Yet another Spiel/Essen report
Christopher Dearlove
It's also not completely independent of Richard Dewsbery's experiences
as we played most of the same games. However I've deliberately not
read his article before putting these comments together. As I don't
take notes these are from memory alone. I'm sticking to comments on
games, since whilst meeting people (old and new) is part of the point
of a trip, I don't think that other people are going to be interested
in that I met X for the first time, or Y again. (In addition the
evening meal gossip can be strictly off the record.) I will just say
that this year's organisation of who was in which hall was definitely
poorer than usual.
Games in alphabetical order of name. I'm considering new to me games,
so some Nuremberg releases are included without differentiating them.
(Of course the best game I've seen this year, Puerto Rico, was old
by now.) A few publishers have been taken from Brett'n'Board rather
than my memory.
Abenteuer Menshheit [Kosmos]. The new Siedler variant. Did I play
it? No (it's a bit difficult getting a table at the Kosmos stand
- and we spent our one success time on Nautilus as that was a
maybe before playing - see below for after). Did I buy it? Silly
question. (Yes, if not obvious.)
Ad Acta [BeWitched?]. A widely well received game at the show
- except by yours truly who is the contrarian on this one. No,
it's not bad, but I don't rate it anything like as high as others.
It has interaction limitations (indirect again) and component
problems (paperclips will damage cards) but most significantly
too much chaos - in the sense of large changes in score can be
made by arbitrary decisions of others which you can't plan for.
(Yes, I know people do this deliberately - and good for them
- but it goes further than that.) Not a buy (although I wouldn't
refuse to play it).
Age of Steam [Warfrog/Winsome]. A buy before play, and still haven't.
Seems to have been one of the best received games of the show, so
I have high hopes.
Bang! [Da Vinci]. Spaghetti western (English and Italian cards)
with a Werewolf-like principle, but card mechanics for elimination.
Hoping it'll fit that late night at a convention slot. (Alternatively
Werewolf itself might do - but I need to find, or make, a translation
of the special cards in the commercial version I also bought. Any
pointers?)
Bayon [Adlung]. Played one evening. OK, but not going to set the
world alight, and lacking enough interaction. Gave this one a miss.
(Adventuring theme, matching your prospectors' characteristics with
destinations. Strategy is straightforward - get adventurers, go for
small adventure to fund large one. Don't take risks. Quite a lot
of turns are pass - take 5 cash which isn't that exciting.)
Cannes [Splotter]. Billed as "Road and Boats light". Now R&B is a
game I've been tempted by, but resisted due to price, weight and
sanity (I know I'd not play it due to time) so this was a buy.
No play yet, but the comment I've heard that the theme isn't a
great fit to the game I can believe looking at it. Try later.
Carcassonne Jaeger und Sammler [Hans im Glueck]. Can't add to the
comments on this as bought before trying. Unfortunately only found
the Rio Grande version much later (on one stand only) at the same
headline price so will have to work out rules later.
Clans [Winning Moves]. One of the at least two "oops, we didn't
get this finished by the show" games. The final version was there
to play however. Now the game I played in took fifteen minutes
(two of us and a very good WM demonstrator) and on that basis a
solid buy - if I could. Another group I met said they took three
times as long to play and thought it too slow (as would I). The
basic concept is scattered huts (one per space) of players
colours - except only you know which colour you are. A move is of
a group of huts into an occupied neighbouring space, making a bigger
group. An isolated group scores, basically for colours present,
but there are small player (not colour) bonuses available based
on region type, which change over the game. The game ends before
all grouping has finished, so you can't just wait it out. (There
are of course one or two special cases relating to large groups.)
Fette Autos [Erlkoenig]. This motor racing game has the position
only matters feature of Formula Motor Racing, but with cards
which give you control more of the level of Formel Fun. The road
ahead is marked by random cards (but which you see in time to plan
ahead) with need to speed up and slow down. The latter can be
accomplished by overtaking - and the players start at the back of
the grid, with "Old Pros" at the front (but who are more easily
overtaken). Based on a short game definitely prospects, so a
buy.
Fische Fluppen Friskadellen [2F of course]. Not played this one
(too much competition) but it had a universally (as far as I could
tell) positive press - and distinct envy from other designers.
I had a couple of minutes run down of the rules, which involve
moving round the board trading for needed items. And now the
USP. With one copy of the game you can play up to five players.
With two copies you can play up to ten, half starting on each
board, but needing to transfer between boards (at the port) at
times as needed items are not all on one board. With three copies
you can play up to fifteen players. (Copies were A, B and C
labelled with different playing piece shapes.) A three board
games was played at the hotel I was at, but not including me.
I decided to buy an A and a B (fits the sizes of group I play
most often with) and pretend I never knew there was a C.
Goldland [Gold Sieber]. Played, quite enjoyed (despite making a
complete pig's ear of it) and bought. Basically this is an explore
the map, finding the key tiles, with a trading with the board
mechanism (actually most trading allows you to keep the "before"
item as well as gaining the "after" item - why isn't real life
like this?!). There's a very strong incentive to make it to the
far corner of the board. Now this game could suffer from the
usual problem of exploration games - everyone goes off and does
their own thing, without interaction - see Nautilus below. It
seemed to escape it, even - or is that especially? - with five
players, but it could turn out to be a problem. The interaction
mechanism is partly that movement is high enough - or can be -
to exploit other's discoveries, and partly in that the special
tiles are "adventures" which can be claimed, and repeated, and
the player who does each adventure the most gets a significant
bonus for it.
Hive [Company name not clear]. OK, I'm cheating here, this
game wasn't new to me. I thought I'd throw in my two (Euro)
cents to add to the positive comments on it however - and
I persuaded myself to buy a copy. (main argument against
were when would I play it, still not answered.)
Keythedral [R&D]. Richard Breese makes a limited run (up to 600
I see) of numbered copies and sells out so fast you want to
reserve beforehand. Looking at my copy after purchase there's
a fantastic level of detail in it - each players 10 discs have
a picture of a worker on it. OK, so what you say. The 51 discs
(there's a multicoloured spare) appear to have 51 different
pictures (no I haven't checked them all, but found enough
unique ones to extrapolate) and jolly good pictures too. It
even uses the turned in box edges for information (hints).
You can see why the games are collected - but I believe he'd
rather it was played, and I plan to.
LadyBohn [Lookout]. The usual micro expansion. The collector
gene causes a buy, although I still haven't used any of my
Bohnanza expansions after the first.
Lord of the Rings - The Duel [Kosmos]. Looks quite good (if
over-engineered) but the special cards had too much German
for the time available (I watched rather than played a game).
Hoping Rio Grande will pick this one up.
Mare Nostrum [Eurogames]. A no show (see also Clans) and the
most disappointing one based on rumours. Not to play either.
We shall see another year (I hope).
Moderne Zeiten [Jumbo]. Played this one to the finish and liked it
well enough to buy, although I suspect it won't fully live up to
some expectations. There seems to have been a glut of (well, at least
two) rules errors, but I believe our group had the rules explained
correctly. Basically as you move down the path putting shares into
play and taking control markers (on a "never go backwards" system)
eventually a crash happens when too many shares are in play. When
this occurs some controlling shares are lost - but not all. Basically
(as we had it explained, and I believe is correct) it's just those
groups of shares equal to the single largest shareholding by any
player in any one company. The point of the game incidentally is
to end up with best placed control markers (considering rows and
columns of the grid in the game centre of company and the city
on the control marker - cities not all being equal) and most
shares in a company (surviving the multiple crashes which may
occur). Definitely one to play at a reasonable speed.
Nautilus [Kosmos]. Great components, but a central board construction
play that seems OK only, and outer board exploration with interaction
only via seizing items under other's noses. Likely to take 90 minutes
plus and not worth that time. Not a buy. Incidentally the only German
in the components is the rules summary, so if I had bought a copy it
wouldn't have been the much higher priced Mayfair version.
