So officially, the Wednesday at Essen is the setup day. But it’s also really the first actual day for the press. One of the highlights of the show every year is the annual new games exhibition, and this year it was in a new location. Instead of being within the convention center itself, it was in the adjoining Grugahalle.

This concert hall had a very nice room for the actual press conference, with comfortable seats, and then much larger rooms for the exhibitor to show off their new games. I was able to get demos of at least two dozen games I was interested in, and it is very nice to be able to do this in a less crowded and less noisy environment than the Halls will be tomorrow.  There was so much room because the new games were spread out over two levels in the Grugahalle!  I was a big fan of the extra space…

Final Titan from Nerdlab looks like a fun brawler. As a bonus, one of the designers is Christian Kudahl, he was one of my favorite designers of late. I look forward to drafting Titans and having them battle each other in a 1v1 combat.

There is a new unlock box which has a very interesting theme. The three challenges in this box are all based on existing board games. I am so curious to see how a Carcassonne Unlock turns out! Hopefully I will find out soon

I have to get more information on this, but it sure looks like this is going to be Batmandor. I couldn’t get a demo as it was so busy and every time I tried to listen in, the demo was on German.

Tea & Rum from Captain Games continues their impressive resume of having a new game each year in a totally different genre than done by them before.

No one was available for a demo but I love the art style of Sobakistan from Hobby World. I will find out more after my meeting with them later this week.

Robo run is a cool 2p cooperative campaign game from Portal. Players work together to move a pair or robots to the designated exit spaces using cards from either card rack. The cards have different things on each side so that adds some additional complication to the process.

There’s another new expansion for Pixies, and I must say that I have loved this one since I discovered it – the art style of actual photos for the cards is just stunning.

The  Mix is a game that shows that HABA is definitely trying to break out of their usual habits – this is a 18+ game where you work to construct different alcoholic cocktails!  This is definitely not the old yellow box HABA kid’s special!

Neon Hope is a narrative game that I’m really looking forward to trying.  There is an in depth story that comes out of the storybook with multiple branching points; there are 30+ possible endings according to the designers.  There is also a soon to come RPG-lite story set in England (crowdfunding soon).

Finally, had my annual picture with the other more famous Gaming Doctor – he had a spectacular jacket on today.  He was also handing out these sweet coasters proclaiming his triple win of XXX des Jahres.

Well, time for one game before bed – hopefully more tomorrow.  Also, the rest of the OG crew will hopefully be here by then!

The game – Villa from DV Games

Oh wait – Opinionated Eaters.

Lunch – Neapolitan pizza @ 60 Seconds to Napoli

Dinner – Shoyu Ramen @ Takumi