The SPIEL '24 Games Convention
at Essen / Germany

So here we go, the first public day of SPIEL 24, and actually the first day ever that had been sold out with no more tickets available. In fact, the trend has continued in the last 24 hours, and now Friday and Saturday are sold out as well!. In the meanwhile MERZ VERLAG has reacted and the SPIEL app now tells people in a pop-up notice that no more tickets are available for these days, and during the morning the local radio also broadcasted the news that a trip to the convention without tickets would be futile.

I have addressed this topic already during yesterday’s report, but this morning I was thinking back to the old SPIEL slogan which was abolished by the new owners of MERZ VERLAG last year: The slogan “Komm, spiel mit!” (come and play!) had been chosen by Friedhelm Merz himself, and it has been an open invitation for everyone to come to the SPIEL and play some games. In a way, this summarizes pretty well the way in which I perceived SPIEL all the time since my youth, because you could simply go there and have fun. But now, with the box offices not opening on sold out days, it’s somewhat fitting that this slogan isn’t advertised all over the city anymore…

But let’s now enter the halls together! At 9:30 AM I used the exhibitors and press lane to get into the hals half an hour before general opening, and using the “express lane” to go through Halls 8 and 7 I was truly impressed how many people where already waiting in there. In Hall 8 the entrance tickets were scanned, and then people could wait in Hall 7 until opening at 10:00 AM. There were thousands of people waiting in there, and for me that was a possible explanation why MERZ VERLAG and Messe Essen are reluctant to use these halls as additional exhibition space for SPIEL. If this space would be used, the people all would have to wait outside, and what is more, there tickets could not be pre-scanned. This would result in truly big crowds in front of the entrances, and the security personnel would have a hard time to scan the tickets and get the people into the halls quickly. Thios problem is avoided by the current solution of using Hall 7 as a waiting area, but I think that MERZ VERLAG will have to find a different solution if following years due to the growing space requirements of the convention.

Inside the halls it was tranquil and peaceful, but it was definitely the calm before the storm. Last setup works were done, and actually many people were buzzing around to make some quick first minute purchases.

This privilege to enter the show early gave me a distinct starting advantage to begin collecting my preordered games, but before picking up even the first preorder I made my way into Hall 3 to the booth of LEDER GAMES. The game Arcs had received so much positive buzz before the SPIEL that I wanted to purchase a copy, and indeed I was lucky because I could get one right away.

However, the whole situation changed rapidly once the gates were open and people could enter. Within minutes there were long queues at the booths of many publishers, sometimes over a hundred meters long! One of the longest queues was at the booth of DEVIR where I went to pick up a copy of Rock Hard 1977. DEVIR is located almost at the entry to Hall 3, and the queue ended all the way up at the other end of the Hall, at the exit to Galeria. I was lucky because they had set up a special desk for preorder setup, but people standing in the queue must have waited for much more than an hour, judging by the slow speed they made through the hall.

Talking about preorders, I already mentioned yesterday that I had preordered most of the games which I really wanted during my pre-SPIEL research and preparation phase. Today I was truly happy that I did this, because “Sold Out” or “Preorders only!” signs were popping up at different booths all over the day. The purchasable stocks of small cardgames like Harmony from DMZ or bigger games like Tea Garden from ALBI all vanished within a matter of a few hours, and I overheard quite a few people complaining at the booths that they didn’t even have a chance to get the games they desired. I guess that this – among the ticket sellouts – is one of the new developments which makes SPIEL 24 a special milestone in all the years of its existence, because people surely will have to plan their future visits in a different way.

But not all new developments are a bad thing. The trend of people running and queuing to get their games actually opened up the possibility to sit down and try a game after I finished my collection tour, and I was even more happy because I could start my first gaming session at the booth of a small German publisher whom I had discovered just a few weeks ahead of the show.

Playtesting session: A.I.Pokalypse – OWLY MOLY GAMES (booth 3 A 111)

A game which really piqued during my SPIEL preparation was A.I.Pokalypse, a crowdfunded cardgame created by two German game geeks operating as OWLY MOLY GAMES. My curiosity was raised because A.I.Pokalypse takes the relatively new genre of auto-battlers and spins it into a thrilling card game experience, combining tactical depth with chaotic, automated combat. As the so-called digital eruption triggered apocalyptic events all over the globe, A.I.Pokalypse throws players into a dystopian landscape where they must assemble teams of mercenaries, each with unique abilities, to battle for survival and dominance.

