Normally I wouldn’t make a post with just one picture – but I wanted to show you how big the Spellbound box really is
Terra Mystica and Keyflower are in traditional rectangular boxes
Look on my Spellbound and despair for my luggage!
More later in the day – time to head to the fair!
With Press Day over and several hours of streaming demos under my belt, I thought I’d talk about the state of my wishlist.
I’m maintaining a list of the demos at Boardgamegeek, so you can see which I’ve seen already, and even follow the links to the archived videos. So far, I’ve managed to be quite picky about what gets onto the wishlist[*]. We’ll see how that works out. When I say that I am being quite picky this year, well, you may wonder what “not picky” would look like. I know that’s what my family say, anyway.
[*] The thing that you need to know about my wishlist is that it grows every year, as I mark all the great-looking games I see demoed at Essen. I try to add comments about why I am interested in a game, as well as where I saw it – but I think it’s still a challenge for my Secret Santa each year! After a couple of years, I drop them down to a “3” or “4” on the wishlist, or take them off altogether, but they do tend to stick around.
Here’s what has made the list so far. Current wishlist length: 163 (I removed several games from it this morning when I realised that I already had them).
and also (from Dale’s post here – because one source is never enough when you’re looking for games from Essen)
Of course, there are other Essen games that will inevitably make their way to the Rogerson-McHarg household – and five more days of demos, to tell me what I have missed so far. My radar is surprisingly limited this year – I haven’t really had time to look at game previews – but I do know about the 2-player Le Havre game (we really like Agricola: All creatures great and small) and of course the new Power Grid maps, which we had an opportunity to playtest a few months ago (I only tried the Northern Europe map).
Here again with my Father in the Messe story: my special report about being in Essen with a kid (actually a 11 years old daughter).
Me and Caterina finally arrived in Essen. Too late to play something or to access the fair for the wednesday show … just the time to eat something at Istra Restourant (really close to the Jung hotel where we are lodged) and than ready to sleep.
(here Caterina really tired and hungry @ Istra Restourant)
The main room at Jung was, as usual, full of peoples: a quick survey, when it was still not too muc crowled, just to say hallo to my friend Mik Svellov and see some one setting up Keyflowers (I’ll take a copy tomorrow from Richard ) and the new Wallace‘s games on a table.
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Wednesday is always an exciting day at Essen for me because it usually signals the real start of the fair. Each year around noon, the press room is opened up and many of the companies are there showing off their new games. This generally serves as a great introduction to many games and gives both publishers and press a quieter chance to chat than on the convention floor. Some of the larger companies produce a pretty good presentation, replete with props and booth babes while other companies simply place a demo copy on a table and stand near in case you have any questions.
Well, we can actually go back to Tuesday night – since I last posted on this blog. Ran into Anthony Rubbo and had one of my favorite dinners, doner pizza accompanied by some of the popular german sodas like Mezzo Mix (half Coke and half Fanta) and apple schorle (think of a carbonate apple juice). We then headed back to the hotel for a few games. First up was a quick run thru the new Kosmos card game, Greg’s Tagebuch: von idioten umzingelt! While that may not sound like a great game, Greg’s Tagebuch is the German name for the Wimpy Kid Diary that you may have heard of here in the U.S.A.
As far as I know, there isn’t an English translation available yet, but Rubbo and I had enough German between us to get started on the game. Normally, I’m not looking for untranslated card games, but this one was designed by my good friend Friedemann Friese, and that alone makes it worth a look. The game itself is simple – you play as one of the characters from the book, and your job is the be the highest ranked kid in line. The game is set up with the player characters at the back of the line and six neutral grey cards at the front end. On your turn, you try to move up in rank through a push your luck maneuver. There is a stinky cheese card (actually “cheese curse” is how it is translated – which has a value of minus 3. The start player takes this card and then adds three cards from the deck, which have values from –2 to +3. This group of cards is handed to the next player face down – that next player is the active player. He then chooses one of the cards and reveals it. The number shown is the relative change in his position in line. If you draw the stinky cheese card, your turn automatically ends. If not the stinky cheese card, you can push your luck and draw another card. Whenever your turn ends – when you choose to stop or when you draw the stinky cheese, you sum up all revealed cards and move your character up or down in line accordingly. For instance, if your drawn cards sum to +2, you move ahead of two people in line. The game continues until one of the players reaches the front of the line. Everyone gets one more turn, and whomever is furthest forward at that time wins. It’s a decent game, and given the target market of the Wimpy Kid books, it will definitely be suitable for that age gamer as well. There is fair amount of shuffling and card manipulation in the game though, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the cards ended up getting bent or mangled by little hands.
Well Essen is starting and once again I am at home in Australia, watching eagerly from the sidelines. Both Fraser and I love reading others’ reports of what they do at the fair – not only because it gives us the latest news from the Cult of The New, but also because of the memories it brings back. “Do you remember …?” becomes a theme of our conversations, whether they are about people, games, booths or even food. We dig out old photos like this one – a favourite, showing the scope of the work companies put in. There was actually a guy with a tin of “Ravensburger blue” paint fixing any chips on the chairs before the fair opened.
An ocean of blue – Ravensburger chairs lining up for inspection.
As I have for the last couple of years, I’ll be getting my Essen on by time-shifting my life and ignoring my children. From 7pm, anyway – I’ll be in the study with the live Boardgamegeek video feed running, chatting about the game demos we’re watching. It goes without saying that I’d rather be in Essen (OK, I’m slightly gutted not to be there this year), but the video feed is a very strong second best – especially when friends either are demonstrating or come by to visit (either in person in Essen or virtually, on the chat). And the girls just laugh at me, when it comes to October. Fraser too – he’s less interested in the videos and more into the blogs.
My supplies are simple: I have a copy of the BGG calendar and a timezone conversion (printed) between Essen and Melbourne. 10am is 7pm, that’s the most important thing to know. 7pm is 4am, which is what I try not to focus on. I also have a stash of Diet Coke to keep me awake, and a blanket to keep me warm. Sometimes I also grab one of the games that starred in a previous year, so I have some company. My copy of FLAGGO! still hasn’t actually been played, but it came to Virtual Essen with me last year.
It’s easier than packing for 2 weeks in Germany!
It’s still drizzling here, but that’s no big deal as the majority of my time will be indoors for the rest of the week. Tuesday is the day when some people start setting up their booths, though most definitely not everyone is here. From our initial walkaround starting at noon, maybe 20% of the stands had folks working on setup. It’s freezing in the halls because all the big cargo doors are wide open and cars and small trucks are constantly driving in to drop of pallets full of stuff.
There has been a little bit of a reshuffling of stands. BGG is now in 12, and their old space in 10 is now inhabited by Zoch. Hasbro has a huge booth in 10 as well.
