Wednesday is the usual setup day at the fair, and it was the usual frenzy this morning. In fact, unlike usual, most stands were too busy to talk much!

Breakfast was a simple roll and cup of coffee. I think the lady at the bakery was scandalized that I didn’t want meat to make a sandwich.

I wandered around for about an hour just trying to reorient myself to the new hall plan. Many booths are in their “usual” location, but enough have also moved around. Additionally all of the new booths need to be found.

I did run across some old friends at Days of Wonder. We played a super secret prototype. And the we got to look at the River. Man I love the art on this one.

Then it was off to the annual Press Show. I posted plenty of pictures on Instagram (@opinionatedgamersblog) and on Twitter (@opinionatedgmrs).

Just a few here

Had a great conversation with the designers of Roll for Adventure, Brett Gilbert and Matt Dunstan. They told us a bit about the origin of the game and then gave us a quick demo. They are a blast to be around, and I laughed the whole way through.

As usual, I discovered a few games that I hadn’t really researched prior to arriving such as Bingolino from Schmidt. They also have another roll and write called Knapp Daneben which looks good but was apparently not quite ready for market.

Another interesting find was Dicium which uses unique colored dice to provide the player with four completely different games while sharing the same basic components and mechanics.

I also learned about Dubbe from Palatia Games, an interesting trick taking game where you care more about the points you score than the number of tricks you take.

Dice hospital from alley cat also looks up my alley (see what I did there)

Blue orange also looks to have more interesting games. Planet has some interesting magnetic pieces that you attach to a twelve sided polygon

The afternoon was spent at the traditional Zoch / Noris lunch. I had a nice weisswurst, though apparently I still eat it like a barbarian…

We played a few games, I got to try Bloxx! from Noris, designed by Klaus Jurgen Wrede. It’s like Tetris mixed with a roll and write. It’s fun, uses special dice, and I have lost every game that I have played so far.

We had a good OG showing here.

Chris Wray and I had a nice sit down at NSKN. We are taking home copies of Dice Settlers and Teotihuacan to review.. We may or may not have heard plans about possible upcoming expansions for some of the above titles.

We also got a sneak peak at an upcoming game which is billed as an. Civilization deck builder. The art so far is amazing

Our meeting ended with a quick round of a family game coming called Mount Rushmore. It’s a speed recognition game where you have to find the matching card to what is shown on the target card.. More advanced cards shade in some of the presidents and you have to find their mirror image..

The afternoon continues with a demo of Scientia at the Korean Pavilion. A very interesting game with a lot of possible setups. It should be finished soon, and BoardM is looking for partners here. I am looking forward to seeing the final product!

The night wrapped up with some drinks at Days of Wonder. Aldie and I shared a moment with our glasses of Rosé.

and then more drinks at Eggertspiele. Here we had a chance to play the new Pretzel game, Men at Work.

This lighthearted game is all about balancing girders, construction workers, and smaller things such as bricks and beams on those workers.

There is a deck of cards. On your turn, you flip the top card over. The top of the deck tells you whether you are playing a girder or a construction worker. The backside of the card that you flipped up tells you how you will place the chosen type of thing.

There are often rules such as must be played touching the highest girder or perhaps not touching anything of the same color.

Each player starts the game with three safety certificates, and each time you fail to balance the right things according to your card, you lose one certificate. If you run out of certificates, you are eliminated from the game.

If you fail, the next player in turn order must clean up the jobsite. If he fails at doing this, then he loses a certificate too.

At some point, a special foreman card comes out, and from that point onwards, each time a player plays the highest girder or worker, you get a seal of approval. You can automatically win if you get three seals.

The game is hilarious fun, and we were laughing all the way. I got a chance to meet the designer, and she told me that the original theme of the game involved beavers… I must say that I like the current theme better!

I can see Men at Work being a great hit given its ease of play and high approachability. I expect the lines to be long for this and Blackout tomorrow.

Finally, time to head back to the hotel. I had not made a trip back during the day, and my shoulders protested at the 70 pounds of games coming back in two IKEA bags, a bookbag and a large shopping bag.

When it was all unloaded, it looks like this…

Finally, off to the city center for dinner. After Doner Pide, my next favorite food might be fast food Chinese and their love of duck.

So yummy. I wish our Chinese places at home served this!

As we hit the subway station to return home, we considered trying a snack at McDonald’s – a Pizza Mac

However, we thought better of it. We did succumb to the vending machine though. The idea of speculoos Twix seemed awesome but in reality it was a disappointment.

At least there was Mango Fanta in the room to wash it down.

Time for bed, have to do it all again in nine hours!