The auto battler genre first rose to prominence in computer games like Auto Chess and Teamfight Tactics, but it was very successfully adapted to the world of boardgames by Challengers! by 1 MORE TIME GAMES. It is defined by a unique new approach on strategy games, because players focus on drafting and positioning their units, but once the battle starts, the units fight automatically. This creates a hybrid of strategic planning and automated action, as success depends not just on the composition of your faction’s team, but on predicting how their abilities will play out when the fight starts.

The genre has gained popularity because it challenges players to think several steps ahead and adapt to ever-changing scenarios, blending tactical preparation with the randomness of combat. So, unlike traditional turn-based card games where you control every move, auto battlers add an exciting element of unpredictability - once the pieces are in place, all you can do is watch and hope your strategy works out. But in A.I.Pokalypse - and this is one of the features which makes the game quite special - you still have some possibilities of tweaking the final results even if battle is raging…

A.I.Pokalypse capitalizes on the core appeal of auto battlers but adds its own flair with a card-based system that enhances especially the strategic aspects of the genre. Players are tasked to fill up to six slots in their play area with units coming from on cards from their hand, with a hand of 6 new cards being drawn on a round-by-round base. Each unit has a basic Power (=strength in combat) of 1, but this can be enhanced by cardplay and card effects, because each Unit card in the game has its own abilities and synergies which may trigger when the card is placed, during battle or when it is discarded.

Here the strategic challenge for the players begins, because they have to decide whether really to use a unit, positioning it in a battle slot where it will automatically execute its attack during the Battle phase, or to use its discard powers to trigger some neat effects. Other cards have nice effects when placed into a slot, and here the game shines with lots of interesting combos which can be made. As all Unit cards belong to 5 different categories (Humans, Mechs, Mutants, Rogues, A.I.Lien), nice combos can be made with units of the same faction, but on the other hand there are also possibilities to go for a mixed force, especially since there are synergy effects which can be used on different unit categories.

One of the things that sets A.I.Pokalypse apart from other auto battlers is the sheer creativity and versatility of the Unit card design. As said, the units represent different factions of humans or rogue machines, each with its own playstyle - ranging from frontline combat units to supporters with lots of interesting effects. As players draft and position their units, they must constantly balance short-term survival with long-term planning, adapting their strategies on the fly as the game proceeds.

Indeed, a player’s career as a Wasteland Scavenger may be over quickly if he is not able to adapt to his opponent’s strategy, because all long-term planning will be to no avail if the player doesn’t score enough points during the first Battle phases. As said, the player’s draw and play a hand of six cards during each round, but at the end on each round the cardplay is followed by a Battle phase. During the Battle phase, the player’s units are activated on a random basis, and the player winning a comparison of the activated units’ Power values will score a point. The player who has scored most points wins the Battle phase, forcing all his opponents to lose as many Health points as their scores differs from the score of the winner. And since each player only possesses 6 Health points, the end may come quite fast!

But no end without a glorious battle, and so the game is not quite over when a player loses his last Health point. Instead, the Sudden Death phase is triggered now, and only from that point on players who would lose a Health point (but don’t have one) are eliminated. But even though this battle resolution may sound quite streamlined, there are lots of interesting twists which make A.I.Pokalypse quite special. For one, the players can use remaining hand cards during the Battle phase to influence which of their units is activated, thus having some degree of control over their possibilities to score points against opposing units. However, the possibilities to manipulate battle results don’t stop here, since some units offer special effects which can be triggered during battle, and ammunition may also be used to give a unit’s Power a temporary boost. So, A.I.Pokalypse actually is a semi-automatic battler, because the players have much more control over a Battle phase outcome than in games like Challengers!.

