Grab These from Essen Spiel 2026. We Played and Recommended These Games
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Transcript
Hi everyone, it's Stella and that's Tarrant from Meeple University. Now, you may or may not have seen our other video Essen Spiel 2026 anticipated games for us, which was the games that were anticipated and we haven't played. So, that we want to get or demo at Essen Spiel. Now, this video is the video that you've been waiting for. Maybe, maybe not. The video where we can impart knowledge. Yeah, I can actually more knowledge than our just our research. So, these are the games that we're going to show you that we have played and they are going to be available at Essen Spiel 2026 as demo or to buy. And which you can check out to demo or to buy.
Sorry your wallet. Yes, and we'll give you some details on where to find them, what the booths. Booth numbers as well. And you'll see the cover of the game, so you'll know what color of pile to look for. That's true. So, these games will be in no particular order. So. Well, they'll be in the order that they're stacked off screen. That's an order. Your order. Okay.
Yes.
Game number one, again in no particular order, is Arctica by This Way. Booth number 3J300.
Yes, this is for demo, not for purchase. It's currently on crowdfunding by Remi Mathieu and Sans. This is a mid-weight Euro with some nice little mechanisms. You've got to think ahead because you've got some interlocking gears where when you get resources, which can be flora or fauna, it's going to take you a while to get them out of your cog wheel.
This is mechanics, mechanics, yeah. Great mechanics.
You have to take actions that will advance your cog wheel and you will be building two columns of cards that you're going to play in kind of a wingspan anyway that have actions that are going to repeat several times but then flip to the back of the queue. There's some really nice mechanisms in this as a midweight euro.
And the action is I think my number one favorite is lead and follow in a way that the active player would do two actions. They'll pick something, they would do actions and then the rest of the players just choose one of the two actions. So, less down time. If we do have other videos for this games, we'll link it below as well.
Yes.
Second game is Chrono Critters.
For which we do have a full review which you can check out. This is this year's big release from Delicious Games. They're in Hall 4 at A210. This is designed by Tristan Herault and there's a solo mode by Vladimír Suchý as well.
Yeah. And Vladimír has also helped develop the game. This is about time traveling critters and this is a kind of like a rondel game where your actions is only like some of the actions you can only take at certain season which is once per game. So, you have to build a time travel portal to access the other games with this game has really nice dice puzzle to complete contracts.
Yes, you'll be building up little dice puzzle dice puzzle and combinations of berries that come from the different time periods
Yes.
in order to try to build these combinations that will score you points. But it's a it's a worker placement game that has plenty of tricky timing things. If the things that you want are going to go away if you don't do them in a certain time. So,
Yes. So, that's it's really good in that way. Yeah. Next game, number three, is called Vania. This is available to demo by Smart Flamingo booth 2D510.
Yes, this is designed by Arkadiusz Duda and this is a 4X game fundamentally.
Yes.
Uh it is it feels fairly euro-y so it's not a heavily high war-y type of type of 4X. And it will remind you of Evacuation to some extent because you are you're Vikings here. You're beginning on the mainland. But most of the points are out on this new island called Skalvania. And you have to manage separate warehouses. So you build resources on the mainland and then you ship them and you ship your Vikings out to Skalvania and then you just kind of fight over the best spots in Skalvania where you can gain objectives. There's tactical objectives. Uh and there's also as in many Viking games the battle is it's not so much a battle for extermination.
It's a battle where you can gain benefit by losing and going to Valhalla. Yeah, so it's not going to If you are a euro gamer who likes a little bit of area control, this is not going to feel as as brutal as you know Twilight Imperium go out and destroy everybody kind of thing so
As an omni gamer and euro gamer myself this might be the best 4X games I've played because there's a lot of euro elements and then light euro type of fight. I mean I played video games with 4X like Warcraft and whatnot but this is like it's it's really good and then the action selection is also really good. Um yeah, demo it. Next game is Grey Loon by Sorry, we are French.
booth 6 K 300 or 6 K 400.
