We’ve finally made it to Thursday – the start of the show!  My SD card started to go bad here, so I have about a half of all the pictures I took for the rest of the week…

One of the things that makes going to Essen so fun is that the publishers offer you the chance to meet some of your favorite designers and artists.

Marie Cardouat and yours truly – after she drew a wonderful personalized picture in the inside of my Steam Park box.

Lots of pickups early on Thursday morning.  In fact, this is the stuff I walked back to the hotel at about 10:15 in the morning.  Talk about feeling like a salmon – going the wrong way (away from the fair) pretty much right at the open!

More games to try to pack!  I can already hear the tinkling tunes of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the background…

Yet more of the cool interactions.  Here Brian Yu and Piero sit at their signing of Geister Geister.  I also managed to get Piero to make a superb drawing in the inside cover of my game.

One thing that I’ve liked about the Fairplay stand is that they have been displaying the top games on their poll on this bookshelf.  If you can’t make it to the actual printed piece of paper, you can always just glance at their bookshelf to see who is leading the poll.  They also helpfully provide the stand location for each of the games so you know just where you want to go.

I think I have already mentioned that ASS has taken over for Dominion in Germany.  They have put out a new special edition which has the new coin cards (with different art on each type), the base 25 cards and the Black Market Promo.  It actually looked to be selling quite well.

You can see the new artwork on the coins, VP cards and curses.

The iello booth was always crowded.  The King of Tokyo expansion was a big hit. 

Here is one of the mini crokinole boards that were being sold by the Polish folks (at the LocWorks stand).  They quality was quite good – these boards are apparently made in Hungary.  Just beneath the board, you can see a standard sized business card (saying crokinole.me) if that helps give you a sense of scale.

The Germans sure love their gummi snacks.  You could smell this stand from about 400 feet away.  You can see about one half of the available selection at the stand, the rest is being blocked by the lady in the blue shirt. Trust me, you can get just about anything gummy you want here.  It’s a dentist’s wet dream.

An old friend, Ronald Hoekstra, demoing off his new game, UGO.

Friedemann Friese taking a short break from his constant demos at the stand.

For some, taking a demo at the 2F stand was a way to play a great game – Futterneid in this case.  For others, it was a way to get a great snack as the players in the games of Futterneid were allowed to keep the candies that they won.

Action shot of Jonathan Franklin trying out Nations for the first time.  He was moving so fast, my camera could barely capture him.

We’ll end today’s pictures with Eric Lang and myself.  Eric looks to have a hit on his hands with Trains and Stations (Wizkids).  He is also working on a few other designs right now – though nothing that he is able to share details with at the moment.

Looks like I’ll be able to squeeze one more set of pictures in from the SD-card disaster….

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor