People's Choice Most Wanted Games Essen 2026
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Transcript
It's time for another people's choice. This is what is decided by you. What are you interested in and of course we have Essen Spiel the biggest gaming convention here it is in in Essen. They're interested in Essen. Okay, and what games are going to be coming out? So this is going to be the list of the 10 games that y'all are the most interested in.
What's up everybody? My name is Nick.
I'm Mike.
We are the brothers Murph and that's right we're talking people's choice again these are things that you have chosen and we did a Gen Con preview list but the Essen Spiel fair preview list is out and has been out.
But this will be the last people's choice before Essen.
Which I believe is in like August 20 August October 22nd I think right?
22nd through 25th this year yeah.
So the next people's choice will probably be after that and so we wanted to do the preview list and so if you go to the Essen or Gen Con or PAX Unplugged or Origins whatever they are preview list you can sort by things like publisher you can sort by various things but one thing you can sort by is by thumbs up which is what people are hot thinking is hot.
What are people indicating as being interested in? So interested in demoing it buying it if it's available. These are the ones that are kind of making the big splash. So we are going off of that today. Of course you know if you're going to Essen or interested in it there's still another month almost before the convention. So of course you can check out the Essen preview. It's just really cool to get an idea of like kind of what's coming out and stuff and you can thumb up things to kind of show your interest in it as well. So as always it's fun with these people choices if we did this right at Essen this list might very well be different. But this is how it is near the end of September at this moment. This is what the list is of things that people are the most excited for.
Number 10 with 596 thumbs for this for the thumbs that I've listened for me here is going to be Lost Ruins of Arnak Surprise Shipment. So this was a surprise thing they brought to Gen Con.
It's kind of a cheeky thing to call it a surprise shipment because I think after they did the big box, people kind of assumed that Arnak was done.
it was done, yeah.
The surprise shipment is truly the final bit of content for the Lost Ruins of Arnak. This has I think 30 new artifact cards, 20 items, a couple new dig sites, and a revised dig site. So just a little bit more content for the game. This is perfect for people who have you know been fans and following along and collecting all the stuff for the Lost Ruins of Arnak over the last many years now. And this is again so they say the final bit of content for the game.
think it is considering that my guess is if they did anything else for this it would be a different version of the game. Either like a simpler version or whatever. That's my guess if they continued it it would not be through this.
I just love the idea of surprise shipment they're saying ah there's one more thing you know and so it's just like ah that's great.
That's great.
Yeah Lost Ruins of Arnak is great it's a great worker placement and deck building game where you're kind of exploring deeper and deeper deeper into the jungle going up and finding these like temples and these various dig sites so you're kind of like archaeologist to some degree and yeah and you're mostly what you're doing is you're getting artifacts and getting items and stuff you're basically trying to combo your turns as much as possible to kind of try and keep you in the round as long as possible. You're bumping up this research track. As we talked about they've supported this game a lot. There are how many boards for this game? Six?
A whole bunch of research tracks.
There's like player powers now. That's it's up there you can't see it but there's a whole bunch of stuff for it. It's really really fun. Seems like this is the last of it which is a bit of a bummer but also exciting that they supported it for as long as they did. Speaking of CG, Mikey, Drillers has 630 thumbs.
I'm honestly surprised this isn't higher.
I I thought the same thing. I was like, I know this was technically a Gen Con release.
Sure, but I think it's you know, they had a limited seemingly print run for that start and then
I really want to play Drillers, so that
Banana Pants at Essen as well. This is Drillers. There is a Game Night episode, by the way, so if you want to check out this game for yourself, uh check it right here on on Board Game Geek. You should. Uh it's a really good play through. So, this is a game where yeah, you're deck building and you are are sending these kind of drill mechs uh down into this mine shaft, extracting resources, shipping them back up to the surface and kind of selling them on. Uh and you're trying to, you know, some of the some of the CG does a lot. You're you're trying to a kind of get as much out of each like round as you can. In this game, basically, that means trying to stay underground with your mech for as long as you can because there is the ability to play cards and stuff and send certain things that you are
Something like drones back and something like that.
