Dear gamers, this was the last report by me and Caterina from Essen. Tomorrow mornig we will leave for Modena. I hope to see some of you in Italy in April at PLAY: the games festival or next year here in Essen. In the end we were able to play something more than 30 games that is not bad since we are used to play all the game (not just some turns), some games we played twice or more and we have dealed also with game like Russian Railroads and Rokoko.

Before going in the details about our Saturday in Essen (i hope to have time to write monday) here our top 5. Of course we were able just to undermine the surface of the huge list of Essen releases and we are sure there are outstandig games we missed. We have already ordered/bought (but not played) many games including Venetia, Theseus, Madeira, Twin Tin Bots, A study in Emerald, Concordia, Super Fantasy, Steam Park, Hegemonic, … All game I hope we will play soon and review in the future. Probably we will change mind in the next weeks/months, playing new games and/or replaying old ones but here we are and this is Father in the Messe 2013 top 5

In doing it we used just one simple rule: we liked the game! So no restrictions about target or duration or complexity or publisher … To enter our top 5 the game has just to be fun to play (of course for us).

Caterina
A 12 years old girl used to play since she was able to throw a dice. She has a strong passion for resources management games with not real heavy interaction between players. She also like a lot some kind of party-games and light games she can play with her friends.

Best Essen 2013 release: Russian Rairoads
A perfect game. I liked everything. If there will be an Essen award for best gamers game it will have to go to this one.

2. Le Fantome de l’opera
Actually it is a sort of reimplementation of Mr.Jack, a game I love, but I prefered this one since it is easier to explain, but not trivial to play. Compared to Mr.Jack both roles here seems equally difficult to master.

3. Sultaniya
A good game of building and positioning. Really nice also the illustrations and materials.

4. Fun farm
I really enjoied pllaying it. I will play for sure in Modena with my friends!!

5. Garden dice
A game can concurr for awards of the “game of the year” style. Great theme!

5. WildCatters
It take a bit to understand how it works but it is really interesting. I hope to have soon the possibility to play it again

Andra “Liga” Ligabue (me)
Games addicted since 1988 i’m used to offer a chance almost to everything but i usually fall in love with well themed games with solid mechanics. I’m fascinated by sci-fi and fantasy and I’m usually attracted by solid and well-done workers placement games.

Best Essen 2013 release: Russian Rairoads
I’m always fascinated by worker placement games and also by games you have to build up your engine in time to get points before the end. This game seems to have both this feature.

2. Coal Baron
Another workers placement game with real streamlined rules and some nice new idea (like the “overbidding” mechanism). I think/hope it will preserve interesting game after game

3. Mini-krokinole
I always liked Krokinole but it was both too much expansive and too much bulky for me. This edition by LocWorks looks really amazing and it works perfectly. So now I have my krokinole.

4a. Garden dice
Really like this quick but not trivial dice game with some really nice interesting mechanic.

4b. Dice Run
I really really liked this new edition of classic Spartaco Albertarelli game. Small rules changes that really improves playing experience. I think it will become one of my preferred fillers in the new game season.

5. Fun farm
OK it is a dexterity game and probably also a kid game but it is so fun and the animals are so great that it is impossibile to have not fun playing it. Really a great hit I’m quite sire will become an evergreen

I’m sorry about mistakes and not fine editing of this essen reports but I was here just with my tablet and I’m not used to write/edit articles with it.

Good play and have a nice sunday in Essen
Andrea and Caterina