The Opinionated Gamers

Rest easy. Both are here.

That is all.

Well, it’s that time of year again.  For the full-fledged Cult of the New Eurogamer, Essen is like Christmas, Halloween, and your birthday all rolled into one.  Just the thought of shiny new titles appearing one after another on the game table is enough to make you salivate!

And this year is no exception.  Even though there isn’t any one design that’s causing me to go out of my mind with anticipation, there are still a bunch of spanking new games that I’m looking forward to trying out.  Naturally, there are some that are higher on my list than others.  So on the eve of the Fair, I thought I’d list the top dozen here, together with why I’m anticipating checking them out.

1.  Russian Railroads – I’m as risk-averse in real life as I am at the game table, so it’s no surprise that the top two games on my list are ones I’ve already gotten the chance to try.  I played the prototype for Russian Railroads in April and really enjoyed it.  It has a different feel than your standard Worker Placement game and I particularly enjoyed the many different ways of scoring, most of which employed different ways of playing.  With the world-class developers at Hans im Gluck working hard at this for the past six months, I have no doubt this will be even better than it was back in the Spring.

2.  Spyrium – This is a little bit of a cheat, as it’s already available, but technically, this is an Essen game.  It’s another excellent effort from William Attia, that plays quicker than Caylus does, but has similar depth.  The way that placing your meeples simultaneously represents a potential bid for a tile and a way of earning money is clever and elegant.  The technology cards give you different goals and abilities, which yields different strategic approaches.  This is already firmly in our rotation and should stay there for quite a while. Continue reading →

Hi all

a quick note just to say me and Caterina are ready again for our “Father in the Messe” adventure.
One suitcase with dresses (few for me, much more for Caterina) and an empty one for games.

You will meet us from thursday to saturday travelling and playing all around.

I’ll play Red and Caterina Green!

Here an idea of past years adventures. We hope to be able to play tons of games.

As usual I’ll try to let Caterina decide where to go and what to play (of course I’ll use my “powers” to move her toward some unmissables!) and in the night we will write our report!

Caterina now knows a bit of German so, at least, I hope this year we will be able to order and eat what we really want for dinner!

If you need to contact us try to drop an email to basoldo@gmail.com or try to stop us in the Messe!

[the two pictures here are from our tour at Ravensburger Park in Germany]

Tuesday is super early setup day… The big boys may have been here as early as the weekend, but for most everyone else, Tuesday is the day to show up and start setting up the booth.  Admittedly, it was still pretty sparse today, but it was a good chance to walk around and take in the fair in its new layout.  The whole fair is now contained in three larger halls: 1, 2, 3. 

Based on the square footage, it looks like there is more sq ft in the current layout than last year, but I must admit when walking around, it doesn’t feel as big.  I think that this might just be because you don’t get the 30 second breaks in scenery as you walked through the multiple smaller buildings and the connector areas between them.  On the map, some of the older areas look quite small.  Also, with the current lack of buildup, it’s hard to see how crowded the halls could get. 

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Well, the annual trip to Essen if officially underway.  At the current moment, I’m sitting the the Atlanta Airport waiting for my flight to take off.  THe international terminal is bright and clean, but it may have the most uncomfortable chairs ever designed.   My luggage was pretty full for the trip over, nearly 45 pounds – though the one luggage was filled with gifts for friends, the IGA plaques, and most importantly, my other empty piece of luggage that will come back filled to the brim with games.  My layover was long enough that I was able to snag one of the seats near a charging pole, and right now, I’ve got everything I brought plugged in to be fully charged for the trip: Ultrabook, iPad, Kindle2, phone (serving as my MP3 player), fitbit tracker, and my camera battery.  Luckily, it’s not crowded, because I’ve monopolized every AC and USB spot on the stupid pole!

Not much time for sightseeing this year.  Oftentimes, I get free from work long enough to travel the weekend prior to Essen, but this year, I’m there for the fair itself – just Tuesday to Saturday.  While this only gives me three “official” days at the fair, I’ve found that I can schedule a number of my meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday – so I don’t mind missing the Sunday.  Also, by leaving early Sunday morning, it allows me to get back and work a full week next week – which it is necessirt to being able to go at all.  Yeah, the jet lag truly sucks that first Monday back, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

My prep for this year was much less than usual, as I had a number of real-life things filling up my September/October schedule.  Nevertheless, I’ve done the best I could, getting in some plays of preview games, reading up as much as I could about the games, etc.  The iPad is filled with downloaded rules – about 90 at last count – and I’d guess that I’ve read 40 in detail and maybe glanced at another 20.  I’ve got a long 9 hour flight ahead of me today, so I imagine that I’ll be able to truck thru another 15 or so rulesets before I fall asleep.

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Dear Santa,

I have been very good this year. I have not fought with my sister – possibly because she lives in another state. I have behaved admirably in a number of difficult situations – even when that guy put his drink on the table next to my OOP copy of Fast Food Franchise.

Please bring me the following games from your annual trip to Germany to stock up for Christmas Eve.

Artifact

• designer: Jeffrey Allers & Bernd Eisenstein
• publisher: White Goblin Games
• players: 3-5
• length: 60 minutes

The archaeology theme is cool – but after reading the rules, what I’m most interested in is how the double-layered take-in-workers/pay-out-workers system is going to mess with my head. At first look, this doesn’t feel quite like anything else I’ve played before… and that’s a good thing. Continue reading →