Pueblo [Ravensburger]. How does a game from one of the big publishers,
which isn't even SdJ shortlisted, sell out at Essen? Don't know, but
it did. Nearly missed it on that account, but someone snagged one of
the few resupplies early on Saturday for me. Played since, and it's
a nice new multiplayer abstract (very thin theme). Basically you're
playing solid pieces, some of your colour, some neutral, on a board
three dimensionally. The idea is to hide your pieces from all angles
(including above) behind other people's and neutral pieces. The
pieces are all one of the two asymmetric pieces constructed
(conceptually) from four cubes (corner to corner placement), i.e.
one of the two asymmetric pieces in a Soma cube.
Scarab [Silberberg]. Doesn't work with more than two players. Boring
(analysis paralysis with no redeeming features) with two. Avoid.
Trans America [Winning Moves]. This was new to me, so I'll list it
here, but assume everyone's familiar with it. (If not our demonstrator
- see Clans above, noted she played it a lot on BrettSpielWelt - and
promptly demonstrated this.) I liked it, at least with three played
promptly, a solid buy.
Trias [Gecko, on the Doris and Frank stand]. Played this one one
evening. Ignore the theme (pre-dinosaur continental breakup) it's a
pure abstract game. Not bad, but I doubted it'd get enough play, and
once you've worked out what to do it plays on the same way for a bit
too long.
VOC [Splotter]. Now this takes the prize for the strangest mechanic
for some time. The theme is Dutch East Indies. You need to get goods
to ports sufficiently rapidly to fulfil contracts, one year per turn.
So how do you do it? You have a write-on/wipe-off map of the area
(at least two, the worst is what's now the Indonesian archipelago)
and you mark your way in by erasable pen. Blind. Your co-investors
are allowed to prompt you, one word per investment. (I forgot to
ask if polysyllabic German compound words were allowed.) You can
take it slowly and maybe safely, or not. There's a penalty for
going aground of course. Now this was, I'm afraid, the deal breaker.
I can imagine using this mechanism in some game - but if this is
the game I want on this subject, this is not the mechanism I want
in it. Left on the shelf I'm afraid.
ZooSim [Cwali]. A bought then played game. Now I'll be the contrarian
on this one the other way (see Ad Acta above). The general consensus
was that this suffered from "get ahead, stay ahead". I think this
was largely due to too cheap purchases. Basically in each of five
turns five zoo tiles are auctioned off. Each is later worth one
income in later turns. Thus a first round tile is worth four income
later. With eight starting cash it's essential to make the player
(assuming four of you) who buys two to spend all eight. We didn't
and then it is a killer. The tiles are incidentally not just worth
cash, they are how you score points for the animals on them (which
you want to play to group together) the trees (are good) and the
paths (which limit placement - but a loop adds a visitor, and
visitors are points. Replay needed.
Other games bought but not played, but not felt worth commenting on
above: Three Michael Schacht [Timbuktu] games Crazy Race/Mogul/
Station Manager, Wildlife (Clementoni) and some small card games
(didn't buy any of Adlung's this year).
Overall I think everyone seemed to say the show was full of "good
but not great" games, and that seems a reasonable summary.
--
Christopher Dearlove
EYE of NiGHT
<ch...@mnemosyne.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Just for background this was about my seventh or eighth Essen trip.
snip
No Yet another about it Chrsitopher. I didn't go this year and this is
very interesting for me. Keep those reports coming.
I'm curious at reading Bruno Faidutti's report (clearly from an
isider/indusrty side) that he thought the market depressed, low
prices, possible reduction of publishers. Did the players visiting the
show feel it was depressed, less visitors, lower prices?
++++++++
Ignorance is the womb of monsters - Henry ward Beecher.
Don't be ignorant - Visit Tragsnart!
www.tragsnart.co.uk
Christopher Dearlove
<eyeof...@tragsnart.co.uk> writes
>Did the players visiting the
>show feel it was depressed, less visitors, lower prices?
