by W. Eric Martin

I'm finally feeling back to normal following Gen Con 2025, so after spending most of last week offline, I can continue coverage of that event:

▪️ In mid-2025, French publisher Bombyx released Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper, the second booster expansion for Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière's card game Sea Salt & Paper.

To play, shuffle the twelve event cards, then reveal one at the start of each round. Maybe a player now has to have 10 points to end the round instead of only 7, or playing a pair of crabs gets you bonus cards from the discard pile, or discarding certain types of cards nets you a free draw.

Eight of twelve event cards
At round's end, whichever player has the most or fewest points — depending on the + or - symbol on the event card — takes this event, which now applies only to them in future rounds. Thus, if you finish the round with the most points, you suffer a penalty in future rounds until either you don't score the most points in a round or you receive a second card, in which case you choose which to keep.

Licensee Pandasaurus Games expects to release Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper in November 2025.

▪️ Bombyx's other tiny card game, Johannes Goupy's Pixies, has a booster expansion of its own: Flower Power.

This booster serves two purposes. First, the game can now accommodate up to six players thanks to the additional card. Second, new tags and scoring conditions complicate your decision each round as to which card to pick. Many cards are now dual-colored to make it easier for you to build a large color block in your 3x3 display. Some cards cost you points for collecting cards of a certain color or earn points based on face-down cards that are normally worthless. (For an overview of Pixies, check out my 2024 review.)


As with Extra Pepper, Flower Power debuted in Europe in mid-2025 and Pandasaurus Games anticipates a November 2025 retail release in the U.S.

▪️ As for other Pandasaurus releases, at Gen Con 2025 it debuted Tricky Kids by Danielle Reynolds and Steven Ungaro, a trick-taking game in which you choose which values go on your cards — read the designer diary for more details — and Gatsby, a two-player game by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc that originating publisher Catch Up Games released in mid-2025. (I've played Gatsby twice on a review copy from Catch Up games and dig the tug-of-war style of gameplay as you compete for control of characters.)

Tricky Kids and Gatsby will ideally reach retail outlets in October 2025.

▪️ Pandasaurus Games also demoed its upcoming version of Hacienda, with this being the third edition of a 2005 Wolfgang Kramer design, with Daryl Andrews joining on as co-designer.

The gist of the original Hacienda was that you had to manage money carefully as you purchased cards that allowed you to claim parts of the South American pampas, whether just for ownership or to place your animals (pigs, cows, horses and sheep) before you brought them to market to collect more money to allow future growth.


The new Hacienda feels like a very 2020s release in that you're now trying to restore an ecosystem instead of bringing animals to market, and the main characters on the box are anthropomorphic birds. This edition features fancy wooden components and a modular game board that scales to the player count. Interestingly, money has been removed from the game, with all of the actions now being card based.

Also of note, the playing time listed on the BGG page is 20-30 minutes, which is a surprise given that the earlier editions played in 60-90 minutes. (I'm double-checking this figure with Pandasaurus.)


Pandasaurus plans to release Hacienda in Q1 2026 — and although it should go without saying, all release dates are subject to change given that tariffs on games imported to the U.S. could spike for arbitrary reasons.

▪️ The oddest game booth I ran across at Gen Con 2025 was the one that Ultra PRO had facing the main entrance doors.


So much space, and so little product! In 2024, Ultra PRO released two new games — Ship Show and Hey Hey Relay — but those titles along with past releases were relegated to shelves along the lone wall with nothing being demoed.

I asked someone at the booth about this set-up, which might seem nosy but those booths aren't cheap, so...why? They pointed out that Ultra PRO actually has two booths, with all of its game supplies being featured in a fully-stocked — and constantly busy — booth in the 2400 row. As for this space, business talks take place in the back room, so effectively this "empty" booth will earn the company more money than the packed one.

Ultra PRO did use the space for the finals of its "competitive sleeving" competition on Sunday, so it didn't go entirely unused.

▪️ Each year at Gen Con, I tell myself that I should really watch the costume parade on Saturday afternoon, then each year I recall this declaration on Saturday night with an "Oops" of late remembrance.

In 2025, though, I was on the street outside the convention center heading to a meeting and chanced upon the parade on the walkway. Fun stuff! Here's the only pic I took, with the costumers apparently choosing an appropriate setting for their look: