I’m quite sure this post will get a lot of hits: Dale Yu, Potatos and a well known designer in the first page (he is Vlaada Chvatil of course!) is something gamers are not used to resist (something like video with cats on facebook). For not well prepared reader: I’m then one on the left, Dale is in the middle and Vlaada on the right with the potatoes.

The friday in Essen is for me both a day of games and the opportunity to meet friends at the usual IGA ceremony at the BGG booth at lunchtime. Unluckily I have not ready to post pictures of the awards since Caterina and Francesco decided it was much more better going to eat something instead of looking old gamers talking about games (I really don’t know why). Anyway the ceriomony was great: Ferdinand de Cassan, our speaker, was brilliant and Bauza and Cathala took time to get pictures with fans.

Since almost all the tables of the games we were looking to play were booked, we started the day playing Raptor. It is a 2-players experience so, like a chess pro player, I fought on two tables against Caterina and Francesco getting 1 victory and 1 loss.

Raptor  is one of the best 2-players games published in the last years: one player has to move the Raptor and her 5 kids and then other player the scientists. Raptors won killing all the scientists or escaping with two kids. Scientists win capturing two kids or stopping the Raptor. Every turn the players simultaneously choose a card and reveal it. The lower one activate the special effect on the card, the highest give as many action points as the difference between the two cards. Action points are used to move, shoot, kill, setup fire and so on. i really like asymmetrical two players games and that is very good.

Th next step was at Ankhama booth: both me and Francesco are real Krosmaster Arena addicted and we decided to offer an opportunity to Gang Race, a dice driven game about crossing a bridge with cars. It was nice. Every turn new obstacles appear and than you have to roll 5 dice and use to change speed, wheel, shoot or repair. You can move from 1 to 5 spaces according to your speed and changing line is easier going slowly. Not using some dice will give you extra money: every time you take damage you loose money. The winner is, at the end pf the race, the player with more money that sometimes could be not the winner of the race. The car crossing last the end line can’t win the game anyway. Me and Francesco liked the game: Caterina no!

Next stop at Gen-X for Pocket Battles. The game idea is nice: a small chess like game with 8 bits graphics. The pawns are dice displaying different aliens with different abilities. Aim of the game kill the opponent’s mother-ship or reach his planet. Every time you “eat” an enemy you get the die and roll it. During your turn you can just move or put in the table a new ship. The game is not bad but nothing I really need to have and the quality pf the materials is quite poor.

Before the IGA ceremony just the time forma qucick Amphipolis play. It is a classical tiles collecting game from mr. Knizia. For me a really good family game: simple and easy to play but with the right amount of choices. Every turn 4 new tiles from the bag are revealed and placed in 4 different area, than you can take two tiles from one of the 4 areas. Eve y area has tiles scoring in different ways. You have also 4 special cards you can use once in the game allowing you to collect more tiles in the round also from other areas. In the bag  there are alsp rocks. When a fixed amount of rocks is revealed the game ends immediately. A good game.

Probably you have noticed Francesco’s hat. We got it at Ankhama and it is great.

The micromanagement needed with two kids is really too much … I think I’ll be able to finish my report in the next days. Going to Essen with the kids is a fantastic experience: something as random as a Faidutti’s game, with the needed organization of a typical Feld and the gaming experience of a Chvatil’s release …