Naturelich Games

We were able to attend half-Saturday and full Sunday. The weekend is obviously not the best time to go (crowds!) but life sometimes sets strange priorities, doesn't it? OK, where do I start? I have not yet structured anything as I am still overwhelmed by all the impressions. Please bear with me on this...

We entered Hall 12 on Saturday morning: Time for the big ones: Kosmos, Days of Wonder, MB, Jumbo and the like.

Kosmos was the closest to the entry so it was the obvious choice to get very excited very quickly. The booth (similar to last year) was totally crowded: all gaming tables filled, the people even playing on the floor. I believe the booth had blue carpet but it was difficult to tell. Unfortunately; I did not have my camera on me, but I took a pic on Sunday. That's probably 75% of what it was on the day before.

Kosmos Booth - The foreground shows gamers playing Elasund (see details below)

Detailes of Elasund board

Kosmos introduced plenty of new games:

• Elasund - Die Erste Stadt is the second incarnation of the Catan series Abenteuer von Catan / Catan Adventures. Candamir - The First Settlers, was the first game in this series, (introduced at Essen 2004). While Candamir focused on individuals and featured game mechanics similar to a role-playing game, Elasund is set at the next higher level of abstraction: a city. Players will build Elasund, Catan's first city by arranging buildings on a board. Raven and Shelak bought a copy of Elasund and got it signed by Klaus Teuber. We played the game on Saturday evening (or is 1.45 pm already Sunday morning?), and I will link to the session report once it's been written. Quick summary: complex rules but a lot of fun to play. Sometimes a bit lengthy, maybe.


• Der Grosse Fluss (The Big River), a scenario for Die Siedler von Catan and its' extensions, was one of the free giveaways. The scenario consists of three connected hexagons, replacing three tiles from the original game: The Big River springs from the mountains, runs through the hills, branches out in the swamp and finally reaches the sea. The river tiles provide adjacent settlements with additional gold points which eventually score one victory point.


• Feuergeister - another free giveaway: a promo card for Blue Moon

Next up was Days of Wonder. This was a real disappointment despite the larger "booth/playing area". I was desperately looking forward to get the Ticket to Ride PC game.
Unfortunately, it is currently still in beta testing and will not be available before November. DoW bundled a "lite" version of the PC game with the purchase of the regular game - but had already gone out of stock on Sunday. At least, that's what they told me - as I could have sworn that I saw three discs underneath their counter.
But anyway, I was able to get a few hints: the PC game contains both the original Ticket to Ride as well as Ticket to Ride Europe. In addition Alan R. Moon has designed a map of Switzerland which will be exclusively available as part of the PC game. This map is optimized for 2-3 players. I was able to take some pictures off the screenshots they presented on a big flatscreen.

Ticket to Ride PC Game: Screenshot of the upcoming official map of Switzerland

As is pretty obvious, the map of Switzerland contains zillions of tunnels. Less obvious was the fact that mostly short routes have been included. I don't want to comment too much on map layout but there is one or two little details worth mentioning.

• Alan R. Moon's unique humor has given us Essen as a major city in TtR Europe. The Swiss map now contains Zug (a small city in Switzerland, but also the German word for train) and Schwyz (the Swiss German word for Switzerland, I believe).
• From my little knowledge about the Swiss railroad network, I believe the cities depicted are pretty accurate when compared to the county's current network.

As a novelty, the Swiss map will introduce new types of destination tickets. These require players to either connect a city with a country or several countries with one another. I have tried to capture this in a more detailed picture below.

Some details on the new destination tickets introduced with TtR Switzerland

That's all with regard to the short term news. On to the rumor section. Elsewhere, Alan R. Moon hinted at several additional TtR boards he had designed. Rumor has it: Zug um Zug Deutschland (TtR Germany) will become available in Spring 2006. I am not sure about how true this actually is, but the map is said to include a little goodie: Schwebebahn Wuppertal.

Okay, let's leave my obsession with Ticket to Ride but stay for a little while at the Days of Wonder booth. Both large versions of Shadows Over Camelot and Pirate's Cove were available for play. They look really really beautiful and I had to take some pictures.