Yeah, mining up, but eventually you're going to kind of run out of fuel, run out of cards and things like that, need to surface, kind of unload everything that you've got, and then head back down. But, that takes time and energy to to do. So, the idea of kind of like trying to play cards and do things to just stay down uh in the mines. You yearn for the mines.
As as all the children do, yes.
As you do. Yeah, and there's kind of like a shared infrastructure here where as you go further and kind of dig out uh you know, new parts of the mine and stuff, everyone is given access, you know, to that, supposing that they can get down there and reach it and stuff like that. So, yeah. Just seems like cool art, kind of a fun world, uh you know, with these like mechs and stuff, and uh and cool card play to boot. So, yeah, this is one that like
Anytime CG comes out
sold out right now. Um at least at least here in the US, and so I'm really excited for the reprint, which I'm guessing will happen around Essen time, uh cuz we'll be buying it the second weekend.
I'm sure they're printing them as fast as they can.
Next up with 634 thumbs will be Night at the Zoo.
Yeah.
Yes, this is by Albi. Over here is by Capstone. Or if Capstone was brought over here, but yeah, it's over in Essen. And so, Night at the Zoo is really, really fun. This is by Thomas Hollick, who made Settlers of Catan, and was a lead writer on Gilmore Girls. A lot of people don't know that. But, um Yeah, it's true.
No, god, no.
Oh, really? I don't know if you had me there.
That's such a strange pull. It's like,
We can't send the Gilmore Girl fan base to Thomas Hollick, you know?
That's That's so huge, you know? It's too much.
But, nonetheless, made Settlers very, very popular game. Love, love, love Settlers. And Night at the Zoo is really, really fun. We had a chance to play this one. Um It's an interesting game where you are um it's the end of night, basically, and you're a bunch of You're basically trying to get a bunch of animals back to the zoo. They've all been
They've gone walkabout in the night.
out. They're all smoking, you know, and stuff. They're out gambling, probably.
Going to going to night dances and stuff, whatever these animals get up to.
And they're basically trying to get back into the zoo before morning time. And so, there's a You'll play with essentially three different animals each game. And each of the animals basically moves in a different way. Have a different kind of little gimmick to them. Yeah, so like some will move in a very straight line until they stop, and that's how they move around the board. The sloths will like move and then go to sleep. And they have to spend a whole other movement to like wake them up, and then they can move again, and then fall back asleep.
I love that.
a lot of points if you can get them back. There's all these kind of animals that basically score differently, and also move differently. And you're kind of trying to manage all of them through essentially tile drafting.
Yeah, you're drafting tiles each turn that you'll put out onto your board, and kind of fill in, you know, your board with different types of terrain. Or you can discard what you draft. And there's kind of three colors of of terrain type. So, say I'm doing the green. If I discard green, all of my animals that are currently on that terrain type can move.
Yeah.
So, you're kind of if you're familiar with like Karuba almost, you're kind of building the infrastructure of tiles so that your people can move and then also discarding those same tiles to move in your in this case the different animals to the center of the board where the zoo entrance is.
So, there's that kind of fun intrigue of like, "Oh, do I want this tile for uh lot tiles have like bonus actions on them. It's like, "Oh, if I play this tile here, I get this bonus action, but I really need to move all these creatures." You're trying to move them efficiently so that they end up on the same terrain type so that when you go to discard some, you move a bunch of them at once.
to mention really fun puzzle.
At the end of the round, there's always going to be one tile left over and everyone gets to move their animals on that tile. So, you're also like, "Oh, I need to leave these on red cuz they'll move automatically."
Like at the end of the round, whatever color is the most prominent
will get a bonus movement. So, you're like also drafting with that in mind and everything.
[clears throat]
interesting while being fairly light.
Yeah. Um but
highly puzzle.
Yeah, there's already a little expansion which just gives more animals. So, now there's like eight or 10 or something like that that you can choose from. It's a real I really like um Knight of the Zoo a lot.