There are lots of other niceties and features which add to the game’s thrill and attraction. If played at the right moment, A.I.Lien cards can end all fighting within a timeframe of just two rounds, ending the game not by a player running out of Health points but on a comparison of all unit Power values. Furthermore, the loss of a Health point is not simply bad for a player, because the cards used as Health points show special units on their backsides. These cards go into the player’s pool, giving him a chance to recruit them in later round and possibly turn the game in his favor. Even better still, A.I.Pokalypse offers cooperative play and solo play, and if used together with the expansion there is a whole campaign waiting for the players!

What makes auto battlers, and by extension A.I.Pokalypse, so interesting is the blend of strategy and automation. The unpredictable nature of battles keeps things fresh, forcing players to adapt constantly. It’s a genre that rewards both long-term planning and quick thinking, and A.I.Pokalypse delivers this almost in perfection. The card-based unit system adds deep layers of strategic choices, making the game feel different on every round, depending on the cards you draw and the opponents you face.

OWLY MOLY GAMES has crafted a game that is easy to pick up, but endlessly challenging to master, and with its well-chosen post-apocalyptic theme, it offers a fresh take on the genre. Indeed, the game’s lore is another standout feature, because the world of A.I.Pokalypse is dark and dangerous, with each card dripping with personality. I played my game her at the show against another visitor under the helpful guidance of game designer and artist Marian Hilgers, and he told me that he invested lots of time to build a fitting world for the game. While the graphics of each card where initially created by using artificial intelligence, Marian professionally works as a concept artist and so he reworked and edited each and every card until everything got a unique but uniform look, giving the game a very distinctive appeal. Hiring an artist for doing the art completely would not have been affordable, but the combination used here was really quite nice. So, whether you’re a fan of deeply themed card games or looking for something new in the world of auto battlers, A.I.Pokalypse is a must-try.

Noon was approaching quickly after this delightful gaming session, and since I collected four (!!!) big bags full of games, I now made my way home where Nicole was preparing lunch. But of course, my wife was really curious what kinds of games I would be bringing home, and so we spent some time over noon to look at a few of the boxes and their contents. So, while me and Nicole browse through our catch, let’s have a look what Ralf was doing today! It’s his birthday, and what could be a better gift than spending some time at the SPIEL?

Happy birthday, Ralf!

Well, well! The SPIEL opens its doors and I'm still sitting relaxed at home having breakfast. Am I sick? Well, yes, I am still a bit sick, as I reported yesterday. But the real reason is that I decided to take it easier this year, you know, I’m getting older after all. I decided to leave out the long queues that already start on the motorway, the queues at the frontdoors and the running around for the best places in the queues in front of the sales stands.

That’s, why I set off relaxed shortly before eleven, about an hour after the official opening, and made it to my parking space in about 20 minutes without any problems. From there it was only a short walk to the halls, where I was then able to continue admiring the queues in front of the sales stands.

I don't really understand this running from one booth to the other, after all, most of the games will be available later without queuing. Of course, there are a few exceptions, but mostly it is just a matter of getting a head start by buying the latest games here at the fair. But queuing for hours for that? I was told that the queues stretched through the whole of Hall 3 in the morning, and it should be noted that Hall 3 is the largest hall at the fair. And at FROSTED GAMES, the queue was still over an hour long at around one o'clock. Well, if you like it...

Anyway, I preferred to go to the booths to have games explained to me and to try them out. So let's get started:

My starting point today should be sporty, so I decided. That’s why the Latvian publisher WOLFF DESIGNA caught my eye as it was presenting the new, second version of the ice hockey game Trick Shot at SPIEL.

In this two-player game, each player takes on role of the captain of a hockey team of six players (goalie, 2 defender, centre and 2 winger). All player types have their own characteristics that make them faster or slower, more accurate in shooting or stronger in tackling their opponents.

Trick Shot is basically a fast-paced game of tactics and luck, which certainly suits the genre very well. The rules were explained to me in about 5 minutes. After taking the starting positions, a player is randomly chosen to start and receive the puk. This player must then first activate the playing piece that has the puk (i.e. the central player standing in the centre circle). Of course, this playing piece starts with a pass that must be orthogonal or diagonal. So you choose another playing piece in line of sight and pass the puk to it.

This pass will definitely arrive, but whether the player can continue playing after that is decided by a dice roll. For this, special six-sided dice is thrown that has an X on one side for an abort. In this case, it would be the opponent's turn. There is also a side of the dice with an arrow symbol, which allows the opponent to move one of his playing pieces one step.