Days of Wonder - Pirate's Cove

Days of Wonder - Pirate's Cove detail view

Days of Wonder - Shadows Over Camelot

Days of Wonder - Details on the Shadows Over Camelot tournaments area

While we are still on the Days of Wonder subject: as requested by Shelak, we were test-driving The Mystery of The Abbey on Sunday. Although this game is a few years old, we still found it interesting. It is a Cluedo-(Clue)-like game and better than "the original" as it has a strong atmospheric abbey-theme. However, it is not among the ones I would buy or play regularly.

Wow, this post is already among the longest I have ever made to this blog and we are still in exhibition hall #12. There is two great games I bought from Eggert Spiele: Antike (by Mac Gerdts) and Die Dolmengötter (by Thomas Odenhoven). Eggert Spiele is a small but devoted publisher and their games contain wonderful materials (all wood meeples, nice board-design - one can feel the passion that's been put into creating these games). Both games are limited to an edition of 1000.

• Die Dolmengötter (~The Gods of the Dolmen) received an excellent review in the latest edition of Spielbox - scoring 9 out of 10 points. It's basically a luck-free majority game set in ancient times. Dolmen is the Breton term used to describe megalithic tombs. Players use druids to create Dolmen (or Hünengräber as they're called in German language) inside miniature stonehenges. Spielbox calls it a tactics pearl and a tactical game highlight. Reason enough for me to get it...
• Antike will (re-)introduce me into the heavy category games. I normally prefer light German style games. But Antike won me over: 1. the Roman theme and the gameplay idea sounds cool. 2. The game is heavier but can be played with few and easy rules. 3. Running time between 90-120 minutes.

Okay, there was a lot more going on in #12, but let's move on to exhibition halls #9-11: alea, Amigo, Goldsieber, Hans im Glück, Pro Ludo, Queen Games, Ravensburger, Schmidt, Winning Moves, Zoch. Probably the exhibit

Winning Moves had the same booth as last year and only a few new games: Sudoku (we took part in the raffle) TransEuropa and a few oldies: Blokus, Clans, Karibik, etc. I saw two people try a prototype (looked like a territory game), but I am not exactly sure what it was. In my opinition, Winning Moves was more interesting to visit last year.

alea was showcasing a draft version of Um Ru(h) und Ehre. Unfortunately we did not have enough time for a closer look but I managed to take a photo:

Um Ru(h)m und Ehre - alea prototype

The Oltre Mare section of the Amigo booth

The Amigo booth was again among the largest. We got a chance to test-play

• Drachenreiter (Dragonriders - by Jean du Poel and Klaus-Jürgen Wrede). This game is totally different to what we normally see - a little bit like dragon racing goes table-top. Each player rides on a dragon and has to race against the other dragons. The one finishing the track first wins. Each turn you can modify your dragon's speed and progress further on the track (by accelerating) or gaining maneuverability (by slowing down). The faster your dragon, the less maneuverability. Event cards let you fire magic spells upon your opponents or drop mines to block their path. I found this a nice game which I would like to play more often - but not own. I believe this game will be a lot of fun for kids and people with better fine motor skills than myself ;)


• Oltre Mare has been one of the great discoveries in Essen 2004. Amigo has bought the rights to publish the game in Germany and provides a bigger box and board. Unfortunately, I was not able to play it together with Reven, J, and Shelak. But since they liked the game a lot, I will soon get a chance to play their copy (I hope).


• Bohnhansa gets a discommendation from us Bohnanza fans. Bad and boring. Don't try this at home, kids!

However, Rabohnzel - a new Bohnanza expansion by author Uwe Rosenberg (published by Lookout Games) sounds more promising. My friends bought this expansion which adds magic to Bohnanza and takes the game into the world of fairy-tales. Rabohnsel is a play on words on Rapunzel a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. Get it fast, as the edition is limited to a size of 3000 copies.

Pro Ludo introduced Tempus by Martin Wallace. This also sounds like a very promising game, but I was (again) only able to take a picture.