Yes, this is a re-implementation of Spyrium or Spyrium which is from about 10 to 13 years ago, I think. William Attia is the designer. So this one's available for purchase. This is a game it's a worker placement game uh where you are placing your workers between buildings in a 3x3 grid. And then how popular a space is or how many workers there are around a certain building if you want to activate it is either going to make it more expensive to activate or allow you to retrieve that worker and get more money for there being more people there. So, you put all your workers out, you see where it falls, and then you've got to optimize where you take actions versus where you get money as you retrieve them.
It's really good because you put it there before you know before you everyone's put their workers before they resolve it and then by the time you resolve it you don't know if you're going to get as good of action because there's many people there. That affects how good the actions will be.
Yes.
Next game is Carl von Linn from Pink Troubadour booth 4G515.
Yes, this is designed by Michael Piatl who designed Forestry last year. This is available to buy, so this is the big Euro release for Pink Troubadour this year. And this is a scientific kind of game. It is
biologists.
Yeah. It's a five action Euro type of game, so you have lenses that represent all the different actions and each turn you will play one of those and across the round you'll play three actions. Uh one of which you'll do at strength one, one of which you'll do at strength two, and one of which you'll do at strength three. And from there it's a big combo-tastic kind of game. Some interesting puzzles that you're trying to map out and and score points in lots of different ways.
It's a lot of mini games. It is quite multiplayer solitaire except they're one action one mini games in there that you kind of like, sort of area control it in a way.
Yes.
Next one is Curry Bay by Pythagoras Games, booth 2B355.
Yes, this is
By
Yes, this is designed by Orlando Sá and it is one of two uh big releases for Pythagoras this year, the other being Delfos. This is a game, it's kind of hand management contract fulfillment. Your Every turn, you will play a card from your five-card hand, which will tell you where on the 8x8 grid you can take your actions, and your actions are all about basically getting icons to fulfill contracts and taking animals to fulfill fulfill contracts. Then, after every third round the cards you still have in your hand are where those contracts are. So, it's multi-use cards. If you're building up towards certain contracts, it gives you less flexibility on where you can take your actions. So, there's some nice tricky decisions there.
And from there, there's the points aren't just, you know, my contract is worth three points. There are Each contract is going to give you different sorts of tracks, places to move workers and pieces, and uh they all combo in different ways. So, plenty to think about.
Yes, if you like that difficult decision, multi-use cards, check out Curry Bay. Next game is Oil Rock by Cranio Creations, booth 3T400.
Yes, designed by Marco Pio La Castello, this is available for purchase. This is uh Cranio's big Euro for the year. And this is a early days of oil exploration themed worker placement game.
Yeah. It is a rondel sort of It's got a rondel um mechanics, where every end of round it moves, so that the chain the two actions that it's connected is different but you can't action you can't take two actions anyway with your feeble starting worker until you upgrade your character and then you started to replace those workers with better workers and then you can take two things at the same time for one action and that's probably where it start to see okay yeah this try to link it better. So this is like building oil industry, mining, moving your train, building things on the board, bonuses on the way it is all that good stuff. I mean not a lot of new things but it's I think it's got put well together.
Yeah it's kind of a medium combo-tastic kind of game because most of the things that you do give you ways of getting a little bit of extra resources or a medium amount of extra resources. There's a couple of ways of comboing an extra action on a turn and so mapping out how you can do that with only three turns per round and then a whole lot of income puzzle at the end of the round is where this game is interesting.
Next game is Combo Creatures. This is by DV Games. It's boost 3P500. Now there are two of them so it's kind of like two of the same one you can mix and match sets of cards and this is not TCG.
Yes this game is designed by Michael Luu Anderson and Christian Kudahl. Available for purchase and it is probably the lightest game that we're looking at here today. It's a quick playing card game. You are looking to cards will either pay for other cards or when you get a card it will have an effect and that effect will allow you to maybe pick up more cards or play an extra card will do certain things. You're very quickly trying to get to a tableau of eight cards. Each card is going to be worth points equal to how much you paid for it or how much you would have paid for it if you didn't get a bonus. And then you're also trying to we go back to Koryo. This has a similar thing. You're trying to keep cards in hand that match with types of cards you have at least two of.
Mhm.
And so you want to end up keeping these in hand because that's an extra way of scoring points. So
Yeah.
it morphs from get cards out quickly to have the right cards in hand.
