If you've ever admired those tiny, beautifully designed boxes from Japan that seem to pack more game into less space than should be physically possible, good news: three of them are about to become much easier to find in the UK.
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Set up your group for freeHachette Boardgames UK is bringing a trio of Oink Games titles to British shelves this May, with all three expected to be available at UK Games Expo in Birmingham. The lineup includes Compress, Kobayakawa, and Frozen Passage.
Compress is the standout for anyone who likes their brain to hurt in a good way. Designed by Jun Sasaki, the creator of Deep Sea Adventure (over 300,000 copies sold worldwide), it's a logic game where one to seven players use just eight cards showing 0s and 1s to track a growing sequence of numbers. You're not memorising the sequence. You're encoding it with your cards, turning and rearranging them as the challenge grows. At 20 minutes and up to seven players, it's the kind of thing that makes an entire table go quiet then erupt.
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Start organising for freeKobayakawa is pure bluff. Three to six players each hold a single card, and the highest number wins the round's pot. The catch is the Kobayakawa card, which adds its value to the lowest hand, so even holding the top card doesn't guarantee safety. It's a remake of the 2013 classic with doubled coins and a new betting rule.
Frozen Passage rounds out the set as a cooperative game for one to four players. You're connecting 15 cards in an inverted pyramid, with hidden hands forcing you to predict what your teammates need. It's lighter than Hanabi but has that same satisfying tension.
All three games cost around the same as a pint and fit in a coat pocket. They're perfect for warming up a game night, settling a pub argument, or filling the gap while someone reads the rules to the main event.
Sources: Tabletop Sentinel | The Toy Book | Oink Games
