Each Essen, I like following the standings of the games on the Fairplay poll, based on the votes of the attendees at the Messe. This year, I haven’t seen one mention of it, which is unusual. So I googled it myself and figured I’d let you know what the top games are. Here are the games with the best average ratings (keeping in mind that this is based on a 1-6 scale, with 1 being the best). The number of votes is given in parentheses.
1. Concordia – 1.53 (15)
2. Russian Railroads – 2.00 (20)
2. Kashgar – 2.00 (17)
2. UGO – 2.00 (13)
5. Glass Road – 2.10 (21)
6. Spyrium – 2.12 (26)
7. Madeira – 2.24 (17)
8. Bruxelles 1893 – 2.26 (19)
9. Love Letter – 2.28 (32)
10. Coal Baron – 2.33 (15)
11. Sanssouci – 2.39 (18)
12. Amerigo – 2.45 (31)
13. Nauticus – 2.50 (14)
Some of those were unfamiliar to me, so let me give a little more information about those. Kashgar is a 45 minute design from Kosmos described as a “open deck-building game”. UGO is the climbing card game co-designed by Ronald Hoekstra; I think Eric Martin talked about that before the fair. And Sanssouci is a tile-laying game from Ravensburger and Michael Kiesling; it looks like a family game.
No huge surprises, although the excellent rating for Concordia is certainly good news for fans of Mac Gerdts. I’ll try to follow up with the updated ratings each day as the festivities at Essen continue.
UGO is not, in fact, a climbing game. I played once on Friday and plan to include it in a brief round-up report on BGG News soon.
I can imagine that folks aren’t talking about Fairplay because the stand is not in its usual location (along with every other stand, of course) and unless you’re looking for it specifically, it’s tough to find. Personally, I haven’t heard any title buzzing on everyone’s lips, possibly because I’m too busy spouting about Time Stories to hear anything else!