Top 10 Most Anticipated Games at Essen Spiel 2026
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Transcript
Are you ready for the 1,300 games that are going to be at the Eschin Spiel game convention in Germany about a week after this ga this video drops? I can't believe it's already that time of year. Well, yes, the arguably the largest convention in the world is going to be going on in a week. 1,300 games are going to be listed there, new ones. Uh about 1,200 of them are going to be listed for sale. So, what I've done is I've gone through the great list, the preview list from Board Game Geek. I've gone through all of these games and found my top 10 most anticipated games. These are ones I have not played before, but for some reason or another that I'm going to mention now why I am super interested in these. Well, let's get started.
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Now, the first ones tend to be a little smaller, lighter games, and that's no different here. Number 10 for me is called Knock Twice. Now, at the end of the city's most chaotic street sits a door with no sign, no hours, and no mercy. A bouncer guards it, motionless and impeccable. To get in, you need an invitation bearing a single word, but the word alone is worthless. You have to whisper the right password. Something the bouncer finds meaningful. And hidden among the hopeful crowd is an undercover detective listening to every attempt, determined to crack the secret code before anyone else does. And each round, one player becomes the bouncer, secretly linking a password to the word on their invitation card. The other players split into customers who can see the word and take turns calling out guesses and a single detective who can't see the the word at all must piece it together purely from knowing how the bouncer reacts to each guess. Now, after every failed attempt, the bouncer marks how close the guess uh has landed on sort of a little step fivestep scale. Close but not quite or way off. And customers use that feedback to zero in on the password while the detective quietly builds a theory about the hidden word itself, testing it at set checkpoints throughout the round. Um, and so in this game, you know, it's it's one of those word association sort of guessing games, but this one has like a twist because now there's three different types of people, right? Some people know the word and
they're trying, you know, they're trying to guess it. Um the the other one's trying to get it by guess guess you know hearing what they're guessing and then seeing the feedback of there feels like a cross between a word game that I love called cross talk and a newer game called triangulation where you're trying to get it right but not if you get it right and you're too close sorry if you get it wrong and you're too close well you're going to give the detective uh you know some information. So, it's very interesting where like it's kind of semi-ooperative between the, you know, the customers and the and the bouncer, but the detectives on their own, but yet everyone has different amount of information. So, I just think this is going to be an interesting twist on that sort of that clever word game style.
Number nine.
The next one is Windmill Valley Duel. Now, Windmill Valley is a larger Euro game that came out a few years ago uh that many people love. I liked it. Um, but I really love two-player duel games. So, anytime you're going to take a game, a bigger game, and and distill it down to a 30 to 45minute dual player, I am interested in that. Uh, in this case, two rival horiculturalists compete for prestige, wealth, and victory by cultivating the finest tulips, investing in powerful enhancements, and claiming the most strategic ports in the vibrant and picturesque land. Now, in this valley, you're not alone. So your windmill gears interlock with your opponents facing by forcing every decision that you make to send ripples through the land while setting your rivals plans in motion. So will you offer them advantage to gain the edge you need? Or will you wait for the perfect move? You're going to be planting your tulips with care but building windmills with purpose, navigating the seeds to trade in a world where beauty and timing weigh supreme.
Only the best horiculturalists bloom victorious. Yeah. the the hook here for me is that gear because the gear was the main thing in the uh in the main game that I like the most with the action selection, but here they're interconnected. So, what you do and what you select and how those gears turn will alter what the other player can do. So, do you do something great but leave them something great or do you do something subpar to let them do something subpar? Or are you going to be able to find a good action for you that kind of screws up your opponent a little bit? So, I think that's going to be the hook for me. Uh, and that is windmill value duel. This is from boards and dice.
Number eight.
Number eight.