Almost endless possibilities because you can mix and match. You only mix and match seven sets. Each set has got the same power. So seven sets of creatures across these and then hopefully they're going to bring out more. It's Whoever has got the first eight cards out there, that's the end game trigger and then you just score points.
Yep. Each of these boxes has 12 creatures in it. So if you want 12 C7 combinations of games, then buy one of them. If you want 24 C7 combinations, which is a very large number. I could calculate it in my uh
head. Can you calculate it?
I cannot calculate it.
Okay.
I could calculate it in my youth, but check it out.
What? Really? You can't calculate it in your youth?
Well, with a pen, paper, and calculator, probably.
Next game, Shogundo. This is by Devir Games, 3E610. And look at this, like a Japanese themed game, really nice artwork and then color scheme. This is a push your luck card game and designed by
Alessandro Caniano and Simone Luciani. This is available for purchase.
Mhm. This is where you quickly build your tableau and then Well, this is a tableau building with automatic trash. So you buy the cards, you trash it automatically, and push your luck. You're collecting You're trying to collect these points that Oh, not icons. They're three different actions. So each action has got its own symbol, so you can try to collect that on your track and then uh do the action to build area in your board. You try to gain knowledge to then allowing you to gain uh buy better cards, and so on.
Very cool.
Yeah, you can think of this as being a very Quacks-inspired kind of game. Uh is in that once you can push, and when you push, you can try to be gaining more resources that will allow you to take more actions or more coins that will let you buy more cards. Both of those are direct routes to points. Uh but if you bust, if you get too many of the demon yokai on your cards, then you choose one or the other, but not both. Which means sometimes it really as as in Quacks, sometimes it really doesn't matter. There's not much on offer, so you just push. And sometimes you really want both of the timing makes up for both. And then, yeah, you use those actions to build a little um a little euro map. It's kind of like a Sweet Land's type of map. It has building little towns like in Terra Mystica.
Or you go and upgrade cards. Some of them combo with the types of things you're doing on your board. So, lots of lots of interesting things.
Next game is Falling by Capstone Games. 3B 300 is the booth number. It's available to buy and designed by Kentaro Kentaro Yazawa. Sorry, I just like took all the good lines.
So, right, this game is
A light euro game.
It's a light mid-euro.
Light, yeah. Yeah.
And it is all about essentially chaining building stuff together. You've got a your typical player board of stuff that you can build, and anywhere that you build is going to give you some sort of extra resources back that you can then hopefully chain into building lots of stuff. Uh however, every of every round, two of the layers that you're building onto are going to fall off, and those things are going to come back to your board.
Yeah, bye-bye.
That's the That's the thing you don't really see that often, you know? We're so used to putting things on the board and they stay there forever. That's pretty much the definition of a Eurogame. In this one, they're coming back, but they're also giving you a benefit as you come back.
As it comes you'll come back.
As it comes back.
Yeah.
It ends up being quite a tight uh competition for spaces out on the main board. You can go up to higher levels, which will allow things to stay on the board for longer, which gives them more income.
But more expensive.
more expensive to get up there, but sometimes you have to race ahead just because you're later in turn order and everyone else is going to take all the stuff on the level that you're on, so there's some good interaction for a very simple game.
Yeah, just try to chain together very tight resources, and then the passing turn order bit is good. Once you pass, everyone else is still going, but you keep getting resources if everyone else is still going. Next is Calixa. This is by Inside Up Games, booth three are 400.
Yes, this game is designed by Gil d'Ovid. It's available for purchase, and it is a I would say it's on the heavier end of your Tetris tile placement types of game.
is competitive and [clears throat] cooperative mode you can play. Like, both are pretty similar, both are great.
Yes, you will be drafting tiles, so it is a tile drafting game. You'll end up with
gripy surface thing, hello.
Yes, so things don't fall off, which is a nice little feature.
Yeah.
You'll be using uh T-shaped tiles mostly to build up a foundation, and then when you make little 2 by 2 squares that have three of the four uh squares of of same building material, which sounds complex when I say it, but it makes makes perfect sense when you play. That then lets you construct a building on top, and that building gives you extra powers, the ability to draw extra stuff for your foundation, or get points.
Mhm.
