Forest Shuffle Wins DSP *and* a la carte Awards

Posted on October 4, 2024 by huzonfirst

Essen is not only the place for releasing new games, but also where some annual gaming awards are announced each year.  Traditionally, the IGA awards are formally presented during the fair and both the DSP (Deutscher Spiele Preis) and the a la carte (best card game, as presented by Fairplay Magazine) give their results during this time.  Surprisingly, the same game won both awards!

In the past, the DSP tended to honor heavier games (as opposed to the other major German award, the SdJ’s, which focus on family games), but that hasn’t been the case recently.  Last year, the family-friendly Planet Unknown won and this year’s award went to an even lighter game, Forest Shuffle.  This tableau-building card game was one of the Kennerspiel recommended games and has now won the DSP.  Congratulations to the game’s designer, Kosch, and to the publisher, Lookout Games.  Sky Team, the SdJ winner, was the runner-up, followed by The White Castle, Darwin’s Journey, and Too Many Bones.  Magic Keys was selected as Best Children’s Game, to give it a second award to go with the Kinderspiel it won earlier from the SdJ jury.  Here are the top 10 finishers in the DSP voting, together with their designers and publishers:

  1. Forest Shuffle (Kosch) – Lookout Games
  2. Sky Team (Luc Remond) – Scorpion Masque
  3. The White Castle (Sheila Santos, Israel Cendrero) – Devir
  4. Darwin’s Journey (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – ThunderGryph Games
  5. Too Many Bones (Adam & Josh Carlson) – Chip Theory Games
  6. Revive (K. Ostby, E. Svensson, H. Meissner, A. Wermlund) – Aporta Games
  7. Harmonies (Johan Benvenuto) – Libellud
  8. Obsession (Dan Hallagan) – Kayenta Games
  9. Keep the Heroes Out! (Luis Brueh) – Brueh Games
  10. Nucleum (Simone Luciani, David Turczi) – Board&Dice

Children’s:  Magic Keys (Markus Slawitscheck, Arno Steinwender) – Happy Baobab

As mentioned, the a la carte award goes to the best card game of the year.  With the announcement just the day before that a card game had won the DSP, it’s not too surprising that the same game captured this award as well.  So once again, congratulations to the team behind Forest Shuffle.  Second place went to Cabanga! and third place went to Trio (previously known as nana, which earlier in the year won the As d’Or award from France).  Here are the a la carte top 10, together with their designers and publishers:

  1. Forest Shuffle (Kosch) – Lookout Games
  2. Cabanga! (Michael Modler) – Amigo
  3. Trio (Kaya Miyano) – Cocktail Games
  4. Passt nicht! (Thomas Weber) – Schmidt Spiele
  5. 5 Towers (Kasper Lapp) – Pegasus
  6. Dragonkeepers (Michael Menzel) – Kosmos
  7. Odin (Yohan Goh, Hope Hwang, Gary Kim) – Helvetiq
  8. Sides (Cedrick Caumont, Francois Romain) – Captain Games
  9. Ku-Ka-Konig (Reinhard Staupe) – KENDi
  10. Knarr (Thomas Dupont) – MM-Spiele

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Dale’s Thursday / Friday Essen SPIEL 2024 report

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Dale Yu

Report from day one and two

well this Thursday has been unlike a first day at Essen for maybe 15 years. Due to the new regulations on not selling or Distributing games early, I had almost no games at the start of this morning.

You may have heard that the show is sold out this year. interestingly there are now people waiting outside with handwritten signs asking for tickets, it is like being at a football game and people looking for scalped tickets

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Simon’s Thursday Essen SPIEL 2024 report

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Dale Yu

Only a brief report today: Essen was the busiest I can remember for a Thursday, with the fair sold out. Moving between halls while carrying bags was a struggle!

Age of Comics: The Golden Years. This is a nice game designed by the owners of Lirius games where they have captured and gamified the process of producing comics from the writing and artists up to the printing.  The game captures the feel of producing highly rated comics with totally new art paying tribute to the comics of yore. Actions are taken with workers and the idea is to collect together writer artist and comic cards and score them  for number of fans. Fan score can be increased with bonuses and the game rewards multiple comics published which releases additional actions. Coins are scored at the end of every round and then gradually decrease I. Popularity each round, simulating what would happen in reality as new comics emerge.
We only played a quick round but I got a good overall impression and liked the artwork and feel of the game – definitely need to play it through and see how the game evolves with the rounds, but definitely looking like a good effort!

Rajas of the Ganges – the card game: excellent
Implementation! This is how to do a a card version of the game – same feel but different play to the original, we all enjoyed this a lot. One of those games with a lot of tension as you compete for cards in the middle which give you buildings, goods, or ships (similar to the original but different). In this game you are trying to collect sets of three using cards (backside of the cards mentioned above) to pay instead of dice. Collecting a set of three gives you fame or coins which in turn allow you to flip one of your scoring cards. Flip all 6 and you’ve won. Really loved this and enjoyed it. NOTE: full disclosure that I did the translation of the rules into English (without playing it) but my review is based on a play with friends.

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Dale Yu: Review of Monkey Palace [Essen SPIEL 2024]

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Dale Yu

 

Monkey Palace

  • Designer: David Gordon and TAM
  • Publisher: LEGO
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 45 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3XEz7Vc
  • Review copy provided by Asmodee NA

 

Monkey Palace is a jungle-themed game of light strategy that incorporates both collaborative and competitive elements. Players must strategically work together to construct the Monkey Palace while competing for the highest brick income and points, all under the watchful gaze of the Monkey. The palace gradually takes form thanks to a construction using LEGO elements, and each time the board game is played, the building experience and final construction are unique.

 

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Dale Yu: Review of Looot [Essen SPIEL 2024]

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Dale Yu

Looot

  • Designers: Charles Chevallier and Laurent Escoffier
  • Publisher: Gigamic
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3TD6Tcl
  • Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA

In Looot, you need to gather resources and capture buildings to develop your fjord. Fill your longships and complete your construction sites in order to rack up your victory points. Store up the most riches, and you’ll be crowned Jarl of the Vikings!

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Reports from Essen Spiel 2024, days -2 to 0

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Dale Yu

Well, this year looks to be a bit different than years past. As with all things, changes are inevitable, and Spiel is no different.

The major plans to the hall organization remain from last year. The booths are theoretically grouped by style (family games, strategy games, serious strategy games, Asmodee games, tcg games, etc). Ok the Asmodee thing is kind of a joke, though they go have a huge portion of hall 1 and hall 6…

The big change this year, at least from the press standpoint, is that the halls are now off limits on Wednesday. In the past, many people had informal access to the halls, and it was not uncommon to have meetings scheduled on Wednesday. It was a nice quiet time to catch up with people as they took breaks from setting up.

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