Road to SPIEL 2026: Carl von Linné by Pink Troubadour

Before you can catalogue the natural world, somebody has to decide what everything is called. But even before then, somebody has to go and find it.

Carl von Linne, by Czech publisher Pink Troubadour, takes players into the scientific world of the 18th, when naturalists were travelling farther afield, returning with unfamiliar specimens and attempting to impose some sort of order upon an increasingly complicated natural world.

Designed by Michal Peichl, creator of Forestry, the game casts 1–4 players as natural historians inspired by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus and his contemporaries. You'll explore, collect specimens, research them, cultivate plants, correspond with scientific institutions, send students on voyages and publish the books that establish your reputation.

What is it?

Carl Linnaeus, or Carl von Linné as he was known after his ennoblement, is best remembered for developing the system of classification and two-part scientific names that still underpins modern taxonomy. This game isn't a biography, however.

Instead, players participate in the wider scientific world surrounding him, balancing fieldwork with scholarship. Specimens gathered during exploration need to be studied; discoveries can become publications; gardens provide another avenue of research; and correspondence connects you with the wider scientific community. You can also send students abroad.

Historically, Linnaeus encouraged a group of former pupils, later known as his Apostles, to join expeditions across the world, collecting plants, animals and other specimens. Some travelled aboard Swedish East India Company vessels and several never returned.

How does it play?

The heart of Carl von Linné sits on your player board: a collection of lenses representing the actions available to you.

Each round you place three lenses beneath three different optical instruments.

Use the spectacles and the lens's action activates once, while also advancing you along the Taxonomy track. Put it beneath the magnifying glass and you perform that action twice and receive another benefit. Put it under the microscope and the action fires three times. But there is a cost. A lens used with the microscope is temporarily exhausted and cannot be used during the following round. This, as the designer has said, deliberately forces players to adapt rather than repeatedly hammering their most efficient action every turn.

As you complete circuits of the Taxonomy track you'll acquire improved golden lenses offering additional effects.

Those actions lead into several interconnected areas of scientific work. Your explorer moves through Scandinavia collecting specimens. Those specimens can be researched in your laboratory. You cultivate a botanical garden, correspond with institutions and eventually publish books.

It’s not only Scandinavia you can explore either, as the game also has voyages.

Your followers represent Linnaeus' students heading overseas. Ships travel along Voyage cards, and successfully connecting completed expeditions with published books can generate recurring income in later rounds. Designer Michal Peichl says the voyages were intended to capture the mixture of hope, danger and sacrifice surrounding the real expeditions undertaken by Linnaeus' students.

The game lasts five rounds, with each player effectively choosing three actions per round and deciding whether each should be performed once, twice or three times.

Why we’re watching it

A couple of years ago Pink Troubadour had another scientific themed hit. While Galileo Galilei looks to the heavens, and Carl von Linne is distinctly focused on our own planet, and the mechanics of the two game are different, they do have some similarities.

Firstly, the presentation is striking similiar. The two covers and boxes visually striking with the same colour scheme and presntation overwhelming both, and both titles showing the names assignatures. Both men were scientific pioneers in their fields, although a century or so apart, but the second real striking similiarity is Michal Peichl. While Peichl designed Carl von Linne, and Tomas Holek designed Galileo Galilei, you will see Peichl’s name on the games cover… not as designer but as the artist for the earlier game.

Given the success and popularity of Galileo Galilei, Carl von Linne would earn it’s place on this list with ease. But the game, I feel, deserves to be here on its own merit.

The mechanisms repeatedly reflect the subject.

Peichl's lens mechanism is probably the feature I’m most interested in seeing at work. You only have fifteen principal action selections across the five rounds, but each can potentially be multiplied through the different instruments. Using the microscope feels immediately attractive, until you remember that you're sacrificing access to that lens next round.

The overall feel of the game may sound complicated, and it’s certainly on the heavier end of things scoring 3.8/5 on BoardGameGeeks community complexity rating. But I think players will fall in to the rhythm quickly enough and soon get used to it’s sequences and options, while desperately trying to work out and refind their best strategies.

The Game at SPIEL Essen 2026

Carl von Linné will be one of Pink Troubadour's principal new releases at SPIEL Essen.

The publisher can be found at Hall 4, Stand G515, with the English edition available at the show for €75. Current retail listings put wider English availability immediately after Essen, from around 26 October.

Pink Troubadour is also offering an Essen preorder that includes Alexander von Humboldt as a promo card, although it will also be available for sale separately. Pre-order copies of the game, as well copies ones should at the show will also be given a free bonus pack including 6 new samples and 3 new voyage cards.

SPIEL Essen runs from 22nd-25th October 2026.

Carl von Linne at a glance

Publisher: Pink Troubadour

Designers: Michal Peichl

Artists: Stanislava Pajonkova & Michal Reznicek

Players: 1-4

Ages: 12+

Playing Time: 60-120 minutes

Type: Action selection / action retrieval / exploration /scientific research / track development

English Edition: Yes

Expected release: 26th Octobner 2026

SPIEL: Pink Troubadour, Hall 4, G515

More information: Pink Troubadour

Tomorrow on Road to SPIEL 2026: Kalypso - humanity takes to the water in a flooded future where floating settlements compete to survive, salvage and rebuild.