NewsHistoricalBoardgames29th Sep 2026

Road to SPIEL 2026: Gaudi by Devir

Step into a world where art defies gravity and stone becomes dream in the new design of Dani Garcia.

AngusA29th Sep 2026

One hundred years after the death of Antoni Gaudi, Devir is heading to SPIEL Essen with a board game devoted to the life, ideas and extraordinary works of the Catalan architect and, rather appropriately, it involves building things from broken pieces.

Gaudi, designed by Dani Garcia (Arborea, Windmill Valley, Barcelona) and illusstrated by Edu Vallis (Bitoku, Terminus, Redwood), is a 1-4 player strategy game in which players explore the three influences central to Gaudi’s work : Nature, Catalonia, and Religion.

What is it?

Gaudi’s buildings, which include the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila and Park Guell - are all instantly recognisable for their organic forms, unusual structures, and remarkable decorative details. Rather than asking players to construct these buildings, Gaudi concentrates on the influences behind them.

Across three rounds players develop the three pillars of Nature, Catalonia and Religion, collecting cards and pieces of trencadis, the mosiac technique Gaudi famously used to cover curved surfaces with fragments of broken ceramic and tile. Those fragments are arranged as patterns on indivdual player boards, with each pillar awarding VP differently.

Specialising too heavily is dangerous though, as at the end of the game only your two lowest scores across the three pillars are used towards victory.So if you neglect one, but excel in another, you may find yourself out of luck at the final tally.

How does it play?

At the centre of Gaudi is a large chandelier, around which the players move during each of the game’s three rounds.

Where you choose to stop determines which actions are available, principally gaining cards and collecting different varieties of trencadis pieces. These resources allow you to play cards, create mosiacs, and advance along the chimneys on your personal board. A round ends once everyone has completed a full circuit of the chandelier.

Each of the three scoring pillars work differently.

Nature tends to rewards you as its cards are played, Catalonia scores primarily at the end of rounds, while Religion provides most of its scoring at the end of the game. That makes balancing more complicated than simply trying to keep three markers close together, as you’re simultaneously dealing with three different scoring rhythms, some of which you won’t ultimately know until later in the game.

Once the game finished, and you have tallied up the scoring for each one, you then remove the highest of the three, only using the combined scores of your weeakest two areas to see how successful you have been.

Gaudi famously disliked straight lines and it seems Dani Garci has similar feelings about straightforward scoring.

Why we’re watching it

Devir are treating Gaudi as a major release, describing it as one of the games headlining its SPIEL Essen 2026 line-up, and it certainly sounds like a game we’d enjoy.

Designer Dani Garcia has a good track record with medium-to-heavy Euros, and the mechanics appear to have been designed around the subject matter as opposed to the subject being merely overlaid when looking for a theme to use.

A Eurogame about an architect could have easily become a game about gathering stone and constructing buildings, so making it instead about the ideas that shaped those buildings is a lot more interesting.

Edu Valis also seems a very good choice as artist, especially for a game in which visual identity matters so much.

Also making the trencadis more than decorative, with players physically collecting the irregular pieces and arranging their own mosiacs, alongside the games central movement mechanic using a decorative chandelier and the players boards drawing their appearances from Modernist rooftops and chimneys are lovely touches and also visually very appealing.

The Game at SPIEL Essen 2026

Gaudi is scheduled to make its major international debut at SPEL Essen 2026, where devir can be found in Hall 3, Stand D600. Advance orders can be collected from the Devir stand, with copies also available to buy at the show. English-langauge copies will start hitting retailers in November.

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