Most Anticipated Games for Essen 2024 and a Lookback at Essen 2023 Games

0:00 hello everyone and welcome back to the board gaming doctor my name is Phil and I'll be your board game doctor today in this episode I wanted to talk about the games that I'm most excited for this year at Essen but I also wanted to address real quick the games that I was most excited for last year to kind of follow up on what stood out to me and what didn't so these were nine of the games that I was most excited for last year some of them were on that list that are not pictured here were EXP iions like Arc NOA Marine worlds and Cascadia landmarks and it's so these are the Standalone games that I had talked about and it's really interesting to see what has stuck around in my mind and on my shelf compared to what hasn't I would say so first of all I have not played plantan nubo Shipyard or even fall yet these games were just have not come to my table and or for various reasons especially with palano being not available in the United States until this year so technically I guess this is a an asa2 2024 release that I'm excited for so as soon as I get a chance I'll definitely play this game but out of the others I have played um world wonders I have owned I am honestly looking to sell this game because it just hasn't lifted up to my expectations when it comes to replayability tangram City hasn't either I think tangram city has been pretty fun for a handful of plays I don't don't feel the necessity to come back to this

1:32 game but I do and I will keep it because a lot of people enjoy this game that I've shown it to it's a great game to pull out with casual gamers and it's a Rosenberg so I'm going to keep that these other games uh ancient knowledge and path of civilization are on board game arena so I've had the opportunity to play these a handful of times as well ancient knowledge I've gotten to about 10 plays and have felt content with that we'll see if the new expansion this year adds more variability to this game that would help me get back into it if necessary path of civilization in terms of complexity I feel like it's a little bit heavier than seven wonders and plays in a very similar fashion but uh with the same theme but enjoyment wise it's about the same for me I I would I would play either game you know with the same enjoyment level and so I wasn't too particularly fond of path of civilization being a game that I could return to over and over again per se so that leaves nucleum and evacuation I think evacuation still has the opportunity for me to be one of the sui games that is most preferable and most replayable in my opinion I think evacuation the card play and the just the tightness of of how this game plays is just really fascinating I wish I could play this more and same goes with nucleum I think it mixes a lot of the elements that I really enjoy of favorite games such as brass uh and others that make the this game really fun and the support that it's getting with

3:03 additional expansions uh during this year as well as an Essen I think this game has a lot of legs and a lot of people really enjoy it as well and hope that this and evacuation do get a digital implementation at some point so I can continue to follow through with the playing of those games so now let's hop over and look at I'm going to choose nine games that I'm really anticipating for ASD 2024 I suppose before we get into a huge list I do want to differentiate games from Uber Rosenberg that are coming out at essent time as this is a Rosenberg favored Channel at least as far as I'm concerned I do want to talk about these games black forest of course I I do have this pre-ordered so expect a review of this soon as soon as I get it uh tangr city is going to be there Clash of magical magic schools is going to be the redo of uh Babble and so that'll be an interesting two-player game to check out same goes with label Legends this is a re-implementation of clunker I covered this in the news from last month so couple of lighter games coming out a couple of remakes and speaking of which the new spared big box is now being shipped and so I'm hoping to get my pre-order pretty soon as well Patchwork 10th 10th anniversary uh year 10 year anniversary edition is coming out out and uh so that that should be fun to have as well some new artwork for a

4:34 classic game click atry uh this has been listed in the games of Rosenberg for a long time with no image and no additional information besides what is seen here looks like it's an abstract strategy game that in has animals and so it sounds like kind of like a cross between say a uh game like framework or Apple Jack but with animals so maybe like New York Zoo and uh it it looks like it incorporates G Ganan Farmers I I covered this a while ago actually and uh you know it's it sounds like it's the second game in the set of games that follow AWA in the Gan or African type of setting so it'll be interesting to see what this game is like it looks like it's going to be a lighter game as well similar in age range as say tangram City looks like so interesting to see this come out pretty soon as well and then finally Canal uh this is a really good game this is a rning bger canal for those who remember this being game founded or KCK started last year now syx is coming out with a retail version of this game it's looking super great uh when more information comes out I believe there might be a rule book on this as well it'll be interesting to see if there are any changes in addition to the artwork so that'll be fun to to have more available it's highly rated it should be in the hands of more people and I'm excited for this game to have more time to shine in

6:06 in the light of the greater board Gaming Community okay so now with all of the Rosenberg stuff out of the way let's talk about some other games I'm excited for okay so now that I've talked about all the Rosenberg games let's talk about the non Rosenberg games that I'm most excited for so some of these games have been announced and talked about since the uh genom since the last uh big convention that we've had and actually there's one more game that I wanted to add on to this which is the mistborn deck building game so I'm actually going to uh pull this up in real time here so the mbor deck building game I'm huge fan of Sanderson as many people are I suppose these days and I am just really looking forward to this one because it's a John declair game I've really enjoyed his games in the past missor is an IP that I would be very much into getting into and I'm familiar with and then finally it's a kind of a deck building game and so I it I've heard it be compared to a game similar to like start realms for up to four people essentially and so it'll be interesting to see how it plays if there's anything that it does uniquely because I I feel like John declair does a lot of things that are unique mechanically and so will it stand out from other deck building games kind of deck building battler games uh like Star Realms and and the like uh other than its IP we'll see but I definitely will want to be playing this

7:38 game so that that'll be left out uh temporarily from the the top nine here but back to this I've got some games that like I said have been talked about for a little bit The Lord of the Rings duel for Middle Earth the Seven Wonders duel sequel with the Lord of the Rings theme very much interested in this Beyond the Horizon it's the Standalone sequel to beyond the Sun looks really interesting as well and a theme that I'm more comfortable with I suppose cvoluion was actually a game that I talked about last year for the Essen uh list that I made and cvoluion Stefan Feld a game that takes all of his mechanisms and his approaches to games and puts a civilization themed um setting in in this game and so I'm really excited to see how this plays and of course raafa the new sui game it I'm hesitant to to say that I might enjoy this I from what I've been able to tell it seems like this is um more along the complexity lines is like uh Pulsar 2046 or whatever it is and the way that it looked on the table and the theme of it it it didn't quite grab my attention at first so we'll see if raafa I I probably will try this game at least once to see if it's good and then SE is the new cge game that what really stands out out to me is that it features like 200 cards in this game it's a hand management card playe type of game which I am totally into so I'm excited for this and that

9:09 might be very similar to a lot of these other games that are on my list that haven't received a lot of thumbs but I did want to mention real quick as well and bring to light so some of these are kind of like my Underdog or sleeper hits per se so the first one is sunavo this is a game by OD one of the designers for L granha and for plantan nubo and so it kind of takes the theme of plantan nubo and perhaps mechanically is more similar to a game like L granha where you have a lot of cards that you're playing out onto a farm it's more of a steam Puck Punk type of farm game in terms of setting and it it probably will be very similar to planton nubo and not just theme but in also gameplay as well so it'll be really interesting to see how this game would differ from plantan nubo Once I do get a chance to play that as well the next one is Al dawn of civilization uh it's got Palo Mory uh along for this game it is a civilization game looks like there is some deck building as well so it's a I I want to say this is very similar perhaps to Monumental which is a game that I've always been interested in playing but it's kind of a civilization themed deck building type of game as well and so it'll be interesting to see how this might differ from that and if it uh it it doesn't look it's like it's too difficult so perhaps it's more of a tapestry type of difficulty perhaps even lighter than that so yeah

10:39 alte is on my list as well to play and try and speaking of the designer of monumental Matthew Dunston I picked tree Society here not because uh I know a lot about this game it looks like it you know it's a Dunston and Gilbert game along the same lines as say like Village rail which I had a lot of hopes for when I played it didn't quite enjoy it as much but I still am a big fan of dunon and his games so I have faith and um excitement to try tree society when it comes out and so yeah we'll see what that is all about then finally biome is another sleeper hit that has a lot of high ratings as well leeny grundler I don't know this designer but it looks like this game also features hand management and card playing and I mean it's it's got a lot of things that I enjoy in games so simultaneous play drawing cards collecting resources playing plants and animals into your biome in the form of cards and then you're scoring points and so that sentence alone drew me into this game but I also really enjoy sentences like this right so you play your birds and rabbits next to plants so in Spring they will make uh nests to have chicks and baby bunnies so it seems like there is a more thematic approach to how you might play this game so there might be spatial reasoning as well as uh order of operations Etc that will make this game feel thematic very similar to games like

12:10 in my opinion Arc NOA and the at least the text boxes of the cards and wingspan I feel like there is as much of a thematic approach and integration to those components and rules um when it comes to it you know putting together a mechanically sound game you know abstractions need to take place at times as well but it seems like this game is going to have that similar approach and so I'm hoping this lives up to the same expectations that perhaps it's setting to be in the same conversation as games like potentially like wingspan and the like and so yep really excited to see if this game comes to fruition and if I have a chance to play it so those are 10 games if you include the Mis born game uh so 10 games then I am excited for Essen this year 2024 let me know if any of these games sound exciting to you oh I guess it's 10 plus games including all the Rosenberg games it's a big year for Rosenberg so but yeah let me know if you're excited for any Rosenberg games or any of these games or if there are any games that I did not mention here I I had like 70 plus games on my list and I Whitted it down to these 10 cuz I wanted to choose the games that I knew that I would be most likely excited for and willing to play Within A year's time or so if these are made readily available for me to play let me know what your thoughts and once again thank you for Consulting with me today hope you schedule an appointment with your board gaming doctor soon take care