So, you are you are very much working in the competitive mode. You're very much working your own board and trying to maximize it, as you would with most tile placement Tetris-y types of games. But then in the competitive mode, sorry, cooperative mode, uh you have all these different objectives that you have to try to to meet. Uh survivors to protect as the game goes through, and you're working together to try to do all of that. So,
It's really tight.
different feels in the same box.
Next game is Quin Allers. This we don't have the physical copy right now. It was a prototype copy that we had. We had to ship it away. This one is by Combo Games booth 3U 210. That was successfully crowdfunded now. Um there would be some pick up, I think, at Essen Spiel, if you backed it on Game Founders. Should be a pick up express line to just grab it. Otherwise, it'll be available to buy.
Yep, this is a a four-action Euro, or a four mini-game Euro designed by Hector Carrión Benevent and David Heras Pinilla.
With um chess inspired, but it's not actually chess.
Indeed, chess inspired. So, you uh you have a There's a mini chessboard in the middle of the main area. And it has red and white pieces. And when you you'll play a card that tells you what piece you can move, and you move that piece, following normal chess rules, to a certain square, and you can capture, which gives you some bonuses. And then where you land tells you which of the mini action games you'll take, as well as some other bonus that you'll get. It has these kind of shared incentive things going on because every action is sub split into a red half and a white half. The color of chess piece you move tells you which half you do. And collectively, how strong people are on red actions versus white actions will make red actions or white actions more valuable.
Mhm.
But you can't just all get together and say, "Well, we're only going to do the red actions."
Mhm.
Because the red actions tend to give you white bonuses. So, you have to kind of flip flop between them to do things uh with strength.
Consequences, right? Next game is West Story, a town building game by Smart Flamingo booth 2D 510. There's a mini expansion as well a little expansion there as well.
Yep. So, when you're demoing in Slovenia, check out this one to buy, as well. Uh this is
by Piotr Deckert.
Yes. In this game, you're basically heading around doing uh wild west types of things. It's more western frontier. It's not super wild. Uh you are managing a card tableau. So, a lot of the game is about purchasing cards because you're going to be triggering cards with certain icons or uh rolling dice at the start of each round to trigger cards in certain slots. Where this game is quite different is that you'll be taking actions in different spots around the map. But the spot that you can take it in, your location, is linked to your points.
Mhm.
So, normally move Normally points there's a track around the outside of the board, and that's completely separate. But in this game, as you move your victory point marker around the board, that is moving you from location to location and from town to town.
Mhm.
And so, you need to uh speed up or slow down your victory point generation in a way that doesn't harm your victory point production overall in order to continue taking actions where you are if that's what you want. So, it's quite an interesting twist.
Yeah, well, kind of like in ChronoCrate as it's depending on the season round of the game and in this one is depending on your points. You can forgo your points for example of staying some, but it's probably best to just get your points unless you really want to build up something there, I guess. Next game is the Trial of the Forests by Rebel Studio. This will be available in the Asmodee area. Well, Asmodee is like kind of like spread out between hall five and seven like 5K 730 5M 600 7A 7B and so on. So, probably like look up and then that's like I assume it's going to be banner on from the ceiling coming down and that's probably where it's going to be or where the Asmodee shop is.
Yes. The Trial of
Goodbye.
Trial of the Forests available for purchase designed by Jean Carlos Finelli. This is kind of a
cozy-ish like you can have a look at this like it's really cozy stuff. Looks cozy, it is kind of like cozy going to the forest and then completing quests kind of like contract fulfillment-ish.
Yeah, it has a yeah, an old Talisman kind of vibe in terms of how you're moving around and collecting things and buying things, but there's a big part of this where a lot of your points will come from completing tactical objectives or contracts on cards that you collect.
There's no dice roll.
There's no dice roll, no. Well, there is when you fight. And then you roll the dice when you fight. When you fight.
So, yeah, it's about exploring being critics exploring all these areas, but doing the things that will match with the cards in your hand. So, yeah, it it does have it's thinky, but cozy.
I like the part that where you actually do engine building and it's also scoring for you. So, you build up that tableau and then it's also scoring. Next game is Tinctura. This is by Skellig Games with three C 300. We were lucky enough to have covered um tutorial-ish style of play-through for Tinctura when it has a prototype. Now, it is available to buy most probably, I think, I believe at Essen Spiel.
