Gobgob's owner left for work. Chaos was scheduled for 9:05.Cat Capers is a sneaky family board game from New Zealand publisher Cheeky Parrot Games, designed by Claire Ahuriri and James Dunning. You're a cat with the day to yourself and a whole neighbourhood to explore, but the other cats want the same fun. Over six rounds, secretly split your four paws between the houses on the block (or your basket, for extra cat cards), then reveal and fight it out for each activity card's points.Gobgob's favourite bit: The big paw reveal. Everyone lifts their screens at once and suddenly three cats want the same rat. Cue a cat fight, with sneaky cat cards to tip it your way.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 20 min  |  🎂 Ages 8+🇳🇿 Made in NZ. Support a local creator!📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob built a brewery. Purely for economic reasons. Mostly.Brass: Birmingham is an economic strategy board game from Roxley, designed by Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman and Martin Wallace. Set in the Industrial Revolution, you play rival entrepreneurs building industries like cotton mills, coal mines, ironworks and breweries, then linking them up with canals and, later, railways. The game plays out over two eras, Canal and Rail, with scoring at the end of each. It even reached the No. 1 spot on BoardGameGeek.Gobgob's favourite bit: Beer. Selling your goods often needs beer, and if you're connected you can drink from a rival's brewery too. Building next to your opponents is equal parts friendly and sneaky.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 60–120 min🛒 Grab it from Dice Goblin, online or in-store.🎥 New to it? Find a how-to-play video on YouTube

Gobgob only needs one tiny corner. That's all it takes.Blokus is a classic abstract strategy board game from Mattel, designed by Bernard Tavitian. Each player gets 21 colourful pieces in all sorts of Tetris-like shapes and takes turns placing them on the board. Every new piece must touch one of your own pieces, but only at the corners, never along a flat side. Fit as many pieces on the board as you can before you get boxed in. Learn it in a minute, then spend years getting sneakier. A top family game.Gobgob's favourite bit: Squeezing a piece through a diagonal gap into a rival's space, then parking a big piece right where they wanted to go. Polite? No. Satisfying? Very.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 20–30 min  |  🎂 Ages 7+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob would like everyone to stay calm. There is a dragon.Andor: The Family Fantasy Game is a co-op family board game from Thames & Kosmos, set in the world of Legends of Andor. Pick a hero (magician, warrior, archer or dwarf) and team up to rescue the lost wolf cubs from the dwarven mine. First you'll need to finish the tasks set by Mart, the old bridge guard, before he lets you cross, and all the while a sly dragon creeps towards Rietburg castle.Gobgob's favourite bit: The dragon is the clock. It keeps creeping closer to the castle, so the whole team has to plan together and move fast. Gobgob votes to run.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 30–45 min  |  🎂 Ages 7+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob owns 400 books. Gobgob has read 12.A Place For All My Books is a cosy puzzle board game about collecting and organising books, from Smirk & Dagger Games, designed by Alex Cutler and Michael Mihealsick. You're a book lover arranging stacks of books around the rooms of your apartment to finish personal projects. Trips out to the village bookstore, library and shops drain your social battery, so you'll need to stay home, read and admire your collection to recharge. There's a solo mode too, against Penelope Eveready, a tireless extrovert who keeps grabbing the books you want.Gobgob's favourite bit: The social battery. Going out book shopping drains it, and staying in to admire your shelves fills it back up. Gobgob relates deeply.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 40–60 min  |  🎂 Ages 10+🛒 Grab it from Dice Goblin, online or in-store.🎥 New to it? Find a how-to-play video on YouTube

Gobgob built a dam. The river has filed a complaint.Barrage is a heavy strategy board game by Tommaso Battista and Simone Luciani, originally from Cranio Creations. In an alternate 1930s, you run a company racing to harness the rivers of the Alps: build dams, raise them to store more water, and send it through conduits to your powerhouses to make energy and complete contracts. Water flows downhill for everyone, so every dam you build changes the game for your rivals.Gobgob's favourite bit: The Construction Wheel. The machinery you spend on a build gets locked on a rotating wheel and only comes back once the wheel turns all the way round. Every build is a little time puzzle. Gobgob keeps running out of excavators.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 90–180 min  |  🎂 Ages 14+🛒 Grab it from Dice Goblin, online or in-store.🎥 New to it? Find a how-to-play video on YouTube

Gobgob shrank Azul. The fun did not shrink.Azul Mini is the travel-sized version of the award-winning tile-drafting board game Azul, from Next Move Games. The rules are the same as the big box: draft colourful tiles from the shared factories, line them up on your board and score for rows, columns and colour sets. It comes with 100 small resin tiles and four player boards with plastic trays, so it packs down small for holidays, cafés and road trips.Gobgob's favourite bit: The player boards have built-in plastic trays that hold your tiles in place. Handy on a wobbly café table, and even handier when Gobgob sneezes.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 30–45 min  |  🎂 Ages 8+🛒 Grab it from Dice Goblin, online or in-store.🎥 New to it? Find a how-to-play video on YouTube