This next one is called Jailbreak. Jailbreak is a cooperative deduction game where your perspective and clever communication will be needed to carry out your escape. You're going to be working together with your teammates over 44 different challenges broken up across 11 pivotal days of jailbreak. Now, each day gets more challenging as you take on more risks in planning and executing your escape. But during the game, each player holds a hand of doublesided tools. These are cards, and each tool has a is non-over overlapping front and back pairing, meaning your perspective at the table may help you give clever clues to your teammates to help them with some deduction. Um, you play the right tools in the right spot and complete the challenge. Now, the tool tiles are double-sided. And most importantly, the the back side, so the public side of each tool has a different color and a different icon from the front, which is the private side. So, basically, it's like, hey, if if this is black and it shows a wire snipper, we know that the other side cannot be black and it cannot be a wire snipper. And that gives you information. Um, to me, this feels like a cross between like Hannabi and Bomb Busters. bomb busters because it is like a level based thing where you're going to start at level one. There's 44 levels. They get increasingly harder. Um but also Hannabi because you're looking at players you in Hannabi you can't see your own cards and other people are giving you clues. Here you can see your own cards and other players cards but the relationships on the front and the backs of those uh are known that they can't be the same in
either color or thing. So I think this is right up my alley. Really clever. And with how popular Bomb Busters has been um I think this one's going to have some legs. This is from Adam Apple Games.
Number seven.
This next one is called Carpet Racers. Now, this is designed by Tomas Hol who has been doing great things lately. He did SETI, Galileo Galilee, and many others. Um, Carpet Racers is a chaotic racing game where players control cars without knowing which one is theirs. So, by playing movement cards and and setting traps and gathering clues, you must outmaneuver opponents while uncovering your own identity. So, it's a fast-paced mix of bluffing, strategy, and clever deduction where the real challenge isn't just racing, but figuring out which car is yours before the finish line. And this just sounds amazing. Uh, this looks like sort of like a Mario Kart style game where you're trying you're you're you're trying to do things and take actions but really to try to figure out who am I or who am I? Who do I know for in fact I'm not. You'll get you'll get different times where you get to see who other players are, what car they are. So that kind of deduces, okay, well I know I'm not them and what are the other players doing once they learn information. Which one are they starting to move as they learn more? That will help you deduce down who you might be. Uh, it just seems like a very clever idea. I love Mario Kart in general. I've played a few board games that are kind of based on that aspect and none of them have really stood out for me. I'm hoping this is going to be the one. Um, in Germany, this is going to be uh brought to us by Pink Trouidor Games. Uh, but it also seems like Capstone Games is going to be bringing this to the US market uh sometime. I'm going to guess in 2027.
And that is Carpet Racers.
Number six.
The next one is Horror on the Orient Express. This is a big Kickstarter that is going to be it sounds like for sale at Essen uh on the Orient Express. Um basically this is a board game that lurs you into the luxurious Orient Express in the 1920s taking you on a dangerous train ride into the realms of the dreamlands. Now everything is against you from monsters attacking the train to murderous cults hiding among the passengers and worst of all an Eldrich bloodthirsty vampire hunting down everything that moves. Now, horror on the Orient Express, uh, basically brings the Call of Cthulhu horror and mystery into the board gaming world. It's got sort of some some special rules, some ongoing character development, and play pieces around challenging different types of things that are going on. You're trying to sus out who the the the cultists are. Um, you're basically trying to survive with the other investigators on this doomed train. And to win, you must hunt out the cultists to stop them from performing a hideous ritual and ensure the train reaches its destination. Now, each of you controls a character who can develop new skills, gather items, talk to the passengers, discover clues, and ultimately decide the train's fate, and you may even learn a spell or two. Now, this one is on my list. I'm not really into this theme. In fact, some people love this theme. The theme's actually a detractor for me. But the table presence of this huge train that gets set up and then all these cultists and the reason well I'm hooked on this because a it's cooperative cooperative games too. It's a huge deductive element because as you're learning things you're learning which ones might be the cultists and which
ones might not be and you're using deduction to do that and I love deduction. So it's it's like a big epic cooperative game with some deduction as well along with many other things. Uh and that's why I'm interested in this one. Uh I am super anticipating this. I actually just received a copy. I finally was able to find a copy. I bought one and it arrived yesterday. So, I still have not opened it or played it, so I'm still anticipating it. Can't wait to get to get this one to the table.
Number five.
Number five.
The next one is Class of 89. This is from Paperson Games, who's brought us Distilled and Luier, that those two big hits. Uh, in Class of 89, you will go back to the days of Big Dreams, Bigger Hair, and the ultimate high school sendoff. So, you're going to break out the neon and dust off your mixtapes because it's time to create the most legendary yearbook spread ever. So, it's your senior year in high school, and as president of the yearbook club, it's your responsibility to make sure every moment is standout. You're going to compete to create the most kicking yearbook by sending your uniquely skilled staff all over the school, assembling a nerd herd full of brainiacs, a team of muscle head jocks, a clickup style mavens, and you know who always looks funky and fresh. But from the drama on the football field to the most whack after school clubs, every righteous memory must be immortalized.
