Spiel Essen Preview - Hottest Games to Look For!
/pic7794273.png)
/pic8512516.png)
Transcript
It is that time of year again.
What time?
Essen time.
Essen time.
Spiel.
Spiel at Essen is coming up at the end of October. We've barely had enough time to catch our breath since Gen Con.
That's true, but this is more my con. Spiel Essen is more of a
The games where I that I enjoy come out. I wish I was going this year.
to Essen?
I haven't.
You haven't been to Essen?
to go. So, we'll work that out.
a couple times now, I think. It's all getting very foggy.
Are you going, right?
be at Essen again this year, and there are a lot of games coming out. Some of which we've played. We're going to talk about a little bit about those today, but also some ones that we not only haven't played, but we know very little about.
are just like we've seen the back of the box, and that's about it. But, we're still excited.
we'll be showing you because that's all we have. Um but yeah, I'm going to start things off light.
Okay.
Uh and this is in no particular order, by the way.
Sure, just to set the
things that I'm very excited about, you've probably heard me talk about Collect here on the channel before. This is a little card game uh from CMON, and the expansion. And I buy expansion, I mean it's a lot of Essen Spiel uh games, little games, get these little booster pack expansions, like Far Away. Uh one of the co-designers of Collect, designer of Far Away. Uh and this one has two new animals for Collect. And the way it works, uh if I remember correctly, uh one of them is a peacock, by the way. And one of them is a praying mantis.
Okay.
And if you ever play Collect, there are different colored animals. Uh these, the way it works is you're going to take uh I don't know what the colors are, but you'll take this and you'll replace all of that color animal in the deck.
Okay, so you're basically choosing a set.
Yeah, you're choosing a set, I think. So, if they if this goes off to the races and they have expansion after expansion, you're going to basically have a bunch of green animals, a bunch of this animal, and you're going to use one of each of those color animals typically, but I'm looking forward to that. Uh and then likewise really quickly a Far Away expansion. This one's called Beyond the Veil, and it adds public objectives to the game. So, there's something else you can do while you're playing in order to achieve some points as well. Which I mean, Far Away. We like Far Away. I think both of us like Far Away.
Big fan of Far Away. I will buy everything ever that comes out for Far Away.
All right. Well,
I'm going to start with one that I have actually. Let's talk about a couple that we've played. Well, maybe let's start with some played ones. Cuz I want to talk about Oil Rock. This is coming from Cranio Creations. This is an interesting like worker placement game where you're placing these workers out on on this rotating set of gears and and the action alignments are changing. It's a game about producing oil. So, like on on paper it's pretty standard. You're driving a train around, you're drilling these oil wells, you're getting the oil, you're turning the oil into points and other things. But, where the game really shines and and why I'm recommending it for people to check out, uh two reasons. Number one, variable player powers. And the player powers are these books. They're like flip books. And as you progress through the game, you'll be able to hit these checkpoints, these progress points. You literally flip the book to the next page, you get more income the farther down in the book you go, and your variable variable player power part kicks in, but then starts leveling up and getting better.
By the time you get to the end of the book, you you're breaking the game. But, everybody's breaking the game.
I like the I haven't seen it. It's a cool little
We've played this a couple
I've played it three times now, and and the reason I played it three times and the reason why I wanted to play it three times is because I wanted to see how different the game was from play to play. And there are so [clears throat] many different strategies. There's all these cards that you're using to build combos, and those combos can combo well with your powers. I've seen situations where not even me, where I didn't win, but I had a player just create this crazy combo. Whenever he got cards, he was getting points and all this other stuff, and then really leaning into his power that let him get free It was it was crazy.
nothing else, the presentation of the little book sounds like a cool different way to evolve the character like that. That's cool.
When I and I wanted to I just wanted to cuz we're talking about games that we played. I Carl Linnaeus. I don't want to go too far in the video without mentioning this.
Yes. Carl von Linnaeus, we I've played this I don't know how many times now, probably three or four times. Uh loving it.
Yeah.
Uh definitely take a look for this. This is the second the sort of the follow-up game to Galileo Galilei, but it is a different game with some familiar elements that maybe feel like they've got a little bit of DNA going through them, but again, very different game. If you want to know all about it, we have a video already on the channel. Go watch that, come back, watch this, go back, watch that, watch them both five times if you will. Um but I think I mean, there's a lot of good games. I do feel like Carl von Linnaeus is going to be not only on our list, but I think it's going to be one of the hotter games
I think so.
and think Trubador is killing it.
They really are.
Yeah. They have so many good games for the last several years. Uh and this one is exactly that for this year.
All right, what else you got?
Uh the next one I wanted to talk about I This one I don't know much about.
Okay.
But I'm going to tease you before I tell you the name of it. Alexander Pfister.
Sure, that's all I need to hear.
