This year, Ravensburger offered the first lunch and play event. It was quite nice, and they went out of their way to be helpful to us “non speaking” journalists.
Two big pieces of news so far.
1) Knizia was up on stage announcing that El Dorado is going to get a line extension at Nuremberg. Also, he’s working on a second game where you will get to actually search for the treasure after you reach El Dorado in the first game.
2) the alea brand is being brought back in house. Rather than farm it out to Heidelberger, the main company is going to be in charge of sales again.
3) the new alea game is called the Rise of Queensdale. Done by the Brands. It’s a legacy game. All the other details were in German. So use your imagination. Coming in March from alea
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In other news, the hall seemed much less crowded this morning while I was over there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still crowded, but there’s enough room to move around with a giant Ikea bag in front of me as a battering ram.
More later. I’m just going to post this before my phone eats it
Well, as someone who has bemoaned Alea’s lack of relevance over the past 5 years, count me as doubly shocked (and somewhat pleased) at this announcement. Of course, Queensdale could wind up being anything from a heavyweight to a piece of fluff, but a *legacy* game from Alea, from the Brands, no less, is certainly intriguing. I assume (and strongly hope) that Stefan Bruck will be doing the development for this project. I’ll definitely be following this in the months to come. Thanks for the early morning bombshell, Dale!
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