So you're going to be sort of competing to design the gnarliest yearbook spreading before the final bell. So points are going to be gathered from the clever tile placement, strategic set collection, and sweet proximity bonuses as teachers uh class is basically you have to match them in order left to right with their with their letters. And so this is an interesting one because well a it's like it's like a Euro game, right? This game has
uh alphab al alphabetized sort of uh set collection. It's got tile placement. It's got proximity bonuses, but you're trying to build the best yearbook. It's a Euro style game, but having to get them in alphabetical order for the different teachers. The theme just looks awesome. Person does great stuff. And it looks like sort of a medium white Euro game. For all those reasons, it's it's making this list.
Number four. four.
This next one is a small little game from a small publisher called First CEO is the name of the game. Now, this is a high interaction economic strategy game where every player takes on the role of a corporate CEO. Now, your goal is to build the most successful company while strategically investing in your rivals. Now, in this game, you could perform the following actions. You're either purchasing new branches or companies. You're be spending capital to expand your empire. Each branch introduces unique scoring rules and generates consistent revenue. Or you can acquire shares, which is purchasing stocks in other players companies. When those players collect income, they must then distribute the dividends to all shareholders if you've bought some. And the other third thing you'll be doing is collecting revenue. So you're going to be generating income based on your headquarters performance. And this total is then split proportionally among all of the people that hold your company stock. Now, at the end of the game, every share holds a different value. And success depends on your ability to buy into the right companies at the right time. Because every player brings a unique management style, their decisions will deeply influence the company's uh final market capitalization. Now, scoring for this game, you'll be scoring for both shares and companies. So, shares are based on the value of the company, but the score of the company is based on other companies that you own.
Because as you buy other companies, they're going to give you different scoring rules based upon other things that you own. So, there's like two different push and pulls here. You can focus on shares, you can focus on company scoring, which is like kind of like comboing scoring together. This looks really interesting because it's a pure economic game. It looks pretty streamlined mechanically, but the fact that you're that you're, you know, you're buying things, you're selling shares to other people, you're you're you're getting dividends, but you're also managing both companies and shares. And both of those have a big thing of a big thing of the uh of how things score at the end. And this is from a small game called Good Games uh studio. Good game studio. a small little company. It's called First CEO.
Number three.
This next one is called Red Notice a million or prison. And in this game, a genius counterfeitter traveling the world to cash a million dollars in forged checks or unyielding FBI agent who dreams of putting the counterfeit behind bars. Now, bluffing and anticipation are the key words in this gripping pursuit. So, as the counterfeit, you must travel the world and cash counterfeit checks totaling a million dollars. You're going to be using your personal world map to secretly record your movements and your fake identities to escape if you're captured. As the FBI person, you're going to be trying to uh, you know, blow the counterfeitter's cover by locating them and arresting them before they can carry out their plan. Now, fortunately, you have the FBI's virtually unlimited resources at your disposal. As the checks are cast, your superiors will give you new means to take action. So, this is again, this is a two-player hidden movement game. Um, in this game, there's like four randomly drawn action cards each round that determine the possible choices that are available to both of you. And you're going to be taking turns putting tokens secretly face down to plan when and how you'll act. But then, you're going to be resolving those actions depending to their value. So, you want to be higher.
Some of them could boot the other player's action off. you'll be traveling to a nearby city, cashing checks from your hand um and and moving around in in the map in a hidden way where the FBI is trying to catch you. So, the hook here is, hey, it's hidden movement, which I love. It's asymmetric completely, obviously. Uh but the action selection seems super interesting because like you're trying to guess, well, what are they going to do? What do I want to do? Do I want to just boot them out of that action? Do I want to go really heavy on that action because I don't want them to have it? Even though it's not really going to do great things for me, the actions can do different things. Um but at the same time, you've got these different things. you're trying to catch them three times the FBI. And I think the action selection mechanism along with the hidden movement makes this game high on my list. This is coming from Ketchup Games. Um, and in North America, Pandanda is going to be bringing this over at some point. I'm going to guess in 2027. Um, and so yeah, that is the two-player uh hidden movement game from Ketchup Games called Red Notice A Million or Prison.
