Last weekend was Essen Spiel in Essen, Germany. I wasn’t there, it is a dream to sometime make it to an Essen Spiel but Germany is a long ways away from Minnesota. For the American audience who might not know, this is like GenCon but bigger. More games come out or get revealed there, I’d say, especially for German and European companies. So, there are a lot of games, the Board Game Geek preview has 503 different games for sale or demo in their preview. You can see all of them here.

I’m not going to go through all of them. There are just too many, 503 would be a lot to talk about, even ignoring expansions it’d still be a lot. Instead, I want to pull out and highlight some games or expansion that I want to pick up.

Essen Spiel Games

Paper Dungeons

This is one that I actually own, it’s a roll and write, hack and slash dungeon crawling game. I need to play it still. But it’s my type of game with the roll and write aspect to it. I’m going to be curious to see how complex this game is because I like my roll and writes to be somewhat complex but not too complex. Alley Cat Games, the production company, also made Cat Cafe which was a nice balance of stuff, but not one that I consistently go back to.

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect looks very intriguing. From Arcane Wonders, you set-up the perfect group picture. This is not one that I’ve bought, and not one that I’m sure I will buy. You are trying to figure out how everyone wants to be framed in your picture. And each character wants to be in a certain spot in a certain way, will you get the picture set-up correctly? The concept sounds really good, but I wonder how much I’d actually play the game, once I’ve played it a few times.

Welcome to the Moon

This is another game in the Welcome To system of games. I have Welcome To… and Welcome To New Las Vegas. From Blue Crocker Games, this one sounds interesting because it is a campaign game as well. I’m not sure what that means, but a short campaign of 8 different sheets sounds cool. I’m guessing that we’re still building up a city, but beyond that I’m not sure. You might even be launching off to the moon, which would be cool. And I really like the aesthetic of these games.

CoraQuest

This was a demo only for a kid focused dungeon crawl game. I talked about this one before when it was on Kickstarter. The game was developed by Dan and Cora Hughes as what started as a school project for Cora. The game looks like it’s pretty fun but simple dungeon crawler, which is a cool concept. I didn’t back it on Kickstarter because I’m a few years away from wanting a game like that. I am really glad that Bright Eye Games picked it up though because the concept is fun. It makes dungeon crawlers more accessible to more people.

Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders

I still need to play Lost Ruins of Arnak, but this expansion definitely is on my radar. From Czech Games Edition, the game is a combination of deck building and worker placement. And I really like the theme of the game where you are exploring some lost ruins, I like that Indiana Jones style feel to the game. This adds in some unique leaders which means that you start with a unique starting point, which I always like it when games do that.

Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road

I’m a very big fan of the original, Hanamikoji from EmperorS4, and I really want to know about this one. It still has area control or majority in it which I like. I also like that it’s still only two players because that is one that works really well in the original game. It means that it should hopefully play fast still. Instead of trying to win the favor of Geisha, you want your favored Geisha to progress the fastest at tea houses on Geisha’s Road.

Hibachi

Another game that I almost backed on Kickstarter, this is a game from Grail Games. In it you flip out disks to get ingredients and that determines what ones you can use. Of course it also determines how much they might cost and there is strategy to what you are doing. I ended up not backing this one because I want to try the game before I would buy it. It’s a fun sounding concept but it’s one that I question if I’d play long term.

Similo: Spookies

I’ve talked about Similo before, it’s one that wasn’t on my radar for a long time. It’s from Horrible Guild and I like their games. But Similo is just a simple party style game, except that it’s not. It’s a clever little game of getting the players to eliminate the right characters or creatures. The Spookies version can be used with everything else, but it has a nice “spooky” theme to it. Or at least uses spooky monsters. It’s a great little game and this makes it great for Halloween season as well.

Ramen! Ramen!

Japanime Games are hit or miss for me. They unfortunately use a lot of anime IP’s (intellectual properties) that I like but often the games are okay or disappointing. This one isn’t like that, but it looks like a simple little game. The artwork looks very cute and the theme is fun. It is about building out the best bowl of ramen by getting the most points possible. There does seem to be some take that in the game with people being able to steal ingredients. But I’m hoping it’s light, fast, and fun.

Detective: Signature Series – Petty Officers

So, you might read the name of this game in the Detective line and assume that it’s going to be about military police, and it might be. But it’s more than that, it’s animal assistants, you know the types that you pet. I got know clue how it’ll work, but I have everything for the Detective system of games, including Dune: House Secrets, and I have loved everything I’ve played thus far. So I will get this at some point because animal offers is just cute.

Plus Many More

So, obviously, that’s not that many games. Those are the ones that I know some about or that jumped out at me. And there are a lot that I’d love to try but maybe less interested in buying. What games showing up at Essen Spiel looked interesting to you?

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