We Saw 32 New Board Games at GenCon. We Can’t Wait to Play These Five.
Compile: Main 2, expected October 2025, $25
Compile is a snappy two-player card-battler themed around AIs racing to become sentient that has a surprising amount of strategic depth.
The basics of the game are straightforward, but the way in which each card’s powers combine and subsequently mess with the board state gives each match an air of unpredictability. Trying to optimize your protocols and their associated card powers is a bonus that makes this game easy to play multiple rounds of in a sitting, as players muse over what the most advantageous combinations forit their playstyle.
At the start of the game, you draft three themed protocols from a collection of 12, along with their associated decks of six cards. You shuffle your decks and take turns playing cards to the protocols in an attempt to “compile” them — something that happens when you have a score in the row that is higher than your opponent’s and that is worth 10 points or more.
You can play cards face-up in the row that matches their protocol, and doing so allows you to use each card’s unique powers. Alternatively, you can play cards face-down in any row, which nets you two points per card. The player who compiles all three protocols first wins.
Compile’s first edition was released last year but has been essentially impossible to play — since it’s out of stock everywhere after it received a glowing review from the board game YouTube channel Shut Up & Sit Down. This year at GenCon, the publisher was showing off the next edition of the game, which is a standalone expansion with 12 new protocols and decks. It’s due to be released in October, alongside a new print run of the first edition.
- Players: two
- Duration: 15 to 30 minutes
- Rules: PDF
