Essen SPIEL ’15 is over now. 4 days of superb insanity has ended. So many video games have been performed and so many video games have been purchased. It has been an exquisite trip, however now the one factor that is still is to search out shelf area for the overload of video games I acquired this 12 months.
Folks I meet
Essen SPIEL is filled with folks, not solely boardgame fanatics and German households, but in addition publishers, designers and illustrators. This is likely one of the issues that makes this such an important honest. In the event you go to a few of the smaller cubicles odds are you can be taught the sport by the man or woman who designed it. This actually is a superb expertise. You’ll be able to ask all sort of (silly) query that they’ll know the reply too.
As a boardgame reviewer this was the primary time I acquired to speak to the publishers too. This was an important expertise and I actually loved spending time with them and recognize them taking the time to speak to me. I want to thank 3 of my favourite publishers for his or her time: Portal Video games, Czech Video games Version and IELLO. Carry on making nice video games guys.
The hyped video games!
Pandemic Legacy, 504 and seven Wonders: Duel had been a few of the most talked about and most hyped video games this 12 months at Essen SPIEL. The primary two weren’t for me. JEK Pandemic has by no means actually been a sport I loved and whereas I can see how the “legacy” (a time period used for a sport you need to completely change the sport throughout every play) factor could be interesting, it isn’t that interesting to me, because it requires you to to play the sport with the identical folks for round 15 occasions to get the total expertise out of it. JEK 504 was additionally a miss for me because it lacks to issues I discover key two the sport expertise, theme and visuals. I see it extra as an experiment than anything, however I’m inquisitive about seeing what different folks suppose, as soon as they’ve performed extra of the 504 totally different variations of it. JEK 7 Wonders: Duel is the one sport of the three I acquired my palms on, and man it seems nice. Can’t wait to play this once more (and once more).
The hidden gems
Yearly I make it considered one of my missions to attempt to discover some little gems. One thing folks haven’t been raving about for months and everybody is aware of every thing about. JEK Final 12 months it was the sport Medieval Academy, an important sport by Blue Cocker Video games (that has since then been picked up by IELLO). This 12 months I really discovered two video games, from the identical writer that I knew nothing about. The writer is Superlude, and the 2 video games that was the hidden gems for me this 12 months are: