trick allows players to collect scoring cards of the corresponding color, and strategic decisions are key as players balance holding high cards with the risk of being unable to play in later rounds. The game continues for as many rounds as there are players, and the player with the most points at the end wins.

Players control their own ghost in a rotating, magnetic castle as they search for the best costumes. On their turn, they can take up to three magical moves, allowing them to shift their ghost between rooms, move sliders beneath the floor, or even rotate the entire board. The goal is to collect four different costume pieces to win.

In the center of the table, sixteen game pieces represent various objects, each assigned a number from 1 to 16. In each round, one player acts as the "artist," secretly drawing a number that determines which object they must build using sticks and disks, while the other players try to guess what it is. The game includes fun elements, such as a sand timer and restrictions on communication and materials, making it a thrilling guessing race.

Naturalist Florian Flügel photographs everything that flies, from bumblebees to hot air balloons, but often overlooks what lies on the ground. Players move his magnetic figure across the board, trying to avoid hidden magnetic piles of dung. The goal is to collect the most photo cards while navigating the board, which hides unpleasant surprises under its game pieces. Using a wooden stool, players can quickly rescue Florian from missteps. Success hinges on good memory and maintaining balance, despite the mischievous antics of other players.

In the dice game, players aim to be the first to push their worm's head out of the compost heap at the end of the garden. Each player selects a color and places their respective worm head on the board. Players roll the dice and advance their worm segments, placing flowers or strawberries above the worm they think will reach them first. The first worm to extend its head outside the edge of the smaller board wins.

Boochie is similar to bocce but designed for indoor play. First, throw the target, a foam dodecahedron. Players then try to throw their ball and ring as close as possible, while facing various challenges. The closest players score 1 or 2 points, and the first to reach 11 points wins.

A hide-and-seek game for 2 to 6 players. One player acts as the wolf and gives the other players 5 seconds to hide their goats in one of seven pieces of furniture. The wolf can then look at 2 pieces of furniture and collect any goats found there, while the undiscovered goats earn points.