This year, “Christmas” comes early… The SPIEL fair in Essen is as early as I can remember…  It is from Thursday, October 8 thru Sunday, October 11 – and a number of our writers will be there to take in the games, sights, smells, tastes, etc. of the show.

As usual, we’ll be trying to highlight some games that interest us in the run-up to the fair.  Due to the early dates, the preview time will be somewhat limited (as there is only a month left before I leave!).

The first stop for any gamer should be the gargantuan Essen Preview List hosted on Boardgamegeek which is curated by our own W. Eric Martin.   This is pretty much a one-stop shop for all English language news.

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/174654/spiel-2015-preview

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If you want to try your hand at some translations, the Spielbox site often has a few little snippets that don’t make it to BGG

http://www.spielbox.de/spieleneuheiten

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Finally, check back here often.  We’ll tag all of the new information with the “Essen 2015” tag.  There are already a number of reviews/previews/pieces with this tag.  Over the past few years, the gaming calendar has evolved, and the Essen SPIEL fair now finds itself in the middle of the winter new release calendar rather that the starting point.  Many games are first released to the public in late summer, though wide release does not occur until SPIEL.

You can bookmark this link to get to our SPIEL 2015 coverage

http://opinionatedgamers.com/category/essen-2015/

Buckle up – it’s going to be a whirlwind trip to SPIEL 2015!