Uh he's a co-designer on this one. I It's called at least I'm calling it 60 Below. And it does seem like most people are calling it 60 Below, but one of the reasons that this first caught my eye is as I was going through the BGG preview list, the box for this
Oh, the artwork, you mean?
The the
No, just the box.
The box. Not just the artwork. In fact, less than the artwork. There's no It's it's the artwork on the box and then it just says minus 60 degrees. It's it's it's not like 60 Below, sure, those words. It's minus 60 degrees, big numbers on the front almost like what you'd expect to see on a card that you were playing.
Sure.
Uh and no other title on it which really pulled me in. I was like, "This is very cool look."
This is interesting.
Very clean.
Uh and then I saw that it was also published by Netaox. I think I'm pronouncing their name correctly. These are the people who did Evenfall.
Oh, yeah. That was a hit with us.
I know it's a different designer, different game, but like I liked Evenfall quite a bit. Uh also side note, if I can find it at Essen, this is not an Essen release. So, I'm cheating a little bit.
There was an Evenfall expansion that I never got my hands on.
cuz it didn't come out in the States.
want to get my hands on it.
All right. I want to talk about We don't always talk about expansions. In fact, we try not to There's always great expansions coming out, but I do want to talk about one. And that's White Castle uh Boeki Boyoki. I don't know how to I don't know. Close.
It's another White Castle?
It's another White Castle expansion which we thought they were done after Matcha. Matcha fixed the game. I It took it from a nine to a 10 to me.
Okay.
So, this game I I've always liked White Castle.
How do you fix a nine? Make it a 10.
Matcha was great, but I was like, "They can be done." But this new one, I'm like, "Oh, okay." It introduces these gifts and you earn these gifts now by going up that passage of time track which is huge because for us White Castle fans that that's one area of the game that just doesn't feel great. You move up the passage of time track. You can If you're the highest on that track, you're first player. Beyond that, if you get all the way to the end, you can get some some point some points. It just It's like one of those actions you're like, "Well, I guess I'll move up the passage track. Whatever." But now, it's a new It's like an overlay that goes over that and there's some different ones and you'll get bonuses along the way, these gifts along the way. So, it's just It's giving you more reason to go up that passage of time track. It also adds a bunch of some other little stuff, some other little bonuses um that you can earn throughout the game and some new content just for White Castle, but I This is not the expansion maybe I wanted. I wanted the big box, but maybe now they'll be done. Maybe the next thing we'll get is a is a big box to hold it all.
I don't know if Devir will ever do a big box.
Who knows?
That's kind of their thing. They want to keep it in a small box. I will say White Castle does seem to be for Devir they're probably one of their biggest hits that they keep supporting with
It is. Yeah.
Sort of like after Red Cathedral and some of the Yeah. And then of course they've got their big box games too, but of their sort of like littler smaller boxes, White Castle has a lot of fans.
Well, Red Red Cathedral only got one expansion.
Yes, they only got one.
Can we stay with Devir for a second and talk about Gory too? Have you seen
Devir.
Gory yet?
I have seen it. It was at Gamma earlier this year just sitting out, but I didn't like I didn't get hands-on with
not got hands-on with it either.
But it's Danny Garcia, right?
Yeah, and it yes, and that's one of two Danny Garcia-list games I'm excited about on my list. But yeah, I think Gory it's a beautiful presentation, beautiful artwork. It's based on the historical figure. He was like an architect or city planner or something along that way.
yes to both.
Um but the game looks absolutely beautiful. Like go to I don't want to talk too much about it, but go take a look cuz we're definitely going to be covering that one on the channel here in a bit.
Yeah, another one I'm going to shift gears back to expansion land. I know Ryan expressed he said we don't I've already covered two.
Well, that's true. You did you did.
And now I've got another one.
do a lot of expansions.
expansion seemed very minor, but A it's adorable and B I love the game. This is Got 5 Ghosts.
do love that game.
Got 5 which we I don't even think we've covered Got 5 on the channel here.
I don't think we should.
if we get Ghost uh we'll we'll be sure to do a video for Got 5.
like it was last week, so I you know.
It does. Uh but Got 5 Ghost uh first of all Got 5 is a deduction game. You have numbers in front of you on these tiles that are like Azul's caliber tiles facing out, so you don't see the numbers. They're different colors and you're trying to deduce what your number sequence is from low to high. I don't know exactly how this works, but ghost expansion comes with these little like sort of like ghost sleeves.
Interesting.
That go over the two numbers on your ends. And I'm assuming during setup some other player puts them on and puts them there accordingly. But the ghost sleeves only face you. So everyone else can still see them, but you can't see them. What this effectively does is hide the color of those tiles from you. And if you've played the game, you'll know that it's not just the numbers, but the colors, the number ranges fall into the different colors. And not knowing those colors is going to add an extra layer of challenge.
that. It's going to make it a little harder.
