Saturday was our last day in Messe, since we have to fly back home Sunday early in the afternoon from Koln. Waking up was not easy thanks to two days of Messe and two nights of report.
Recent Comments
Dale Yu: Saturday Night Pictoral Report from Essen
OK, there’s not a lot of free time tonight. Gotta say goodbye to all of my friends here in Europe, get some food and figure out the luggage situation. The only good thing so far is that when I checked into my flight, I found out that my 2nd bag fee is only 50 EUR, not the 75 EUR that I was expecting!
The bulk of this report will be pictures and captions. I’ve tried to catch the flavor of the fair through images.
Andrea Meyer (right) at her Frigiti Booth. The game seemed to be getting good reviews from those who tried it, and I believe that Andrea may be working with some partners to get this done in other countries.
Posted in Convention Report
Leave a comment
Patrick Korner: Essen 2011 As it happens! (Friday update)
Note: This is a continuation of the Essen 2011 As it happens! (Wednesday & Thursday) report.
10) Ab in die Tonne
Whew. Another exhausting day at Essen is in the books and my fingers are tired from 
punching out games.
The full buylist is coming, I promise (probably tomorrow evening as I think my own purchases are now complete), but for now some writeups on the games I played tonight, all of which are on the lighter side.
First up, Ab in die Tonne, a new Cwali game that lets you try and clean up the place, one pizze slice or flat soccer ball at a time.
Gameplay is just like FITS, where you choose a piece and then drop it down the inclined board to try and make it fit in your garbage can. The genius is that you have to let the pieces drop from above a certain level, and that the pieces are all VERY oddly shaped (especially that stupid fan!).
The result? Sheer genius. Easily one of the best games I’ve played at the fair, with lots of groans and laughter as the garbage bits get caught up on one snag or another on their way down.
There are three rounds to the game, the second and third of which involve covering up / leaving uncovered some special chewing gum stuck to the inside of the garbage can. This makes the game even more fun…
Posted in Convention Report, First Impressions
Leave a comment
Fathers in Messe: day 2
Driin … driin … it was 7:15 and we started the 2nd day. I decided to let Caterina sleep a bit more (actually I was able to wake her up only at 8:00!) but we were able to reach the gates at 9:00, just in time to enter the empty Messe and make a travel in the weakling up giant! If you have the possibility to have a press pass or an exhibitor pass I think it is really a nice experience for a kid to have a quick tour in the Messe without the usual crowd. We were also able to take some pictures and decide the games to play: Kingdom Builder was our choice but the faith brings us in other seas and we still haven’t play it.
 |
 |
Just a quick stop to be meeple for a day and a nice trip through an almost empty hall 6 to buy dice and try some costumes.
Continue reading
Posted in Convention Report
3 Comments
Dale Yu: Friday Essen Report
The SPIEL fair is now halfway over – and it’s been jam packed with games so far! This morning, we were back to the Messe by 9am, and got a good walk around a mostly empty convention center. This early time is great to get a unhurried and non-crowded look at some of the stands. Of course, this is the setup time for the stands, so you have to make sure that you stay out of the way!
Early this morning, ran into two game designers with new releases at the fair this year – Greg Daigle (Hawaii) and Jeffrey Allers (Pala). In between them is my brother, Brian Yu, who is a game designer, but he isn’t showing a new game this year at Essen.
Sadly, the Austrian Game Museum still did not have delivery of their Pantheon tiles, so I was politely asked to return Saturday morning to try again… Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow as it’s the last day that I’ll be at the fair!
Posted in Convention Report
4 Comments
Fathers in the Messe: day 0 and day 1
This year, for the first time, I decided to attend Essen Spiel together with Caterina, my 10 year old daughter. Of course I was sure it would be a totally different experience to be not only a gamer but also a father at the greatest game event in the world. I also decided to let Caterina decide our routes, the games to play, and what to do, trying to influence her as little as possible. Of course that probably means I’m going to miss games, not buy as much as usual (or just buy different games), but I’m sure I’ll have a real great and new experience. I made the travel by flight trying to make a narrow games selection: first I decided to delay the purchase of all the games I’m sure I could get easily from Italy. I hope at least Italian publishers will be able to give me their games later. Finally I was lucky because a friend of mine, his wife, and their daughter decided to join in this experience so Caterina was not alone in the Messe!
Wednesday: day 0
Wednesday was a travel day. We got to the hotel at 22:15 since we had some delay with the flight and problem with the trains (we prepared the travel well but we didn’t realize that Koln Airport and Koln HBF were not the same station!). Anyway Caterina was eager 
to play so at 22:35 we were down in the hotel common room playing games. We were really well received by Martin Wallace and Julia. Thanks to Mik Svellov’s help we were able to play The City by Tom Lehmann. A nice quick and easy game with the core mechanic of San Juan and Race for the Galaxy (cards used as money). You are building your city and every card you play can give you money (cards) or points. Of course you need cards to build better and better buildings but since the cards give you points at end of each round and the game ends as soon as a player score 50 points or more, playing scoring cards in the beginning is also important. Of course cheap cards are used to give you points or money. There are also cards with icons (shopping carts, cars, and fountains) that offer bonus points/money to special buildings. Some buildings have prerequisites and few buildings offer discounts. That’s the game but it is funny and works well: we played 3 times in a row before going bed.
Posted in Convention Report
4 Comments