Yeah.
Next up with 645 thumbs is Gaudi. Gaudi.
Which is by De Vere and Danny Garcia who makes a lot of really great games and God, it's got such a beautiful cover.
Yes.
It's about uh Antoni Gaudi uh who was a you know, architect and artist and stuff and and Catalan. Uh
Uh Danny Garcia also did Barcelona
I think he's from Spain, isn't he?
Yes.
Yes.
the Gaudi track. So, this is kind of about the life works uh and art and stuff of uh Gaudi and so, you are kind of balancing I love games that do this. There's basically three arenas that that dominated Gaudi's life. There was nature uh oh gosh, what art and religion essentially.
And cricket. Love cricket. And you were going to score each of these different kind of, you know, these tent poles of of Gaudi's life, but you only score your lowest two. So, you have to go with a balanced approach. Uh and and they have different ways they score. One of them, the nature ones are like these cards that you'll play down. Uh one of them will be sort of like at the end of every round it will trigger and then the religion I think is sort of like mostly going to be at the end of the game. And you're you're kind of going around this um I think chandelier that'll be different actions and the the round will end once everyone makes their full way around. So, how far forward you jump to get to certain actions and things will be something you uh you know, need to uh consider. Uh there's also I gosh, I think the word in Spanish is uh trencadis tiles. Basically kind of like these little mosaic which is like
[clears throat]
it means like like many broken pieces and stuff. You're kind of putting that on your player board and filling it out. So, there's also kind of like a fun you're sort of making art as you go uh quality to it and stuff. So, yeah, super cool. Um I love an art kind of theme and everything and one celebrating an artist it just seems like really interesting and and kind of right up the Veer's alley and of course right up Danny Garcia's alley uh cuz this is an area that he's now made multiple games in.
Next up with 740 thumbs is Entropy which I feel like we have talked about in so many BGG videos because it's been in the hotness for months now.
Yeah, I mean when they first kind of like announced they were doing it, had the cover and everything and the you know, designers behind it and everything it was just something that's going to make a splash. People are going to be interested in it. This was the I think the the most kind of thumbed up game on the Gen Con preview.
yes.
Uh they uh Board & Dice who makes this sold out of all of their copies of Entropy and Maestro at Gen Con in the first 2 hours of the entire convention. They were like basically sold out of everything they have. Uh which I guess is a great problem to have.
I I can only imagine they're bringing
the rest of the weekend off. You're good.
I can only imagine they're going to be bringing a lot to Essen.
Yeah. Uh yeah, I would think so.
Don't quote us. We don't know for sure, but I would just assume.
typically has a large presence at Essen uh being a European company and everything. Uh in this game you are essentially like building solar systems. You are are creating new solar systems with stars. You're upgrading those stars. You are uh aggregating planets. You're basically getting mass and building planets. You are uh playing these life cards to plants. There's uh bacteria, plant life, and animal life is kind of the most simple to the most advanced.
There's biomes and stuff. You're just kind of building this like super engine and all of these various pieces can feed into the scoring of of a biome that you have or you know, you have these focus cards and stuff. So, you're just trying to get like all these things built out and then turn it into things that are generating points.
Yeah.
Uh and so yeah, I feel like this is a very sandboxy game where you can sort of go a million different directions. It's got this cool rondel system for your actions where you're encouraged to be moving quickly around because for the main actions of the game you have to drop off these like these little tokens and you can't take that main action till you get that token back.
Which you do by passing it again.
Yeah, so you have to basically make a full rotation, but if you go slowly and you move slowly, you get all these extra bonuses. So, you're like always pulled and like I really want these bonuses, but I I need these pieces back. It creates a whole lot of stuff. Uh so, Entrophy is one that's really colorful and fun
Yeah.
uh in terms of its art and everything. And yeah, I I'm not surprised it's basically been in the hotness
Yeah.
uh in the discussion all year. Um and I I imagine that we'll see that right to the end of the year with with uh Entrophy being in people's minds.