There were certainly evening discussions about depression, but
this will always take longer to appear to the general public.
(In this context would class myself as a member of the general
public with a very few additional pieces of minor information.)
Visitors seemed about the same as usual, but not up. (I judge
visitors by press of crowd, and that was complicated by the
different arrangement of halls.) No doubt figures will become
available and an objective measure will be available here.
Prices were, I think, definitely not down significantly.
(There is a false effect of the DM-Euro change which "halved"
prices and was occasionally misleading - fortunately not long
enough to have made any false purchases on those grounds.)
The exception is of course discontinued and effectively
dumped games (best deal there might have been Mississippi
Queen + Black Rose for 10 Euros) but this happens every
year and I don't think it was any more pronounced. Ave
Caesar has reached 75 Euros if you want another benchmark.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
Dearlove <ch...@mnemosyne.demon.co.uk> writes
>Just for background this was about my seventh or eighth Essen trip.
Eighth in fact. And the embarrassing thing is that I confirmed this
by checking release dates of Magic the Gathering expansions
(Homelands to be precise).
--
Christopher Dearlove
Richard Dewsbery
> well enough to buy, although I suspect it won't fully live up to
> some expectations. There seems to have been a glut of (well, at least
> two) rules errors, but I believe our group had the rules explained
> correctly. Basically as you move down the path putting shares into
> play and taking control markers (on a "never go backwards" system)
> eventually a crash happens when too many shares are in play. When
> this occurs some controlling shares are lost - but not all. Basically
> (as we had it explained, and I believe is correct) it's just those
> groups of shares equal to the single largest shareholding by any
> player in any one company. The point of the game incidentally is
> to end up with best placed control markers (considering rows and
> columns of the grid in the game centre of company and the city
> on the control marker - cities not all being equal) and most
> shares in a company (surviving the multiple crashes which may
> occur). Definitely one to play at a reasonable speed.
I think we were taught the wrong rules, but the mistake may be better than
the rules as published. Certainly I playted it tonight, and hated it -
there was a huge runaway leader, who won by doing very little and avoiding
the crashes.
The published rules (according to Pitt's translation and my rudimentary
German) is that when a crash occurs, ALL the shares in the most numerous
company (or companies) are discarded - whereas we were taught that it was
only the largest shareholding.
I'll have to try it again the "proper" way soon.
Richard
Christopher Dearlove
wsbery.freeserve.co.uk> writes
>The published rules (according to Pitt's translation and my rudimentary
>German)
and mine also, having just checked it out
>is that when a crash occurs, ALL the shares in the most numerous
>company (or companies) are discarded - whereas we were taught that it was
>only the largest shareholding.
which might possibly be in a different company (it was the largest
shareholding, not the largest shareholding in the largest company
that we were taught)
However what I referred to was a yet different wrong rule taught to
another group.
Aaagh!
(This seems to happen too often. Last year it was Zaubercocktail
where a misinterpretation appeared to improve the game.)
--
Christopher Dearlove
Mik Svellov
"Christopher Dearlove"
> Pueblo [Ravensburger]. How does a game from one of the big publishers,
> which isn't even SdJ shortlisted, sell out at Essen? Don't know, but it
did.
The reason was something like a 50% reduction of the retail price.
Mik
Christopher Dearlove
<brett...@get2net.dk> writes
I got my copy for 30 Euros; I had missed picking up a copy earlier for
25 Euros. Are you saying the retail price is/was 50+ Euros? If so, ouch.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Todd Derscheid
"Christopher Dearlove" <ch...@mnemosyne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ka+MFKAp$+u9Ew4$@mnemosyne.demon.co.uk...
Yep, that's embarrassing. Still, Essen vs. Homelands? That's no contest...
Essen, hands down.
gschloesser1
> I'm curious at reading Bruno Faidutti's report (clearly from an
> isider/indusrty side) that he thought the market depressed, low
> prices, possible reduction of publishers. Did the players visiting the
> show feel it was depressed, less visitors, lower prices?
