The Opinionated Gamers

A slightly late write-up of my last, shorter day. The halls looked slightly less busy than Saturday and the show definitely felt like it was winding down as we headed into the afternoon. I had a chance to look at just one game as follows:

Azul: Queens Garden

Ostensibly aiming to be more complex than Summer Palace, Azul Queen’s garden changes the basic mechanism of tile selection compared to the previous 3 iterations of Azul: now tiles are placed on top of a stack of cardboard tiles which are gaming pieces rather than just for decoration; and furthermore tiles are drawn only 4 at a time from the bag to place on the tile. As soon as 1 or more ceramic tiles are taken from the cardboard tile, it is moved to the side and the next lowest cardboard tile in the stack is populated with 4 new (ceramic) tiles. This goes on until all the cardboard tiles in the stack have been populated  – the stack size depending on the number of players. When a cardboard tile is empty, it is flipped to reveal a pre-printed symbol of the same type as the ceramic tiles on one of the 6 hexagonal spaces it has to place tiles. The cardboard tile also always depicts a water fountain in its centre – which I’ll come onto later. Continue reading →

So yesterday I published a list of games that I was excited to get from the SPIEL Fair. However, I am blessed to also have a fair number of games already here at The Gaming Castle. Here’s a list of the games that I’m hoping to get on the table soon as we continue our tour through the games from the 2021 releases. I’m down to once or twice a week right now, so the unplayed pile of games grows larger and larger each day.

The halls keep getting busier – today it was actually slow and difficult to walk between halls, just like a real Essen. the only difference of course is the reduction in number of halls being used – with a large part of hall 5 cordoned off, and Hall 7 and 4 not being used, I guess it feels more croded than it is. However most publishers seemed pretty happy with the fair, and by this afternoon a lot of the big games had been sold out, including the new Azul, Siege of Runedar and in fact all Ludonova’s stock, almost all of Feuerland’s stock, and so on.

Games I looked at today: Continue reading →

Well, this year is only the third year in the past 22 where I haven’t been at SPIEL in Essen… But, that’s not to say that I’m not trying to keep tabs on all the new games.  Admittedly, as the years have gone, it has become easier to learn about the games given the Interwebs, and especially due to W. Eric Martin’s SPIEL geeklist on BGG.  In the old days, there was essentially zero information on games; these days, it’s rare to not be able to read thru the full rules, and possibly have a playthrough video at your fingertips, prior to the start of the show. Continue reading →

Fridays at Spiel tend to be busier than Thursdays and today was no exception. Today really seemed as crowded as any other Friday, but I suspect that while there are more people moving around the aisles, there are less places for them to play, Nevertheless, all the tables in all the popular booths were full to bursting with people playing or watching.

Today I had a good look at some of the games in my “to check” list. This included: Continue reading →