Next up is another CGE game. It's going to be Kingdom Come Deliverance the board game. This is by CGE and Vlad is going to make a return to a design. Vlad doesn't design that much and Thomas Hollick who all again made Settlers which is another CGE game.
has dominated the last three or four
Like Teegarden. Yeah, I mean like it's just Thomas Hollick has been I think people recognize his skill and was like, "Oh, we need to hire him as much as possible cuz he's going to make a ton of games."
is like just by the nature of the way things go like Settlers happens and all these other games like but he had been working on all these things for a long time and then and then it kind of seems like it just jumps out of nowhere.
Yeah, a whole bunch of games. It's a pretty cool team.
Yes.
Vlad, this is Kingdom Come Deliverance the board game is an adaptation of a video game which is of course an adaptation of an erotic novel.
And and it it seems like a truly kind of like almost Western Legends level like sandbox kind of game.
seem enormous, yeah.
Yeah, you can do all sorts of things. You are are playing over a series of days and nights. And it's kind of up to you like what you want to do with your time. You can like go help out the villagers and stuff with their needs and their quests. You can go pick herbs. You can go and like start trouble and fight city guards and stuff. You got to like sometimes just like take a shower cuz you're covered in dirt. That's like a thing in the game and all that because like people are all dirty and whatnot. And and yeah, it's really kind of up to you how you
But it's big. I mean it's it has one to four players, 120 to 320 minutes.
So the 120 is the bottom line of that which you would assume is like the solo time frame. So maybe it's honking.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a big game.
And it's a game where you know, you're not like pitted against each other. You're all kind of just doing these things but each of these kind of main three cities will have a different like story line
Right.
that's going on, and the more you kind of interact with it, it can sort of uh like progress that story line forward and things. I think there's for each of the three cities, three different story lines that can be mixed and matched. So, every game will be kind of different in terms of like what's happening, what's going on, who there's there's this threat from afar, and we need to go and and I got to get some armor and stuff and help in defending the city or whatever.
Yeah.
Uh or just being a bastard. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. It really seems like you can kind of do whatever, which is really cool. I'm really excited for this one, especially having Vlaada and Thomas Hollick behind it. So, it's just like you know it's going to be satisfying on like a Eurogame level, which is always what I want to see. So, uh yeah, I'm super excited to to hear this one. It's not was not on my bingo card
Yeah.
for the year, so we'll see how it all comes together.
Next up with 773 thumbs up is Endeavor Deep Sea: Uncharted Waters. So, this is an expansion for Endeavor Deep Sea, uh which I've been playing a decent amount lately cuz one of our good friends, uh David, uh really likes co-op games. We've been playing
He's an avid diver as well, so thematically like it's right up his alley.
really really right up his alley. Um and we played it at uh Quest Con uh recently, too. We played it So, we've actually played this game a lot lately. So, I'm always excited for more content for games that I love.
Yeah, so this is uh you know, a kind of a classic more stuff expansion. More missions, more things. Cuz in the base game there's like 10 missions that will give you kind of a different focus, different things that are going to score points, and and uh if you're playing cooperatively, give you different goals to have to achieve. So, there's four new missions. With that comes some new uh tiles and things, the ability go even deeper into the ocean uh than we've gone before. There's new specialists that are coming to this one. So, it just seems like more uh, kind of new things, more opportunities to kind of explore stuff. So, I'm I'm already As always, if it's a game I love and there's something that brings you like more of a variety and things, I'm like, bring it on. I'm always always personally down for that. So, I'm very excited.
game. It's just so good. It's very difficult. Like these challenges these missions are considered to be more challenging and I'm
I think co-op is
I'm I can barely win the first mission on co-op. It's so difficult. I'm so bad at this game, but I really really enjoy it. So, I can't wait to get my hands on the expansion even though I haven't made it through all the missions. So, I got to play it even more
Yeah, it's the thing where it's like, I don't need it because but I'm going to get it because I want it. I'm going to get it because I want it. I'm going to get it cuz I want it. But yeah, it's like, do I am I good enough to get to really want a more challenging expansion? No. Am I going to get it anyway? Yeah.
