Upcoming releases
The Great Art Robbery (2025)
A co-designed deck-builder game that offers a lot different cards and tactics while being language independent. Become the mastermind behind your own art theft gang and try to loot Europe’s most famous works of art from the halls of museums and galleries such as the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum and the Prado. Recruit the right specialists to make the heist possible, improve your gang’s skills and try to stay out of Interpol’s hands. Will you steal the most valuable collection together?
Master Detectives: Code X (2025)
In Master Detectives: Code X, players are master detectives who have come together to determine once and for all which of them is the best detective. Each detective puts together a secret code for one of their opponents and tries to decipher their own code through clever sleuthing. Move your detective tactically around the playing field to reach the desired location and gather the right information, or to question your opponents about your code. The first player to decipher his assigned code is the winner of this exciting code cracking game!
FRYSK (Self-published 2025)
Build the landscape of West-Frisian in the Netherlands in this tile-laying family game. Each type of landscape scores points in different ways and action cards make you cultivate them (flip!), showing the historic accurate change of the land and offering more tactical options. This game project is a collaboration with the province, museums and heritage partners, offering 43 collectable cards that can be picked up at their locations. These change the game and can be combined with each other.
Older titles
Capo della Mafia (2017)
A Mafia themed bluffing game for 3 to 7 players. Earn respect to become the next Capo (boss) to be promoted within the family business. This game has a ‘poker’ vibe to it and is about bluffing well when needed and realising when other players are bluffing. It has simultaneous play, hand management and the special character cards spice up the game play. This game is released by 999 Games in the Netherlands end of 2017. The game can be played by older kids, so can be considered a family game (being about mafia the theme is less innocent, of course). Students and adult liked it for sure. Cigars and whiskey not included in the game… Pictures of the game (as seen on Boardgamegeek) below and you can check out the video trailer. And there is a tutorial video (in Dutch). Curious about the process? I wrote a designer diary on making this game.
Tricky Dungeon (2018)
A trick taking game for 2 to 4 players that adds a lot of new twists and variability. Each round one player chooses 1 hero that changes the game and defines how gold can be earned. The other players try to stop that player. The game comes with 15 heroes and a few different play modes to spice things up after playing it a while.
It started out with a complete different theme, the three musketeers. It won a game design contest at Noorderspel 2014 and after further development it was published by Pumpkin Games.
The awesome illustrations are made by Victor Corbella and you can see all of them here. You can read more about Tricky Dungeon on BoardGameGeek and in this Dutch article here. Plus in 2018 Game Nite Magazine reviewed the game in issue #33, check it out! The Dice Tower reviewed their game during podcast 601.
The concept has been updated with a more accessible theme, more balanced scoring, tighter choices and offering10 sets of 4 ‘contracts’ -40 total!- and is available for licensing. Interesting as is, or to combine with an IP with a multitude of characters of sorts.
Monster Problemen (‘Monster Problems’, 2019)
A ‘serious’ card game for age 8 and older, in which players learn about problems caused by poverty and potential solutions for such situations. This is done by seeing text one side of the cards, the other side shows monster heads (problems) and limbs (solutions) that can be combined if they are of the appropriate color (type). The design challenge was to make use of all the information the Council had gathered, co-create a game with it that can be played by kids without a parent, teacher or other supervisor. The game will be distributed to primary schools in the city.
See here for more about the game. This was a co-creation production with fellow designer Robert Brouwer, the municipality of Groningen and their Kids Council. Drawings made by the Kids Council. Graphic design and art implementation done by Marco Westerkamp. Production managed by us.
GRUNN – Pioniers in de Provincie (self-published 2022)
A tile laying game, co-designed with Robert Brouwer and several museums of the province of Groningen. We designed the game, coordinated the production process and publish the reprints in the Netherlands. In this game each player creates their own version of the province and it’s various landscape types. Each type scores victory points in different ways and a market determines what tile + action players take each turn. The base game is expanded by scenario’s that change the game system, add thematic new rules and scoring effects. These are available to be collected at 31 museums. Read more about it here.
Bende op de Boerderij / Chaos at the Farm (2022)
A farm themed game for kids age 3 to 6+ with a big toy factor. In the cooperative mode players together try to help the farmer getting all the animals into their own field before night falls while the fences must be moved around. There is also a competive mode in which players each try go get their own animals sorted first. Published by MNKY Entertainment, codesigned with Robert Brouwer.
Jungle Party (2022)
A game for young kids age 4 to 8 where players create their own set of animals, matching front and end of the pictures. The shape of the tile laying communicates well when a player wins, no need to count. Tiles are double sides offering an easier and a harder mode and more pictures to play with. Published by MNKY Entertainment, codesigned with Robert Brouwer.
The Big Five (2023)
Available as of November 2023! A cooperative game in which players ar rangers that all try to spot the the big 5 animals and protect them in a safari park before time runs out. Each of the 2 to 5 players have unique players powers and are challenged to plan routes in the park (with modular changing board setups), take of their rations and extinguish fires that scare the animals. Published by MNKY Entertainment, codesigned with Robert Brouwer.
Obelisk (2023)
Available as of November 2023! Build impressive obelisks (set collection) in this card game for 2-5 players by taking an trading cards tactically. Balance bigger sets with top placements, which earn powerful action effects that let players break the rules of the game. A small card game with a bigger challenge for regular players. This game is also codesigned with Robert Brouwer and published by MNKY Entertainment.
Arjan van Houwelingen 