If no X has been thrown, it is the current player's turn again, but they may not immediately activate the same playing piece. In addition to passing, it is now also possible to move (with or without a puck) up to the maximum of the respective movement range, as well as to steal the puck or to intervene more forcefully (in the case of defence). However, two dice must be rolled for the second activated game piece, so that the probability of throwing an X increases. For the third activation, three dice would have to be rolled, and so on. Fortunately, there are also opportunities to repeat a dice roll, but this is limited, so you should decide wisely when to take advantage of this possibility.

You see, you can build up a nice chain of combinations, at least if you have a clear path and your own players are well positioned (so that you can pass). However, playing pieces are influenced by opposing playing pieces, making it impossible to move with a puk.

As soon as a player change occurs, the time is set a step further, the end of the match comes nearer. And that happens faster than you think, so a game doesn't take that long time.

Trick Shot comes in two versions, the one with painted miniatures and the other unpainted. Both look great and the game is really a lot of fun. I played for about ten minutes and was hooked immediately. The quick dice rolls, the clear, simple rules, and the great game material make for a thrilling ice hockey match, at least that was my first impression after the short introduction. In any case, a game to keep an eye on if you like fast-paced sports games!

After this rather turbulent start to this year's SPIEL, I felt like something more peaceful and slower. And after a little wandering around the halls, I found just the thing for this moment at PEGASUS: a way to create my own dungeon:

Hurray! A new game in the Roll-Player universe. I still haven't played the original Roll Player, but I had a lot of fun with Cartographers. And now Dungeon Designer. What is the game about? Designing the best, most creative dungeon, of course! You must know that this task has been given to the Minotaurs in the Roll-Player universe for generations. After a few years of learning, it is now our turn to prove ourselves to desig the best dungeon at the end of the fourth year. For this, we build rooms in our dungeon, ideally taking into account a building plan that each of us receives at the beginning of the game.

These rooms show paths that should be connected if possible, each room belongs to one of two different room types, and there are elements on the cards that are important for fulfilling the building plans and tasks that we will receive each round in the game. In addition, each room has a certain gold value, which can be collected after all cards for the round have been played.

The construction phase is carried out in a drafting phase at the beginning of each round. For this, each player receives five cards, plays one of them into the row of the current round in his dungeon and passes the remaining cards on to the next player. This continues until each of us has played four new cards into his own dungeon.

After that, we collect the gold from all the newly played cards plus 1 gold per treasure chest (one of the elements on the cards) in the entire dungeon. With this money, we can then visit a market and buy market tiles. These are, in particular, further elements (in addition to treasure chests, there are monsters, traps and stars, the latter also contribute to victory points at the end), which we use to improve our rooms (and thus perhaps fulfilling some of the conditions on the building plans and orders). There are also secret passages that create connections between two rooms where there were none before, which is also quite important for fulfilling victory point conditions.

As you can see, the game is easy to explain and can also be played quite quickly. Nevertheless, it is labelled as a connoisseur game, because meeting the various conditions is a bit tricky. Finally, in addition to the victory point options already described, there is also an overarching goal for our master, which is drawn at random at the beginning of the game.

I think Dungeon Designer will inspire, as the other games from the role-playing universe have already done. The game looks great, has high-quality game materials, the rules are excellently explained and a certain amount of interaction with the other players is also required due to the drafting mode and the selection phase at the market. Finally, a great solo mode should be mentioned, which rounds off the game. Let's hope it continues like this!

And so it went on immediately. Because, as we all know, too much slowness has never helped anyone, at least not if you want to see something at the SPIEL. So, into the crowd and to the next booth that interests you and has free tables. Although, the latter actually didn't seem as difficult to me today as it has been in many years past. Ok, it was full.

Probably in will also be full for the next few days. Because every day except Sunday is now sold out. But, because the fair has once again expanded the stand and especially the play areas this year, there is plenty to choose from. Today, of course, many players didn't want to play at all, but rather queued up to buy games. Well, I already told you about that.