Number two. My number two game here is a game called Cover Up. Uh, it's from a publisher called Crime Cases, a small publisher. Coverup is an asymmetric deduction-based murder mystery for three to five players. One player is the murderer, secretly choosing the weapon, the motive, and the suspect. Another is the forensic technician analyzing the evidence and sharing clues with the detectives. Now, everyone else plays a detective working together to determine who killed Elellanor in this game. Uh, why did they kill them and with what? Now, it has systems of cryptic clues. One case file asks the detectives to assemble a composite sketch from fragmentaryary descriptions. Another lets them question a witness statement and receive only partial answers. Every clue points to several possibilities, and the detectives must decide which interpretation brings them closer to the truth. where the murderer does more than hide evidence. Now, round after round, he manipulates the flow of information, feeds false assumptions, and steers the investigation towards the wrong suspect, weapon, or motive. Now, deduction, discussion, and deception collide in a crime investigation inspired by classic detective stories and film noir.
Everything speaks to me in this game. The crime theme, I love Clue was one of my favorite games as a kid. Anything that's crybased like this that feels clueish, motive, suspect, this I just love the the noir looks cool. U just the fact that somebody is actively trying to mess up the information you're getting. So you're trying to like piece things together just sounds super interesting to me. Um the only caveat here is this game is only going to be in German and is doesn't appear to be language independent. Uh, however, these days I I've done this many times where I like recently I've got a game and it was just in French and then using Google Translate has a little camera on there and you can just hold it to a card and it translates it in real time. So, if you really want to play a game like this one like I'm going to do, uh, I'm going to you use Google Translate to play the game, but this one isn't just German and it's called Cover Up.
Number one. Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is known for their highquality game mats with over 38 styles and 12 sizes from some of the top artists in the industry like Vincent Dut and Ryan Lockett. They have the perfect storage solutions for all your mats like mat bags and mat racks. They just launched the mats game bazaar crowdfunding campaign which highlights the greatest mats on earth including the new Victorian steampunk mat and many others. Visit gamettopperslc.com or search Kickstarter for gametoppers map bazaar to learn more. Okay, my number one is a game that's based off a graphic novel I never heard before. Um it's called Sobakistan Land of Dogs. Now this is it's from Hobbyworld and this is a one versus many essentially wolves verse blood hound.
Now the wolves is an interesting twist here. The wolves have a leader. They are known as the liaison and they know the starting location that all the wolves are starting at a drop off location that they need to go drop something off to some contraband or whatever and then an exit location off the map. Now, they're going to be giving clues with cards via word association to different stations. Now, you can talk uh but everything has to be able to be said out loud. You can say things to them, but hey, the the the the blood hound's going to hear things. Now, there are different locations that are randomized each game. So, it's it's unlimited replayability. And each location has basically each spot has two sort types of locations like the beach or the ice rink or the hospital. They also have hint cards that they're going to be playing each round to get them to go in the direction that they want them to go to, like cozy or historic or fragrant or cheerful or relaxing. And so, the wolves are hidden movement trying to find the right spot for the drop off and then escape. The blood hound is trying to confiscate evidence and arrest them by moving around in different districts and different spots and playing ability cards uh that are going to try to try try to try to get them. So to me this is like really clever cuz it's team versus team. It's hidden movement. It's kind of one versus many but it's more than one. It's like but there's different roles, right? You have the leaison like directing things.
You have the other people hidden movement and then you have the other person trying to figure things out. It just seems really clever, but it's like matching hidden movement with like code names, if you will, because you're using word clues to get them moving the right direction to get to certain things. It just seems super clever. Uh, it seems to bring together two things I love, which are clever word games and and one versus many and deduction. Uh, and so, yes, this one is being is is is Hobby World. I don't yet know of a US publisher that they have yet. I think they're currently looking for one. And again, this is called Sobakistan, Land of Dogs. Well, I hope this helped you find out about games that you hadn't heard of. My lists tend to be very different from many other content creators. Uh cuz I really go through the list of fine tooth comb and I try to look look for hidden gems which I've hopefully I found here.
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