Helvetiq is celebrating a decade of pocket-sized hit Bandido by flipping the entire premise on its head, and the setting moves from a generic prison to the most famously inescapable rock in the world.
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See how it worksThe original Bandido released in 2016 from designer Martin Nedergaard Andersen, who is also behind this anniversary follow-up. It's one of those tight little cooperative tile-layers you can teach in two minutes and play in fifteen, sat alongside Bandida in countless pub-table game collections. Every previous box has tasked you with closing every tunnel before the bandit slipped out.
Bandido Alcatraz, out from the Swiss publisher in April 2026, swings the goal a full 180. This time you're rooting for the prisoner and digging tunnels under San Francisco Bay to break him out of Alcatraz. Each turn you play a card from your hand and connect tunnels and dirt across edges, just like the original. The new wrinkle is water seepage. Some tunnel cards are half-blue to show the Bay creeping in, and you've got to play a dirt card on top later or that route is finished.
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Start organising for freeTo win, you need exactly three raincoats and two ropes set aside, with the EXIT tunnel as the only open path out. Run out of deck before you pull off the heist and Alcatraz keeps its escape-proof reputation intact.
It's the kind of small-format game that ends up in handbags and pub tables across the UK, and a fun chance to pull out the original alongside it for a contrast of co-op vibes. Worth grabbing for game nights where you've got fifteen minutes and don't fancy hauling a Kallax to a friend's flat. See if your local board game group is into quick co-ops.
Sources: W. Eric Martin | BGG | Helvetiq