My next stop was at HORRIBLE GUILD, where I first met Alessandro, an old acquaintance who showed me all the wonderful new games from the Italian publisher for years. Alessandro then told me about their horror journey to Essen, which took almost half a day longer than planned. Davide, who has been introducing me to the new products since last year, was also involved in that horror trip but he kept a stiff upper lip and patiently showed me their new games:

The first game I was presented with was Spotlight, which is a simple family game in the hidden object universe. Each player receives a transparent hidden object picture, which is, however, barely recognisable through a black underlay. Only when a ‘flashlight’, basically a long black stick with a white round end, is held between the transparent and the background, the individual figures and objects on the hidden object picture can be seen.

This should still be somewhat familiar to most parents with smaller children, as this mechanism is often used in children's books. However, now it's time to get down to business. A card is revealed that shows an element from the hidden object. On command, an hourglass is then turned over. Now it is up to each player to quickly shine their ‘flashlight’ on the hidden object and count how many times that element is present in the picture.

Each player then enters the result on a small roundel. Then, by turning over the card, it is revealed how often the element is in the picture. Players who have overestimated the number remain on a central running track with their playing piece, all others run on, the higher the estimated number, the more steps you take.

However, it is not about winning over your fellow players, you play against the game, because the game has its own playing piece that advances. And as soon as it reaches the last player, it gets tight.

As you can see, it's a real family game. I found it particularly refreshing that the two successful authors Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva have actually combined very calm elements, such as the flashlight in the hidden object, with stress factors such as the hourglass. I was immediately reminded of my two sons, when they were younger, how enthusiastically they used to search in the hidden object pictures. So of course, I had to take the game with me and play it immediately again at home with my wife, my mother and my two sons, who are now quite older. But still: everybody enjoyed it.

The other new game that Davide presented to me today was a little more challenging, although it could also be considered a family game:

In this game, it is our aim to build a magnificent garden by placing the largest possible flower field of the same colour next to each other on our personal player boards. To do this, you acquire flower tiles of different sizes, which are taken from a circle around a ‘field board’ with smaller flower tiles and bees. A sun stone marks on this circle which flower tile must be taken next. If you don't want to do that, you have to pay for it with bees, which are then placed on the skipped flower tile.

If you take one of the small flower parts from the field board, you also have to pay two bees for it. Of course, you can also take these bees back in your hand if you don't undermine anything else in the round. However, you get more points if you place the bees on the designated spaces on the flower tiles in your own garden.

Flower Fields will be the game that I’ll take with me on my next holiday, which we will spend with friends in Austria. I think that this game has just the right degree of complexity to convince those friends that you can also play ‘normal’ games with me. Anyway, it looks great to grow your garden und to see the bees flying around, isn’t it?

Incidentally, I was also informed that a Kickstarter campaign is currently running for a board game version of the well-known roll & write game Railroad Ink. There are still 10 days left to get involved in the Railroad Tiles campaign, so maybe you should be quick:

Last but not least: HORRIBLE GUILD is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year! Congratulations from me and up to the next 10 years!

I still remember when, in the first year of the publisher, I met Lorenzo Silva received me on a small sofa at his booth and presented me his Co-Mix. He also proudly handed me a green T-shirt, which I still often wear at home today. How times goes by…

HORRIBLE GUILD celebrates in style and created a limited special edition of Similo, which contains only figures from their own games. What a great idea! And those of you who are now interested: be quick as there was already a run for this version today...

That's all from me for today. After all, it's also my birthday today and I need to celebrate a little. So, sleep well and see you tomorrow!

After my lunchbreak Ralf and me had a very special meeting on our schedules. A few weeks ago I had been contacted by Uwe Rosenberg, designer of Agricola, Bohnanza and many other famous games. Uwe and I never had met in person, and as it turns out, Uwe is writing a series of books about the history of the SPIEL convention. During his research he very often used our reports as a reference for some information of previous years, and now he wanted to meet us personally to talk a bit more about our SPIEL experiences.

We met Uwe at the booth of the Society of friends of Memory – The Game (Gesellschaft der Freunde des memory-Spiels, Galeria GA31), and as Uwe explained to us, he has suggested this meeting point for very specific reasons.