And like I said, also adorable little ghost sleeve things. I I I don't know the production quality, but they look like nice little plastic things that fit over have these like cute little faces.
Can you still see the number?
They They can.
Okay. You can't see anything.
appears to be a sleeve that just looks like a ghost when you're looking at it. And when they look at it, it's going to be the same tile with a little edge around it or
That's pretty cool. Uh I will okay, I want to stick with the Danny Garcia cuz he I I just teased that he has another one coming out Diabolus, which looks super cool. Um this is another euro. I don't even know what the theme of this I look at the artwork. It's weird. It's It's spooky looking. It's right up my alley. Um but I knew I was going to get this one. Like if Danny Garcia is one of my favorite designers. He's in Barcelona if you know. He's done a bunch of games that I really loved. And basically anything that he does, I will try. So I put both I actually put both of his games. I thought about it. I was like, do I choose one? But I put both of his games on my list. Um I'm really excited for Diabolus as well.
Yeah. And comment below if you think Ryan is weird and spooky looking.
No. You Have you seen the cover for that? You should look at the cover. It's pretty cool.
Does it have kind of a like old school like devilish thing going on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like crazy people like dancing around fire and things like that. Yeah, yeah. It does look creepy and spooky.
components look all I everything about the game looks great.
Uh the next one we want to talk about and I when I say we I'm using it liberally cuz Ryan knows more about this than I do and I'm shocked that I didn't know about it. Medici? Am I pronouncing that correctly?
I assume. I've not heard it, but Medici, yeah.
It's a Feld.
It is a new Feld.
It's a new Feld and this one uh from the the appearance of it it looks like there's maybe some rondels involved. It's a big round board. At first glance, I thought, "Oh, this kind of reminds me of Merlin."
Sure.
I'm sure it's a very different game based on like just looking at the components, uh but I didn't look into it any further. I don't know that there's a rule book or anything like that at all.
book. I mean, I This is one from Pegasus This is from Pegasus Spiele and it is like kind of like a rondel. You're you're medics uh Medici moving around with the called barbers back in the day trying to basically improve your craft to become doctors or or whatever they called them back then. And it's like that rondel and there's like little branches off of it. There's like little paths that you're following and going on these journeys. But what strikes me the most and why I'm really excited about this is like I've come full circle. There was a time where like let's make our euros as as as overproduced and exciting like we took all the Feld games, we did the city collections and I loved all of them. But we've gone back to a Feld game that looks like it was made in like the early 2000s. Not a bad way. Just like it feels like it this you look at it and you're like, "How did I never hear of this one?" Oh, because it's actually brand new. But everything about it, the look of it, the feel of it, the gameplay feels like one of those traditional Feld
Classic Feld.
classic Feld game like he's back in that like I love Civolution. This is like the opposite end of the spectrum.
Yeah, this does look
from Civolution.
This looks to be I mean, from appearances looks more to be medium weight
It's medium weight and very beige which is I've I still love that.
beige though. Not terribly beige though. It had some modern design sensibilities for sure.
not bashing it in any way. I've actually I'm excited about the way it looks.
The next one I'm going to ask you again is North Green.
North Green.
And I will the only thing again I know about this one, it looks like there's a lot of different things going on. There's some worker placement, but it looked like there's a lot of various Euro-y mechanics involved, but it's from Oda.
Yeah.
And I think co-designed.
Yeah, co-designed. Yeah, but he usually does co-designs. But like like La Granja or Cooper Island, he's done a lot of great games and this one looks to be no exception to that. I mean it's about your your reforesting Iceland. Like you're you're coming into Iceland and and growing all this uh these trees, which I guess is based like a thing. I don't you know, I don't know much about
We're not smart here on NBA.
that's true. This but it seems like one of those games you'll learn a bit while you're playing. But I just think in classic Euro style there's a bunch of tracks to go up. There's a bunch of bonuses to get. There's uh you you have these really cool looking player boards.
Yeah, this is incredibly non-beige.
No, very green.
Very very colorful and also ironic cuz at least what I think of Iceland, I don't necessarily think of high color volume or high saturation colors. Um but again, I've never been to Iceland, so I could probably completely wrong. If you're from Iceland and you're watching our channel, first of all, thank you very much. But secondly, let us know in the comments below. You even if you could share some pictures that on our Discord, that would be great. I want to see.
He's another designer I'll back everything and the game looks good and it's gotten some good early buzz. But I want to stay on this theme of like really colorful games cuz I want to talk about this one cuz I'm actually really excited about this. This is um Ashes Blackout Protocol.
That's an interesting interesting name for a colorful game.
Uh Ashes Blackout Protocol. This is this That's true. It's the sequel to Phoenix New Horizon. And if you ever saw that, this maintains that bright, vibrant, neon look um but after the events of New Horizon, like that was like a you had your bunker or whatever.
follow-up.