No question that many manufacturers were clearing out their games with some
very good prices. Some examples that I recall:
Union Pacific for 10 Euros
Atlantic Star for 6 Euros
The Blue Canal for 6 Euros
Carcassonne for 10 Euros
Zirkus Flocati, Power Play & Robin Hood for 2 Euros each
There were tons more, too. Several notable designers were also mentioning
that there was a clear trend towards more family oriented games and away
from the deeper-level strategy games. I found this disturbing personally,
but can understand it as a business decision if they view the family market
as more lucrative. Still, I hope there is always room for a company such as
Alea, which tends to specialize in deeper strategy games.
---
Greg J. Schloesser
The Westbank Gamers: http://www.westbankgamers.com
Richard Dewsbery
> > isider/indusrty side) that he thought the market depressed, low
> > prices, possible reduction of publishers. Did the players visiting the
> > show feel it was depressed, less visitors, lower prices?
>
> No question that many manufacturers were clearing out their games with
some
> very good prices. Some examples that I recall:
>
> Union Pacific for 10 Euros
> Atlantic Star for 6 Euros
> The Blue Canal for 6 Euros
> Carcassonne for 10 Euros
> Zirkus Flocati, Power Play & Robin Hood for 2 Euros each
This happens most years - I recall in 1998 El Grande selling for something
like 20DM (10E) - and this was only 18 months after its SdJ win. Some games
sell in reasonable quantities for several years; for others, sales fall away
rapidly, leading to it's going out of print and stock being discounted.
Overall I didn't think that there were more bargains this year than in
previous years. Prices from the big retailers seemed pretty much on a par
with the usual levels, although I felt that the change to Euros had lead to
rises in some prices.
Visitor level seemed higher on Thursday and Friday than last year, based on
a vague feeling about the number of folks moving around the show.
Richard
Stefanie Kethers
> >"Christopher Dearlove"
> >> Pueblo [Ravensburger]. How does a game from one of the big publishers,
> >> which isn't even SdJ shortlisted, sell out at Essen? Don't know, but it
> >did.
> >
> >The reason was something like a 50% reduction of the retail price.
>
> I got my copy for 30 Euros; I had missed picking up a copy earlier for
> 25 Euros. Are you saying the retail price is/was 50+ Euros? If so, ouch.
No, the RRP is 35 Euros, at least that's the figure we have in Luding.
Cheers,
Stefanie
--
Stefanie Kethers, Luding Administration
http://luding.org
stef...@luding.org
Richard Dewsbery
> >
> > I got my copy for 30 Euros; I had missed picking up a copy earlier for
> > 25 Euros. Are you saying the retail price is/was 50+ Euros? If so, ouch.
>
> No, the RRP is 35 Euros, at least that's the figure we have in Luding.
Then the savings to be had on Pueblo pretty much match the savings on every
other recent big game at Essen - most of them could be found in German
retail stores for about 5 Euros more than the show prices. So we come back
to the question - how come everyone sold out? The game is good, but not
great; I didn't see it fly off the shelves in huge quantities; rather it
seemed to be a case of no resupplies available from the
wholesalers/publisher.
Richard
Mik Svellov
"Christopher Dearlove" on Pueblo:
> I got my copy for 30 Euros; I had missed picking up a copy earlier for
> 25 Euros. Are you saying the retail price is/was 50+ Euros? If so, ouch.
20 Euro per box. Same place as where they sold Union Pacific for 10 Euro.
Mik
Christopher Dearlove
<brett...@get2net.dk> writes
>20 Euro per box. Same place as where they sold Union Pacific for 10 Euro.
Missed even seeing that one (the Pueblos that is). But then the 25 and
30 Euro places sold out too. Maybe the 20 Euro price selling out
triggered a run on the game. Coming shortly, the Pueblo Bubble burst.
--
Christopher Dearlove