Here at the SPIEL Erik Ecker and his team are hosting the 35th German Memory Championships, and indeed he has been doing this here at the SPIEL ever since 1990. Erik has a truly impressive track record, organizing memory events on an honorary basis for all these years. In fact, he has been doing this 7 years longer than we are doing our SPIEL reports, and I can tell you that it takes true dedication and enthusiasm to carry on for such a long time! Kudos for such a stamina, especially since the SPIEL always is gaining lots of character and uniqueness from people like Erik who promote games and specialties which are off mainstream gaming.

However, Uwe also has guided us here because he has some history with the memory game and the championships. He was in the middle of his studies of statistics at university when the exams for his intermediate diploma were approaching. A lot of formulas and other things needed to be remembered, and a friend of Uwe’s came up with the suggestion to play memory to train their brains to remember things better. They started doing this quite intensively, and while the start was bumpy, Uwe was able to play his first faultless game after three days. As he told us, memory really helped him to discover new ways to memorize things, and he enjoyed playing it so much that he even participated in the championships in these years.

Later on, Uwe even addressed the topic of memory on a scientific basis, presenting a thesis on the game and the last unknown factor, thus proving that the last few tiles should remain covered. This ends the game possibly in a draw, but the potential for losing the game is higher because the opposing player can usually finish a game if the most of the last tiles had been revealed. In the end, this story certainly contributed to Uwe’s fascination with gaming, and ultimately it has led him to create some of the favorite games of many gamers all around the globe.

For our talk we had been back at my home for a more quiet atmosphere and a cup of coffee, and we could also provide Uwe with the one or other story from our long SPIEL experience. This certainly has been a very special meeting for all of us, and afterwards we reentered the halls together for some more boardgaming in the afternoon.

To be honest, my thirst for something unusual wasn’t quite quenched for today, and I remembered that I had discovered an interesting looking game from another small German publisher yesterday at the New Games Show. So, I decided to try my luck and made my way back into Hall 3, and lucky I was indeed because there was a free seat available at the only table of TABLETOPPER GAMES.

Playtesting session: Under our Sun – TABLETOPPER GAMES (booth 3 T 113)

The adventure game Under our Sun was realized through a successful Gamefound-campaign, and the backers of the project have the first chance to take a glimpse at the finished game here at the SPIEL 24. The game is an ambitious, post-apocalyptic strategy game set in a future where Earth is ravaged by climate change, environmental collapse, and resource scarcity. On first sight, it seems to be in line with many end-of-civilization themed games on the market, apart from the fact that the source of mankind’s almost extinction is not a virus, aliens or a global war, but in Under our Sun an asteroid has hit the sun, and the aftershocks of this collision create flares and sunstorms which have made Earth almost inhabitable. Well, almost, and so the players assume the roles of different members of a small community of humans, struggling to survive in the hostile environment.

So, the setting is well known indeed. The players send out their characters to explore the world, and step by step they move from their sheltered community to explore new landscape tiles, collect resources and fight enemies. The precise aims and goals of the players are defined by their chosen mission, and here Under our Sun differs notably from many new campaign-based adventure games. The designers have chosen to create Under our Sun as a standalone adventure game in which the players can chose to play (and replay) several different missions, but there are no campaign or legacy elements which are taken onwards from game to game. In this aspect the game is in line with other one-shot adventure games like (classic) Zombicide, but gameplay and resource management is much more sophisticated in comparison to classic move-and-fight games, and despite the cooperative approach there is also the possibility that a traitor hides among the ranks of the players.

One of the outstanding features of the game is the resource management mechanism. The players can collect and trade 8 different types of resources, with Water and Food being most important for the survival of the characters in the hostile environment. However, all other resources are important as well, because the players can use them to build (craft) lots of useful items like weapons, a tent or cooking gear, and these items usually will enhance and enlarge their range of possible actions. Here the game actually shines by taking the players into some kind of Robinsonade, because they start with almost no equipment and have to find their ways to improve their meagre chances of survival and to – finally – reach the goals of their current mission.

The resource management is finely woven into the daily action phases, the backbone of the game’s playing mechanism. During the course of each round (day), the players play trough the morning, afternoon and nighttime phases, and for each phase they get an allowance of action points which they can use to explore and interact with their environment in many possible ways. Quite a few different effects and restraints must be observed during the course of each day, thus mounting a considerable daily routine which keeps the players from dashing forward on reaching their mission goal: The characters must have food and water to consume, otherwise they can’t recover from wounds and will lose action points. In addition, it’s important to sleep at least once each round, because a tired character also will not be able to perform at top levels.

