The ProtoZone of the Brussels Games Festival welcomes twenty prototypes in competition this year. These original creations will be showcased throughout the festival and evaluated both by the public and by a specialised jury.
Two prizes in 2026
Two trophies to win in 2026
This year, the ProtoZone will award two distinctions:
- The Golden Meeple’Pis, the public prize, granted through the votes of festival attendees.
- The Jury Meeple’Pis, awarded by a jury of board game specialists.
How to vote for the Golden Meeple’Pis?
Each attendee receives a ballot when testing their first prototype.
For every game played, a stamp is added in the corresponding box.
At the end of their session, players are invited to indicate their top 3 favourite games and drop the ballot into the dedicated urn located at the centre of the ProtoZone.
A prize to win
All submitted ballots will automatically take part in a draw held on Sunday at the end of the day.
One participant will be selected and will leave with a board game.
The creators in competition
Twenty authors have been selected to present their prototypes. Their creations reflect the diversity and richness of the emerging board game scene.
Barbaresques : le Grand Casse de Gênes
Barbary corsairs, bluffing and plunder in the Mediterranean: explore a modular board, recruit captains with unique powers, deposit your gold in Genoa… or attempt the Great Bank Heist!
Cast Down
A tower offense game where players are revolutionary wizards that will roll, manipulate and spend mana dice as a resource to cast spells, defeat enemies, and recruit allies.
Director’s Cut
Movie Directors” compete to create the most popular film. To ensure success, they must climb the Awards tracks by earning Popularity Points. Over the course of six rounds, they must score as many of these points as possible using the fewest number of actions to win.
Dumpster Domination
A king-of-the-hill brawl for 3–6 raccoons. Commit your plan, hide half of it, then reveal as climbs, pushes, and dirty tricks all go off at once. Outsmart the table and rule the dump.
Echo Scope
At the heart of the experience is the incredible Écho Scope machine, capable of detecting the frequencies of living beings.
Your goal: combine the right cards, complete the missions and unlock the PASS ECHO for a chance to win the Synchro+!
HeartRunner
HeartRunner puts you in the shoes of cybernetically enhanced mercenaries, thrown into a spiral of intense and unpredictable missions. The world is harsh, your choices carry serious consequences, and every mistake could be your last.
INTERLINK
In INTERLINK you and your team build a shared network of hexagonal tiles while working to satisfy a set of personal missions. The team wins or loses together.
Maktila
Plan your movements across the board using your compass and capture your opponents’ pieces. Your compass is a personal mini-board that rotates and changes throughout the game.
NoTable
NoTable creates right in your hands an always-new cooperative logic riddle. Pass cards to each other and try to resolve all of the rules before you run out of moves! Thanks to complexity levels, you can introduce new rules at your own pace, until you are ready for the full challenge. And since you don’t need a table, you can play anywhere, even in queues at any event!
Ping !
Ping! is a board game where the intensity of a table tennis match becomes a strategic duel. Every rally is a battle where you need to anticipate, manage your energy and use the right effect at the right moment. With special cards, advice from your coach and unexpected events that put your nerves to the test, every point can turn the match around. The first player to reach 5 points wins the match… as long as they don’t crack under the pressure.
Spring Bugs
Spring Bugs invites young players on a cheerful cooperative adventure where
friendly bugs race to collect rain drops before the thirsty Big Spider steals them
away. Designed for children aged 3+ and their families, the game combines simple
gameplay with teamwork, color matching, and early strategic thinking. Players roll
the color die, fly from flower to flower, collect raindrops, and help fellow bugs earn
bonus drops by working together.
Un Potager dans ma Ville
Toekrea has challenged you to transform Brussels! The goal? Grow all kinds of plants, whether in a garden, on a balcony ledge, on a rooftop… You’ll also need to earn biodiversity points to successfully complete the challenge!
Whack – The Beastly Battle Royale
Fight for the crown in this fast-paced, challenging brawler packed with player interaction, dicey decisions and big swings! Roll and select dice to determine your actions, play cards for powerful combos and move strategically across the modular board to outsmart your rivals. Whack your friends, steal their points and rule the animal kingdom!
The jury
A jury of enthusiasts and professionals from the board game world will evaluate the candidates and award the Jury Meeple’Pis.
Vi Tacq
I am a game design teacher at Haute École de Bruxelles-Brabant and Haute École Albert Jacquard.
I am also active in research on media education applied to board games, ludopedagogy, and game design didactics. I also create games, both ludopedagogical and recreational. I won the Entertainment Award at the Festival Ludique International de Parthenay in 2019 with my game Gargouilles.
Olivier Grégoire
Réalisateur de formation, ayant travaillé entre autres à la RTBF une bonne dizaine d’années, j’ai changé de carrière il y a 15 ans pour vivre de ma passion.
Je travaille depuis dans le milieu du jeu comme chargé de projets, ludothécaire et formateur pour Ludeo, le Centre de ressources ludiques de la Cocof. Ça, c’est pendant la journée !
La nuit, je crée des prototypes et il m’arrive parfois d’attirer l’attention d’un éditeur et c’est alors qu’il deviennent des “vrais” jeux… après de longs longs longs processus de développement. J’en ai édité 8 jusqu’à présent, avec des fortunes diverses, mais toujours accompagnés d’aventures humaines ou d’amitié surprenantes, fortes, cocasses, nourrissantes, enrichissantes et pleines de bons et de mauvais rebondissements !
Encore des dizaines d’idées dans la tête, des protos plein les cartons et un problème récurrent à résoudre: comment faire tenir tout ça dans des journées de 24 heures remplies de nombreuses autres activités et centres d’intérêt ?
Ann Pichot
Trained as a philosopher, Ann discovered the world of games through publishing, joining the team of Repos Production, before continuing as communications officer at Zèbre à Pois. For the past five years, she has held this role at Ludeo, the COCOF’s board game resource centre, where she selects and reviews new releases every week for La Libre Belgique, Deuzio and the Journal des Enfants.
At the crossroads of communication, criticism and a passion for games, she looks forward to discovering tomorrow’s gems as a member of the Brussels Games Festival jury.
Nicolas Maréchal
Passionné de jeux depuis l’enfance, Nicolas possède, avec son épouse, la boutique Jeux de NIM à Enghien, ouverte en 2006. Animateur infatigable, il organise des soirées jeux depuis 2003 et, chaque mois de novembre, un festival annuel qui célébrera sa 10ème édition en 2025. Son regard mêle celui d’un détaillant de terrain, d’un organisateur d’événements et d’un joueur curieux, toujours à l’affût de mécaniques élégantes et d’expériences conviviales.
Ancien membre du Jury de l’As d’Or – Jeu de l’Année au Festival International des Jeux pendant cinq ans, il met pour le BGF cette expertise au service des autrices et auteurs, avec une attention particulière portée à l’accessibilité, à l’originalité et au plaisir autour de la table.
Johnny Colin
As a games librarian at Espace Carême in Anderlecht, I am lucky enough to be surrounded by games and to have been running game activities almost every day for nearly 15 years. Along the way, I have met countless players from a wide range of backgrounds, further nurturing my love of games as a way to bring people together and create shared experiences.
Since 2024, I have been co-running MTJeux, a Brussels-based organisation dedicated to game facilitation in all its forms. This has given me the opportunity to explore new areas of play and broaden my experience.
As an avid player myself, what fascinates me most is what games can create: those moments when, even just for a little while, they form small bubbles of happiness. I jumped at the opportunity to join the BGF jury. It was simply too good a chance to discover the games of tomorrow and to put my experience as a game facilitator at the service of the creators who bring the Belgian gaming scene to life.
Tanguy Gréban
After fifteen years as a board game retailer and six years as Editorial Director at Repos Production, I decided to take on a new challenge: launching Board Game Campus.
A one-year, full-time daytime course dedicated to board game design and publishing. A new step towards the professionalisation of the sector.
An opportunity to share my passion for game design and board game publishing. And otherwise, I play. A lot… Role-playing games, TCGs, small games and big games, I’m interested in every kind of gaming discovery. And especially prototypes, always on the lookout for the board game treasures of tomorrow!