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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Anhk: Gods of Egypt

This is the last of Eric Lang’s “trilogy” of games, Blood Rage, Rising Sun, and now Anhk. This one I thought about on Kickstarter, but I’d just come off of Marvel United so I didn’t feel like I needed to back it. It was an interesting looking game and I like the Egyptian deity theme. I’m curious as to how it plays and if it’s one that should pick up. I didn’t back it on KS as well because I didn’t feel like I’d miss out on the exclusives that it had.

Akreis

This one might have been on last years list, but it’s one that I’d love to pick up. Just came to KS at the wrong time for me to back it. It’s a legacy style Egyptian themed game, and it looks fun. I like the minis in it, I like how they are leveraging almost an ICECOOL type thing where you have pieces of the box that are the board, so it’s not just flat tile pieces. I wish I’d had more of a chance to check it out at GenCon 2019.

Dawn of Madness

Pretty sure that this is another one that came to Kickstarter first, but it is from the same company that did Deep Madness a deep see themed horror game. This one is also a horror game, so I’m really interested to see what comes out with it, and might pick it up if they have any sort of webstore or way to get it. The aesthetic on it looks amazing.

Cubitos

Tis is a fun looking game from AEG that I heard about on Tantrum House’s YouTube channel as one of them had it as one of their top games in 2020, which is when they got to play it but for the rest of us it comes out in 2021. I like the idea of a racing game, and while I have a few, this one looks like it has a pretty fun look to it, and I’m just curious as to what it’ll be like.

Descent: Legends of the Dark

This new massive Descent game looks amazing. I love that it’s fully cooperative, I love that it has app integration, and while it is a spendy game for sure, I am really interested in how it will play. When Fantasy Flight talked about it, it looked really good, and I like the concepts behind it. I also like the artwork a lot, though I know some people don’t. And I like the app a lot, I am curious to see how much more it can bring to the game than the Journeys in Middle-Earth and Mansions of Madness app brings to that game.

Smash Up: Marvel

Now, I have previous owned Smash Up and I got rid of it. I love Marvel, so which will win out. I don’t have Marvel Splendor yet, even though that has a Marvel theme. I want to give this one a try though, because it’s not that I didn’t like Smash Up, it was just that Smash Up wasn’t that great a two player game which is what I was playing it at most. Maybe the Marvel theme will get me in.

Lost Ones

This is one that I had backed and then didn’t back on Kickstarter from Greenbrier Games. I think that this game looks really good, and I want to try it out, but the KS version that I would have gotten would basically have been the same as the retail version, or so it seemed, so it was one that I recommended but passed on. I do have a little concern about replayability, but the concept and world is so cool.

X-Men: Mutant Insurrection

Now, another Marvel themed game, and a game that I’ve kind of played before as it seems to have similarities to Elder Signs. I thought that the base Elder Signs was just fine, but I ended up selling it. This is one that again I’m curious about, but I’m a bit worried that if I get it, it might be lackluster. I’m hoping that this is something I can try before I’d buy it. And again, this isn’t because Elder Signs was bad, it was just that we’d played the base game a handful of times and seen what it had to offer.

Adventure Ink: Five Factions of Filigree

This was one that I heard about last year and it sounded cool. This game is a legacy game and it just seems cool. I like legacy games a lot, and I think that the mechanics all sound really interesting to me. It is a cooperative game as well, so you don’t need someone running the monsters or story, which is basically expected at this point. And it can be played as one off sessions as well, which is fun.

Hibachi

Another game that I backed and then did on Kickstarter, this one again added some but I don’t know that I needed more for this dexterity game. I love the theme of Hibachi with dexterity and the animal chefs are cute. I could see picking this one up and it being a hit for game nights for sure, but not one that I needed to grab off of Kickstarter.

The Libarians: Adventure Card Game

Another tough one for me, I played it at GenCon and I liked the game quite well. I thought it was a fun deck building, action point management game. I love the theme, but then on Kickstarter, I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I’m still not sure that it did enough that felt that cool to me, or that it looked good enough to really sell itself on the table, it’s a weird thing. But I kind of want to give it another go, because I did enjoy my playthrough.

Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road

I don’t know much about it, other than it keeps the same theme and similar style of artwork to Hanamikoji which I love. So I am hoping that this one is equally as brain burning, fast, and enjoyable. And it’s against about winning favor and influencing where the Geisha go by giving them gifts, to which restaurant, so I’m excited for it.

Unmatched Marvel

So a game that I haven’t owned before is getting a Marvel theme. I was interested in Unmatched before, mainly as a two player game of some head to head tactical combat, but while the boxes they’d put out sounded fun, they weren’t up my alley, Marvel, of course is, and I like that it’s not hte standard heroes, there are two of them announced and one is Hell’s Kitchen, which is a great theme and fun characters.

And that’s a lot of games that I’m interested in, a lot of them I really want to check out and I’m hoping if GenCon happens in 2021 in person that I’d have a chance to wander around, try out a bunch and see what they are like. There are definitely a lot of cool games, a lot from Kickstarter, that are coming out, and this is nothing compared to what will actually come out in 2021.

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