Day 1 Spiel 2017 is in the board game books

Meet & Greet with some of the amazing people behind all the new hotness

What a day one this was, we met so many intriguing and fascinating people, I don’t even know where to begin with. As you may understand, these blogs will all be in a blitz kind of way. Trying to squeeze them in between the slower hours. And those are just very rare, which is a great thing!

So we will keep it short and sweet and won’t bore you with too much details and let the pictures speak for themself. There was tons more, but we will keep it at bite size.

But first, show some goodies

Kept it quite civil and still need to pick up some more games that are still on the wish list. We do wait for some Dutch releases, so if you are missing some of the big hotness, that may explain their absence.

The meets and greets

We did several short talks to a lot of people and the positive vibe which is surrounding the board game hobby is just something very special. We will display just a few which stood out for us, and we took pictures of instead of too much talking. And of course, they gave us some content to great games to share with you and you should go check out at Spiel.  If else, why would we be talking about these right?

 

Alessandro  is a charming fellow and someone who talks with passion about Horrible games

The current game getting a lot of buzz, and rightfully so, Dragon Castle.

If you like good-looking abstracts? Don’t look any further, it’s here.

This is what board games do. We love this.

Their first abstract, but Horrible games can’t do anything wrong when they go for it right? Table presence +10

This lovely lady is setting up some cups with some poison…want to play Raise you Goblets

One where talking was more evident and also needed. The new game by Gil Hove, Wordsy. A nice twist on word games and the short demo was a fun one.

 

And now something where, if we are upfront and very honest, we are very looking forward too. Tokyo Metro by Jordan Draper. Coming to Kickstarter this January and this is our favorite game up until now this Spiel 2017! It’s a complex economic strategy game, but is flows very well and is very accessible after only a few rounds. The ramping up it does with the passing rounds, gives some major final rounds and makes it a compelling game right until the end. There is much more to tell about the game, but wait for the Kickstarter, it will be AMAZING! We played almost a full game and ended within such a close endgame, 2000 difference, talk about a well-balanced game. Again, this is going to be a publisher and designer, which is going to be high on our list of must have games.

Tokyo Metro

Still in prototype form, but already looks clean, sharp and the colours pop.

The times where metro maps become games. We like that!

The cycling of the action spaces is such a smart and refreshing take on work placement.

Stations and your pawn

As most economic games, money is king and here still in prototype form, already shiny

Player aid

Designer, publisher and just an awesome person. Jordan Draper from Dark Flight doe sit all.

The map in prototype form

The obvious selfie. Sir, we came for a demo, we played almost a full game and we will be all over the Kickstarter upcoming January.

Rob’n Run, a coöp game with a hanabi style teamwork element. The Boss cannot tell his crew exactly what to get and he will have to guide them with hints to the right loot. Try to manage that between you given restrictions and stay away from the policy!

Game board and the possible locations you can rob. A lot of setup variability possible in the different loot tiles, the different scenarios you can play or the way the cubes come out.

Michael Luu, designer and Boss. One of these statements isn’t true, bit for us Michael is a very awesome guy.  (No, we didn’t get any extra loot for this)

 

components are bad@ss. Just because…we are cool robbers

The 6 possible hints you may give. There are different hints possible for increasing the difficulty.

And then we met “this mister”. The one and only Mac Gerdts. He told about his new title, Transatlantic and we even found out he speaks a little Dutch. Well, it was more flat german as they would call it, but that was an awesome thing that happened. Thanks for your time Mac! We also touched base on his roots being from Hamburg and the relationship to the theme of his latest title.

 

When you pick up your pre-order games  (Maria, Wir Sind das Volk and 2+2) and one of the designers is there, what do you do? Of course we asked for a signature from Richard Shako.

We’ve met a bunch more people and have a lot more great future news to share (and sometimes we cannot…yet), but for now we will have to make it to bed and prepare for another day at the Messe.

But, we have some more great pictures from Essen before we leave you be.

I could have sworn I have seen this guy somewhere before…..think he did some card game or something with also some Vikings in it?

It’s a A semi coöp game where you want to become the best German arms manufacture.

Democracy under Siege

4 Dados are bring some heavy world war / political themed games to  this Spiel

 

Have a great day or night, depends on when you are reading this of course. If you are going to Spiel, have a fantastic time and enjoy all the fun which Essen brings. May you see me running around, play a game or having a chat with somebody, please say hi. Would love to meet you!

Love your board game life!