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  "description": "The Op also has four new acquisitions of previously self-published games",
  "path": "/the-op-games-hummingbirds-flip-7-tembo-evenglow-oasis/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-19T06:00:07.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.wericmartin.com",
  "tags": [
    "The Op Games",
    "**_Flip 7_**",
    "reviewed",
    "**_Flip 7: With a Vengeance_**",
    "_UNO: Show 'Em No Mercy_",
    "**_Hummingbirds_**",
    "**_Cats Knocking Things Off Ledges_**",
    "**_TEMBO: Survival on the Savanna_**",
    "previewed in depth",
    "**_Evenglow_**",
    "**_Oasis: New Life on A Distant World_**",
    "**_Frenzy Falls_**",
    "**_Anomia_**",
    "**_The Game of CULLS_**",
    "**_Tapped Four_**",
    "**_Desperate Oasis_**",
    "Weast Coast"
  ],
  "textContent": "At Toy Fair NY 2026, U.S. publisher The Op Games ran me through recent releases and upcoming titles, with the headliners being yet more **_Flip 7_** from Eric Olsen.\n\n__Flip 7: Grinch__ is a produced version of the game, while the other two — __National Parks__ and __Liquid Death__ — are mock-ups for Toy Fair\n\nThis hit press-your-luck card game from 2024, which I reviewed at the time, already has a Grinch-themed version on the market thanks to a late 2025 release, and 2026 will bring licensed versions based on U.S. national parks and canned water company Liquid Death. Nothing about the gameplay differs in these releases, making them more like gift items than new games. (A representative from The Op Games told me that the company has released many national parks-branded items over the years and they're good sellers, so hey, why not make this one?)\n\nWhat is new-ish for this burgeoning game line is **_Flip 7: With a Vengeance_**, a co-design between Olsen and Alyssa Swatek that hit the retail market at the end of January 2026. This release channels Nick Hayes' _UNO: Show 'Em No Mercy_, a 2023 release from Mattel that takes a \"regular\" card game and makes it mean. Here's how _Flip 7: With a Vengeance_ differs from the original _Flip 7_ :\n\n  * The deck includes thirteen 13s, giving players a way to score more points and bust more often...although one of the 13s is lucky, allowing you to hold a second 13 in addition to this one.\n  * One unlucky 7 causes you to discard all your other cards.\n  * Instead of cards that add or double points in a round, cards subtract or halve points.\n  * Five action cards give you more ways to mess with people. For example, if you use \"Swap\" to give both of the involved players a duplicate number, then they both bust.\n\n\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nAnother January 2026 release from The Op Games is Jason Tremblay's **_Hummingbirds_**, a game for 2-4 players about feeding at the proper time.\n\nThe game board features thirteen cardboard tubes, each of which holds a sand timer. The outermost sand timers last 30 seconds, and the central one lasts ten minutes, with the others lasting periods of time between those extremes.\n\nOn a turn, a player takes one of their hummingbirds and places it on or moves it to a vacant sitting space or they pick up one of their hummingbirds where it currently stands.\n\nThe base of each hummingbird is magnetized, so when you lift it, the sand timer will rise up as well. If the sand timer is empty, then it's feeding time! Take a point token matching the color of the sand timer, then flip the sand timer over and return it to the column, placing your bird to the side. If sand remains in the timer, you're too early and must lose one of your lowest-valued tokens before removing your bird from the space. The sand timer doesn't flip, so you've now given everyone else an idea of how long they need to wait for it to score.\n\nGame play continues until someone has 25+ points and wins — and since the red sand timer is worth 25 points on its own, you could just camp on that for ten minutes to guarantee victory...assuming someone else doesn't score 25 points first and you don't pull up the timer too early.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nAnother Q1 2026 release from The Op Games is **_Cats Knocking Things Off Ledges_** from David Killing and Sen-Foong Lim, and gameplay on a turn is mostly spelled out on the back of the box: Build a new platform, use tweezers to place a cat and its toy on a platform, use a wooden cat's paw to knock a toy off that platform, and hope the toy lands on another platform without knocking everything over.\n\nYou score based on how far the toy falls as long as the toy lands on a platform as a table landing is easy and not worth anything.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nRounding out The Op's Q1 2026 releases is **_TEMBO: Survival on the Savanna_**, a co-operative game from studio Sidekick Games and designers Asger Aleksandrov Granerud, Mads Fløe, Dan Halstad, and Daniel Skjold Pedersen that I previewed in depth in late 2025 after playing a sample game at SPIEL Essen 25.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nNote that the game board is not valid as the same spaces should be covered on each half\n\nJason Katzwinkel's **_Evenglow_** will debut at Gen Con 2026 and hit retail in Q3 2026, with 1-4 players trying to balance what they build across day and night.\n\nEach player gets a game board with two hexagonal areas on it, and on a turn the active player draws a card showing four of the six colors of tiles, then places it on the green board to indicate which two colors of tiles they get and which two everyone else gets. You will place one tile on the night side of your board and the other on the day side — and they must cover the same numbered space. (Someone goofed when arranging the demo board shown in the image above.)\n\nEach tile color scores in different ways, and you want to maximize points. On top of that, if you arrange orange, yellow, and red tiles the proper way, you receive a potion in that color, with each potion granting a bonus ability and with sets of potions scoring points as well.\n\nThree of the game boards have specialty set-ups to facilitate a solo game against an automated opponent at three difficulty levels.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\n**_Oasis: New Life on A Distant World_** is a game for 1-5 players by Leo Taylor, Duvey Rudow, and George Feledichuk in which you're on a foreign world that's been devastated by climatic happenings, and you are establishing new creatures both above and below the crust of this world.\n\nYou start with a few cards in hand and will first build parts of your bottom row as the symbols on those creatures determine what can be played above. The top creature on the right, for example, has two red symbols, so it can be played only on two creatures with red symbols. Played creatures have effects on them, and (if I recall correctly) you can cycle cards from your hand to activate these effects. The cards on the side of the table are migration cards that can be played by anyone as if they're in your hand.\n\nThe game lasts three rounds, and the earlier you pass in a round, the more cards you can protect before you move into the next round, with you drawing new cards — either from the above deck or below — before starting.\n\nAs with _Evenflow_ , _Oasis_ should debut at Gen Con 2026 and hit retail in Q3 2026. Each game retails for US$40.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\n**_Frenzy Falls_** is a 2-6 player design from Joseph Z. Chen and Randy Flynn in which cards will fall from one row to another, ideally cascading to score you points instead of dribbling away into nothing.\n\nEach player starts with five cards in hand from a personal deck, and score cards equal to the number of players are revealed. In turn, each player places a card face down by any score card, then does it again, after which you reveal the cards to the right of the top score card one by one, resolving any special actions: _bump_ pushes the card to the left or right down one row; _pull_ moves a card of your choice to this row; and _proxy_ gets replaced by a card in the hand of its owner.\n\nAfter all of this, if the sum of the score card and played cards in this row is at least 10, whoever has the most influence in the row claims the score card, then discards their cards in this row; each other player cascades one card of their choice to the next row down, with that row then being resolved, and so on. If the sum in a row is less than 10, leave all revealed cards in place.\n\nPlay multiple rounds until the score cards run out, then see who has the most points. _Frenzy Falls_ will debut in April 2026.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nAndrew Innes self-published the card game **_Anomia_** in 2010 and has had it on the market ever since — but now The Op Games has purchased _Anomia_ , and after selling off the existing stock (shown on the right in the image above), it will release a revamped version (shown at left) in Q4 2026.\n\nEach turn in _Anomia_ , you draw the top card of the deck and place it face up on your pile of cards. If the symbol on your card matches another visible symbol, then you want to name something in the category showing on the opponent's card before they can name something in your visible category. Whoever names something correctly first takes the opponent's card and scores it face down — which might reveal a new card and start another competition.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nSimilarly, The Op Games has acquired Rob Nelson's **_The Game of CULLS_** — which has also appeared in print as _Bollox_ , _Bolix_ , and _Bōku —_ and the renamed **_Culls_** will appear at retail in Q4 2026.\n\nIn this two-player game, you're trying to be the first to place five discs in a row, but if you sandwich the opponent's piece (or multiple pieces), you turn those pieces face up and on their next turn(s) all they can do is pick up a face-up piece, thereby giving you time to do more productive things.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nAnother acquisition by The Op Games is **_Tapped Four_** by Marilyn Dick and Dorene Mills, which will be released as **_Tap4_** in Q4 2026.\n\n_Tap4_ is a shedding game of sorts in that you want as few points as possible when the round ends. Each player starts with eleven cards in hand and four piles in front of them, with each pile holding one face-up card on top of a face-down one.\n\nOn a turn, play one or more cards of the same value from your hand and/or face-up cards that are equal to or lower than the most recently played cards. As you play, keep count of what's been played in total for a value: \"one 11\", \"two 11s\", \"one 9\", \"three 8s\", etc. If you play the fourth card of a value, remove the discard pile from the game, then play again immediately. The deck also contains \"TAP IN\" cards that let you immediately remove the discard pile and play.\n\nIf you can't play, you must pick up all discarded cards, then start a new discard pile.\n\nTo play a face down card, you flip it onto the discard pile. If it's a legal play, great! You can play more of that value from your hand, too. If not, pick up the discards!\n\nWhen someone has played all of their cards, everyone else scores points equal to their unplayed cards.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nYet another acquired game is **_Desperate Oasis_**, a lane-battling game from Dan Cassaro of Weast Coast in which two players take turns placing animal cards in rows, with some animals having immediate powers when played and others having ongoing effects. The Op's version of _Desperate Oasis_ will be out in Q3 2026 and retail for US$15.\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nAnother constant presence at both Spielwarenmesse and Toy Fair: fart toys. I should visit one of these booths sometimes to see how they pitch the merits of their particular fart toys: \"The more pressure you impose on their puffy, pliable bodies, the harder their cheeks undulate, shooting those rich pelvic blasts clear across a room. Here, compare these anemometer readings of our second gen Fart Monsters to competing toot trolls already on the market, and you'll see that don't hold a candle to the power ours can generate — and that's partly because ours will blast that candle right out of your mitt.\"\n\n• • • • • • • • • • • • • •\n\nLike what you read? Leave a tip to support independent board game journalism!\n\nLeave a tip",
  "title": "The Op Games Welcomes a Menagerie of Hummingbirds, Cats, Camels, and Elephants for 2026",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-19T06:00:07.000Z"
}