Yes, this is designed by Francisco Hofecker and Jürgen Ten. And it is a programming Euro-type of game. You are pharmacists essentially and you have three main classes of action area. And at the start of the round, you've got nine There are nine hours in the day and so you're going to take nine actions. And you plan which of the general areas you're going to do in each hour. And then there's a turn order element for who gets to do it first if you're there at the same time. There are certain act There's a lot of timing with the actions. There's a shop to go and visit that's only open for five hours out of the day and it's a different five-hour chunk.
There's the resource collecting place where you can go early in the day but you don't get to collect as much or you can go late in the day and you collect from what's left. The game is largely about building up tracks and getting resources to cash in to heal patients because you're pharmacists fundamentally. But each patient within the round Each patient is only going to stay until the same hour next round. And so it puts There's There's enough in there in this programming and risk management. It's not a not a heavy game by any stretch. The actions are very straightforward. But if you like that programming and you like to worry what other players are going to do, this is a good game for you.
Very good. Next game is Gaudi by Devir Games, booth 3E610.
This is uh one of this year's releases from Danny Garcia. This one is based on uh Gaudi and the architecture that he did back in the day, back in Catalonia.
Yes.
And this is a game that has a an unrestricted rondel movement element to it. So, you can advance as far as you want around the rondel on your turn. The further you go uh in one jump, the fewer turns you may have, because once you get around, that's the end of your round. Uh you are has this interesting mechanism where if you move to the front of the queue time track rondel, so if you're furthest advanced, you get more actions on that turn.
Yes.
But, if you hang further back, then you only get half of the actions available.
But, then you can go slowly and get your things like a lot of times, or you can just skip ahead and then get strong turns, but then is that worth it?
It's overall a fairly straightforward kind of game. You're building up tiles into a mosaic, and those tiles are the prerequisites for pretty much everything you're going to play in different combinations of colors and shapes. And what you are trying to play there's green cards, which score every time you play a green card. There's
Red.
uh red cards, or Catalonia cards, which will score usually once a round, or other times you trigger it. And there's religion cards, which score only at the end of the game, and your score is mostly made up of your two weakest among the three. So, you really have to balance it all out.
really do have to. I mean, this is Danny Garcia's new game. I think he's back.
There's certainly a good level of that old school interaction here, which is what you expect from Danny.
Next game is Wild Welds by Chili Fox Games. Boost 3F 120. And this is like every time I talk about Wild Welds, it's a Wild Welds. Like that. You know, Mr. Bigs.
Yeah, and I get Mad World in my head because I can fight Mad World with Wild Welds.
Oh, yes. Okay, yeah.
Yes.
Fair enough.
Yeah, so this is Chili Fox's bigger release for the year. It's by Alif Osman and Viljar Svensson.
Available to buy as well?
Yes, available to buy. This is a big card tableau kind of game with a worker placement element in it. So, you'll be mostly trying to get cards cuz pretty much every card uh gives you a way of scoring points.
It's multi-use cards.
Yes, you can spend them to get a little bit of points and some symbols that unlock the ability to get other cards. You can spend them to get little bonuses in a tableau where they just score points for their colors, or you can build them up and uh spend them to defeat monsters which come with their own scoring and scoring objectives. It has a worker placement element on the board. Uh you can go to spaces they become not fully blocked out, but they can be uh made more expensive and you have to pay your opponents to use the same space that they have.
Mhm.
And it has uh a mechanism called the island, which feels a little bit like passing where you move a worker away and go to this little menu of extra things that you can do.
Yes.
But it's not strictly passing cuz you can do that multiple times.
Until?
Until everyone has done it at least once. And that's why
Okay. it feels like passing but isn't.
I like that there's a lot of things that you can do with the cards. Like it sometimes it it's expensive to get the cards so you really need to use it to its full capacity for a certain action not the others. So those are the games. If you have other games that you would want to recommend to us, please let us know in the comments sections below and let me know if you are going to Spiel Essen Spiel 2026 which I will be there and Taran unfortunately won't be there. Please say hello to me, stop by stop me if I'm running around or like lugging around luggages with games that I talked about in the previous sections because we haven't got the game yet and there's a lot of games. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening and have a great day. Bye.