Yeah. Next one with 808 thumbs is minus 60. I love
below, baby.
60 below, baby. I love this cover, too. It's just so good looking.
a really cool look to it.
by Renegade Games and Alexander Pfister and uh, Peter Prince. A new Alexander Pfister game. I feel like we haven't had a Pfister game in a little bit.
a little bit, I feel like. Yeah. Um, a nice uh, co-design here and this is a game where basically you are um, you know, explorers and archaeologists in Antarctica. You're scientists and there's like a meteor that like crash crash down somewhere in Antarctica. So, you are uh, going out kind of I feel like you'll be kind of exploring the board all these hex tiles as you go, dealing obviously with very cold weather and storms and things and trying to stay safe and survive uh, as you try to reach this this impact site and see, you know, it looks like there's maybe some mystical
Yeah.
weirdness going on with it. I don't really know.
Yeah, you have you have space for that with like a meteor. What Anything could be on that meteor.
Anything, man.
Abba.
Alien goo.
Sure.
Whatever. Between from Abba and Alien goo everything in between.
Or Or Abby is Abby human?
No.
No.
Not at all. Not at all. Uh but yeah, this one looks like the art and stuff is super cool. I love the kind of color style to it.
Again, another big honking game. It says 120 to 180 minutes. So it's like it's another big I mean Pfister tends to make big games. But it's like yeah, it's going to be a big honking game like seems like a big chunky Euro style.
Yeah, multiple use cards by the look of it. Yeah, it's got those re-wood pieces are really cool looking. I'm very excited for this one. Yeah.
Next one we want I know you're really excited for uh is with 1,000 thumbs 1K it says. I'm sure it's slightly more than that. This is Queen Alice.
Oh, let's go.
Man, the cover of this and this is why
I'm so excited.
This is why real art is great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is why real art is This cover is sick.
So pretty.
This is a game kind of set in the the Lewis Carroll uh Alice in Wonderland uh universe.
Yep.
Uh and in this game Alice has been like pulled through the looking glass and is you know going to be um you know her coronation's coming up. She's going to be anointed queen.
Yeah.
Uh and she's either going to become you know the the white queen or the red queen depending on how things go. So your board the player board and everything uh the the central board I should say is all kind of coded to red and white.
Yeah.
Uh there's a chess board that factors in um at the middle and then there's card play as well. So you are going to be on a turn you're going to have three cards. You're going to play one card for its discount ability which might give you more time on your little personal clock situation or might give you a resource. You're going to then play a card uh for its kind of one played ability and then that is going to show a chess piece uh that you will then move on the central board uh either red half them or red half or white. And this is how you'll move them using chess movement. So, the knight will move like the knight and then bishop like the bishop. Uh, and then wherever you decide for them to land, uh, they will take a resource kind of from the row and then an action on the column, which are going to be the four kind of standard suits, uh, card suits that are going to be like four separate kind of mini games or side boards and stuff. So, you're kind of doing all these things.
It seems wild. And as you use, you know, stuff on the red side, the there's a Alice tracker on both the red and the white and that will progress. If you're doing stuff on the white side, that will progress. And eventually one or potentially both of them will reach the top. And essentially whatever things you have been doing, you know, if it's on the the white queen side and that is what, you know, becomes the queen, you will get rewarded more heavily for those than if you had chose the kind of losing sides. You're always trying to manipulate that and and sort of hedge your bets and and stuff. It just seems super cool. I love the mix of like the chess board and the chess movement like card play. The art and stuff is really cool. Kind of looks like all like kind of old school, um, Alice in Wonderland. Uh, yeah, I'm super excited.
I feel like there's this this trend that's starting to happen, which is really really cool like taking classic games like chess or even like old king's crown, which is basically just war. And just like kind of like making these games around them, which is big games, not just like little things.
Yeah, not just like little things. It's just like this really really cool concept that I'd love to see happen more. It kind of seems like it is where it's like, "Hey, let's take this like base thing and then like build stuff around it in this really cool way."