It's a true follow-up. Actually, thematically, it kind of reminds me of like Revive versus Recall.
Mhm.
Uh you've got your station and you're still kind of making upgrades to your station, but you're also traveling out across the world map rescuing survivors and bringing people back into your Phoenix New Horizon station or whatever you want to call it.
Sure.
So, it is it's a thematic sequel, but it does look like a lot of the iconography, a lot of the graphic design, definitely the color, the components, everything maintains the same look and feel. So, it definitely feels like uh like a like you want to play them back-to-back, for sure.
yeah, yeah, exactly.
mean, they're not like it's not like a campaign thing, but it's just like thematically the story that happened in Phoenix New Horizon, that story, the world is being progressed farther. And I I dig that. I dig that idea of like returning to that same world in a different way.
Yeah, it's been interesting. There's been a number of publishers that have been doing more and more of that. I would say partially thanks to Garphill and what they've done over the years in terms of creating
big part of it.
their sort of like worlds in which they do trilogy games. I think it's smart. Uh particularly if you're putting out good games.
They have to be good.
That doesn't hurt.
helps.
If you put out three horrible games in a universe that's beautiful, maybe not so much. Uh speaking of beautiful and speaking of Revive and Recall, I wanted to bring up Time Span.
Oh, yeah.
Again, we haven't played it, although there are a lot of channels out there that have been able to get their hands on it. I think Rado even said it's like one of the best civilization games he's ever played.
Well, and there's it's a civilization game that plays in 90 minutes.
That's why he likes it.
That's a huge promise.
I might like it.
I think you might. And it's simultaneous play, too. Well, so I think that's something that you'll enjoy as well. So, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of downtime. The biggest problem with those civilization civilization games is that you can sit there for 30 minutes
per turn.
per turn before it gets back around to you. So, this promises simultaneous play in a 90-minute That was on my list, too. I did have another one uh near Echoes of Civilization, which is another civilization game coming out at Essen. Leans more into the big epic version of still not like, you know, a Twilight Imperium all day long game, but much bigger than but I think I think there's room for both of them. I'd like to give both of them a try and see how they play.
Yeah, and aside from the ones we've mentioned here today, there is a ton more and there's actually a whole category that we don't generally cover too much on this channel. I would say more in the far away category but like lighter games. Somewhere between far away and these heavy euros, say maybe more in the Veil of Eternity sort of weight. And I've seen some other previews that people have done where they focused on a lot of those and more and more of these days, those are my kind of games. So after Essen, not only will we probably cover some of the games that we've just talked about. But I think I want to do maybe a Essen recap where we focus a little bit more on those kind of games. I wanted the French games. I love a French design.
I do, too.
Um
I mean it's so far I have really enjoyed everything that's been coming out of those companies.
Yeah, do you have any more?
I have one more. I have Oh, then do yours first cuz mine's an honorable mention.
Really quickly, again from the same design team that does Collect, another one from CMON that I want to take a look at. And yes, I did work at CMON once upon a time and I had I know but I had knowledge of this so I'm particularly interested in it because of this. It's called I want to say it's called pronounced Atra, A T R A H. It's in beta right now on BGA. And I love the art. It has a artwork and a vibe similar to what's the video game where you're on the tugboat at night and Cthulhu's involved?
Oh, yeah, that fishing game.
Yes.
Yeah, I can't I'm not going to remember.
It's down here. This is why we have graphics like this one down at the bottom.
I keep thinking of the the board game but that wasn't actually based on that but it's inspired by that game. It wasn't
That same sort of vibe in terms of artwork, a little bit more cartoony. Um And and again, it's that kind of weight that I'm looking for to experience. So, I want to check that one out.
And I I mean, there's a I I I just want to say there was more that more that I was excited about that I could even talk about. There was a couple Shogunate looked really good. Chrono Critters looked really good. The Book Women, Province Scene, whatever. I could have made this video 20, 30 minutes long. Please don't.
No.
Uh but the last So, I do But I do want to give one shoutout. Uh Eternal Decks. They have finally done a full print and that will be available at Essen. Uh I We've been talking about Eternal Decks. People have been trying to get their hands on it. The price skyrocketed online. It's back. It's on sale at Essen. I think that's going to end up being a big hit. Even though it's technically already out.
But people are going to want to grab it.
I think a lot of people are going to grab it at at Essen. I think that's going to be a a big seller.
probably going to be one of them cuz
I think you'd really enjoy it.
never played it. I've been told by not just Ryan, but many people that I'd really enjoy it.
so.
So, I want to get a copy of Eternal Decks. Uh but that is our Essen Spiel preview. If you have any questions or if you have any lists or if you're like, "How did you not talk about this game?" or "Why are you talking about that game?" Get that in the comments below. Let us know what you think. Until next time, make sure everyone is front of the table and we'll see you then.