Tempus session and poster

Zoch Verlag had a very large booth. Since Niagara won Spiel des Jahres 2005, they obviously got a lot of attention and the tables for always full. We saw game author Thomas Liesching around but the hype did not jump at us. Respectfully we bought the Diamanten Joe expansion, offered for a small charity donation of 50 cents. You can see that it is a very small expansion below. Once I get the original game I will look at this little goodie again.

A small Diamanten Joe expansion from Zoch

Another big booth was Queen Games. Dirk Henn was around and explained Alhambra to a lot of people. He was very active at the booth and I think this is one of the nice aspects of Essen. You can meet the game designers in person and exchange a few words with them.
Queen Games offered a special deal on their main new releases Timbuktu and Aqua Romana (by Martin Schlegel) for €44.50 or you could get an additional Raub Ritter (by Rüdiger Dorn) for €55.00. I am not sure whether this is a good bargain, but after we had test-played Aqua Romana - and it is great - I could not resist. Plus, I got the last copy of a Raub Ritter signed by Dorn (who also created Louis XIV.)

Timbuktu demonstration table

Aqua Romana details

Aqua Romana final resuls

• Timbuktu - Dirk Henn's new game looks complicated but the rules are said to be easy. It's all about getting your camel caravan through a number of oases to Timbuktu (obviously a very distant place). Plenty of thieves are on the wait. Since I have not played this game I will be careful with my judgement. Last year's Die Gärten der Allhambra was a little bit of a disappointment. Let's see what Dirk Henn has to offer with this one.
• Aqua Romana - This is really a great game. The rules are quite easy but the game is complex. Players have to build aqueducts and get into each other's way. The longer the aqueduct, the better. It's an easy to medium game which may become part of the popular category. What I don't like: both Timbuktu and Aqua Romana require you to put stickers onto some of the meeples. That's a real pain - see my comment on fine motor skills above ;)
• Raubritter: I hope I don't regret this. The game looks certainly promising and the rules are not difficult. It is a mixture of Carcassonne tile placing with a bit of meeple movement a la Risk and Louis XIV. It will probably be good for two players, too. The card design is nice and done with a lot of details. But I have a funny feeling...

As I have said, there was so little time. I was not able to try Wolfgang Kramer's Hazienda from Hans im Glück which looked very promising. I saw many people carrying it in their bag. Westpark Gamers have an online Hazienda map generator available. This game will be kept on my radar list. The obvious Hans im Glück buy was Carcassonne Neues Land. Just because it's Carcassonne. Just because it's new and at the same time a little bit familiar. For easy game nights. No apologies... ;)

Another interesting game is Caylus. Although we did not play it, I bought a copy because I overheard several people talk about it. When walking by the booth it looked really fascinating and people loved it. The game is published by Ystari Games, the author is Wiiliam Attia. The game has a medieval touch with an economic theme: the mission is to build a new castle for King Philip the Fair and managing resources seems to be particularly difficult in this one. On Sunday, the game was sold out in exhibit hall 9 and I was lucky to get a copy from one of the dealers present in #12. I quickly browsed the rules - and they are huge. This is certainly not going to be an easy play and I will be picky with whom to play this.

Oh, I almost forgot Ravensburger. That's probably because there wasn't much new. I already know Louis XIV. They had a little bit of Sudoku. Their marketing mainly targeted Knizia's Die Insel. But since the game got a mediocre review in Spielbox I was not too interested in that. Especially since the price (€55,-) was somewhat tooooo high. That's even worse than Railroad Tycoon. Which brings me to...

Additional impressions
Railroad Tycoon - The Boardgame was on my must-see list. The German version was sold out on Sunday - mail orders only. This game is monster-huge. It is heavy. Very impressive but too long for me. The pictures below don't show it. Conquest of the Empire is also too big. Looks interesting but a bit too lengthy for my taste.

Railroad Tycoon - The Boardgame and Conquest of Empire in background - unfortunately, scale does not come across well

To sum it up: it was a great exhibit with plenty of good new games and a lot of good gaming material for the months to come. 2005 - you do not need to hide...