It should be really familiar than do something new.
looking game. I mean, it's just beautiful. I want to try this one really bad.
All right, and number one with 1,200 thumbs up is Avalon the Riven Vale. Yeah, this is hitting people's hands who backed it and then now also being released kind of
Turning to become like yeah, widely available. This is Shadow Born Games is follow-up to Oath Sworn.
Yeah, this is what I played in the Oath Sworn but yeah.
it's just their next kind of big game. This is a big area control and exploration game where
really cool.
thematically you know, King Arthur squared off against his son Mordred. They sort of both strike each other down at the same moment but Mordred survives and sort of has pierced the veil between you know, the the magical side of reality and you pierce the ribbon veil. And so now there's just monsters and there's all this crazy crap and stuff and mist has descended and you are going to be one of four factions kind of going out exploring the board which might give you like big weapons and these crazy beasts that you can sort of bond with and stuff and you're taking over each other's areas and and ultimately want to have the highest score at the end. So it's not purely like a wipe each other's army out
Yeah.
kind of game. Uh
But it's interesting because the board you can put like settlements out on the board which will basically keep the board as it is because anything that has a settlement on it at the end of the round I think it's at the end of the round.
It kind of returns to the mist.
And then yeah, returns to the mist and then you basically have a bunch of boards which you have the mist side face up. You shuffle them and put them back out so the the things can move.
is changing unless you put something permanent there that keeps it there which is really really cool and thematic. And yeah, it just we've looked into it and it just this game seems super cool. We actually recently got a copy of this have not had a chance to play it.
but the minis are sick.
are dope. They have that cool translucent plastic in them too. It they're really really cool.
are fire, dude.
I'm not even like a really a minis guy but like the fact that they're translucent color would sort of color codes to your faction was like Dude, that is toy. Let me play with that right now.
Yeah, it seems really really fun. I'm really really excited to try this game.
Yeah, I really I'm really fired up for this one even though it's not typically our kind of game.
really.
That's what I love about board games is like
There's always exceptions.
There's always exceptions and and that's really exciting and you know, again, we haven't played it so we don't know, but it's like I feel like we'll really like it.
it.
The fact that there's like ultimately a victory point score, again, it speaks to our Euro
I mean, I I like Oathsworn cuz Oathsworn has a lot of
is awesome.
interesting kind of Euro elements, too.
also seems like it has really interesting card play and stuff, which is what I really loved about Oathsworn as well.
Yeah, it seems very cool.
So, it's number one. People are excited for that one.
It is.
I think partially because it's just it's actually getting into people's hands for people who backed it a while back and everything like that. So, that is the 10 most, as of this moment, thumbed up games in terms of games that people are interested in checking out at the convention. Of course, this is a living, breathing document as is all of BoardGameGeek. Uh so, this will probably change between now and and
October 22nd. So, you have almost a month, right? Yeah, so.
So, we're really curious, you know, how things will change. We love just following up
on this, like we're not personally going to Essen, but I love seeing like what people are interested in.
Yeah.
It's a great way to get like I didn't know about Queen Alice a few weeks ago.
Yeah.
Now I'm obsessed, you know what I mean? Because like I'm I saw people clicking on this page on this preview. So, things like this are really useful, I think uh certainly if you're going to the convention, but even if you just want to kind of stay in tuned with like what's going on out there, what people are excited about. I just love hearing about people's interests. So, uh so, thank you everyone who has checked out the preview list. Do check it out. They do uh BoardGameGeek does these previews for most of the major conventions uh and it's really, really useful and and it's a great tool to kind of thumb stuff up and and show your interest for, you know, your own future research or picking up the game or what have you. So, let us know what from the Essen preview list are you most excited to check out, whether it's doing a demo, buying the game, are you going to Essen, what's your plan, how many games you expect to purchase, things like that.
Get those in the comments below. We'd love that so much. And uh we'll see you all next month for the next people's choice. Bye everybody.