Gobgob just wanted the blue tiles. Everyone wanted the blue tiles.Azul is the Spiel des Jahres-winning tile-drafting board game by Michael Kiesling, from Next Move Games. You're a tile artist decorating the walls of a royal palace in Portugal. Each round players take tiles from shared factory displays, line them up on their own board, then move them onto their wall to score for rows, columns and colour sets. Simple to learn, gorgeous on the table and a top family game.Gobgob's favourite bit: The floor line. Take more tiles than you can place and the extras smash on your floor for minus points. Gobgob has broken so many tiles.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 30–45 min  |  🎂 Ages 8+🛒 Grab it from Dice Goblin, online or in-store.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob recommends this one for tiny treasure hunters (and their sneaky grown-ups).1000 and One Treasures is a family board game from HABA for kids aged 5+. You play Ali Baba and friends, sneaking loot out of the Forty Thieves' cave. Each turn you move through the cave, claim treasure tiles and lay a new tile, twisting its walls to block everyone else. Escape before the thieves' leader reaches the entrance, because anyone still inside loses their treasure. Most loot out the door wins.Gobgob's favourite bit: Turning a new tile so its wall lands exactly where your sibling wanted to go. Pure goblin behaviour.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 20 min  |  🎂 Ages 5+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Find a how-to-play video on YouTube

Gobgob has had four coffees. Gobgob is ready to roll.VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game (VivaJava Dice for short) is a dice game that follows on from VivaJava: The Coffee Game. You work at the VivaJava Coffee Co., hunting the globe for the best beans. Each round you use the dice in your pool to either blend beans into a best-selling coffee for quick points, or put them into research for new dice tricks and new ways to score. Blends lose their shine over time, so it's a press-your-luck race to cash in at just the right moment.Gobgob's favourite bit: Rolling together. You can team up with other players to roll and blend, which can shoot you up the scoreboard, but whoever you help might ride your coattails all the way to the top. Gobgob trusts nobody before its morning coffee.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 20–40 min  |  🎂 Ages 10+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob pressed all the buttons at once. It was not a combo.Street Masters is a co-op miniatures board game inspired by classic arcade fighting games, designed by Adam and Brady Sadler. Pick your fighters, each with their own deck of moves, and team up to take down villainous factions of The Kingdom across a range of stages and scenarios. The box is packed with more than 65 detailed miniatures, plus custom dice.Gobgob's favourite bit: Two ways to play. Arcade Mode lets you mix and match any fighters, bosses and stages. Story Mode lets your wins, losses and choices unlock the story behind The Kingdom.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 45–120 min  |  🎂 Ages 14+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Zombies, werewolves and bandits. Gobgob packed a spare shovel.Shardhunters is a fantasy card game set in the Unseen Domains, a gloomy take on 17th-century Europe where victims of a witch-plague come back as zombies. Rare blood crystals are the most precious thing around, and bold adventurers called Shardhunters brave the wilds to find them. Spend crystals to hire heroes from the tavern deck, use their special skills to gather even more crystals, and send them off on quests against the monsters. The first player to gather seven adventurers and then complete a successful quest wins.Gobgob's favourite bit: The battles. Everyone plays their monster cards at the same time, and each one only has a value and a colour, so it is fast, sneaky and all about reading your opponents.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 20 min  |  🎂 Ages 12+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

By order of the Gobgob Blinders, it's your turn.Peaky Blinders: Under New Management is a strategy board game designed by René Groen and themed on the hit TV series. It's Birmingham just after the First World War, and a gangster war is brewing. Build your personal stats, send your people out with worker placement and dice rolling, and invest in rum, car parts, weapons and horse racing. Make friends, make enemies and take control of your patch to become the most feared gangster in Birmingham. A meaty game with plenty of pieces, including boards, wooden tokens, cards and miniatures.Gobgob's favourite bit: Levelling up your gangster. Boost your Charisma, Strength and Intellect to take on missions and get the better of your rivals.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 90 min  |  🎂 Ages 12+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob sharpened its sword. Gobgob also built a monastery. Balance.Paladins of the West Kingdom is a worker-placement strategy board game by S J Macdonald and Shem Phillips, published by New Zealand's own Garphill Games. It's around 900 AD in West Francia, and the outlying towns are under threat. Gather workers from the city to build outposts and fortifications, send out monks, spread the faith and deal with raiders. As you go you raise your Faith, Strength and Influence, which boost your actions and your final score. The game ends after seven rounds, and there's a solo mode too. It's the second game in Garphill's West Kingdom trilogy.Gobgob's favourite bit: Each round you pick one Paladin to ride with you, and each one changes what you can do that round. Choosing the right knight for the job is half the fun.👥 1–4 players  |  ⏱ 90–120 min  |  🎂 Ages 12+🇳🇿 Made in NZ. Support a local creator!📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube

Gobgob hired a monk, a knight and a boatman. Nobody knows why.Orléans is a medieval strategy board game by Reiner Stockhausen. In medieval France you build a following of farmers, boatmen, craftsmen, traders, knights, scholars and monks, then put them to work to gain influence through trade, building and science. Farmers and boatmen bring in goods and coin, knights let you travel further, craftsmen build trading stations and tools, and scholars push your research. There are lots of ways to win, and you'll always want to take more actions than you can.Gobgob's favourite bit: Your followers live in a cloth bag. Each round you pull out a handful and hope the right people turn up. Recruit wisely and your bag starts working for you.👥 2–4 players  |  ⏱ 90 min  |  🎂 Ages 12+📚 Dice Goblin Library game: borrow it at Dice Goblin.🎥 New to it? Watch how to play on YouTube