Unforeseen problems are added by thematic events like dust storms or heatwaves that affect the characters. These events force players to make difficult choices, often weighing personal welfare against the mission goal, which further immerses them in the story of a world which has crumbled to pieces. The hostile environment throws a lot of challenges at the player characters, ranging from weather conditions over enemies to various nighttime events, and here the players must strive to build and trade for good equipment, because otherwise the hostility of the barren world will bring their mission to a premature end.

Quite charming in about Under our Sun is the fact that the options and possibilities available to the players often come quite intuitively, and the rules offer a considerable range to actions and effects which strengthen the survivalist aspect of the game: players can boldly press forward or try to stay in stealth mode to spy on enemies and surprise them, they can trade with outposts or try to take items through force or thievery, they can try to collect rain if a rare thunderstorm comes etc., and taken together all these options nicely underline the immersion and atmosphere which can be found in Under our Sun.

Finally, an important feature which also must be mentioned are the combat rules. Combat is possible against enemies or (optional) against a player who plays a SoL, a Son of Liberty hidden traitor character. Like skill checks, combat is decided by rolling a set of dice, but different types of dice are available which offer different success rates, and the specific types of dice which a character will use depend on his general skills and the equipment he uses. But once again, Under our Sun does not come with a simple roll-most-successes-and-win mechanism, but instead the game features a slim set of different combat actions which actually give players an opportunity to make decisions during a combat. So, the general question is whether attacking, defending or fleeing is the best option, but there are also possibilities to get other player characters join the combat. Indeed Under our Sun is a game which requires good cooperation between all players, and this is very nicely reflected in the rules for cooperative combat, which once again work smoothly and quite intuitively with players being able to act on other players turns by simple interruption rules. This may culminate in a quite thrilling combat between multiple characters and enemies, giving the players a true feeling of standing and fighting back to back.

Under our Sun does not really fit a classic gaming genre. There are elements of tabletop wargames, resource management games and adventure games, but in all these categories the designers have taking some refreshing new approaches. The whole playing experience comes as a quite entertaining mixture of these elements, with most emphasis on the survival aspect and the cooperative approach. In this context Under Our Sun doesn’t just have a setting - it lives and breathes its theme. Every turn feels like a fight for survival in a harsh, sun-scorched future, and the game’s mechanics support this atmosphere without feeling forced. From the scarcity of resources to the looming threat of hostile humans and creatures, every element of the game reinforces its narrative. Graphic design and the structuring of the rules are top-notch for a crowdfunding project, and to my mind Under our Sun will be one of the most unusual finds here at the SPIEL 24. Due to my love for adventure games, this game was a must have for me!

As can be seen with Maximilian and David from Tabletopper games, new and aspiring publishers can be found at the SPIEL virtually behind every corner. Crowdfunding boosts the realization of many interesting projects, and it has become an integral part of the gaming scene as we know it today. However, there are also publishers who can’t stay in the race for numerous reasons, and sadly Belgian game publisher GAME BREWER is among the companies who is going to shut down. However, they don’t want to simply disappear, and so the whole team of GAME BREWER says “Goodbye!” in a stylish manner here at the show. Once again they have the only booth with its own bar counter and beer tap, and they are selling their remaining stocks at excellent prices. That’s what I call a farewell party!

I was starting to get exhausted after the long day, but what could be better at such a moment than a round of true mayhem? Well, that’s at least what I though when I met my friend Cedrick Caumont yesterday at the new games show when he presented the new game Duck & Cover. I made my way over to the booth of CAPTAIN GAMES and quickly found a free seat at a table, but I also had to find out that Duck & Cover is no silly hunt for rubberducks, but actually a cute family game with simple but highly catching mechanics.

Stopover: Duck & Cover – CAPTAIN GAMES (booth 3 R 611)

In Duck & Cover each player has his own display (or flock) of 12 cute rubberducks, with each duck having a number from 1 to 12 and a card value from 0 to 5. During the game the players will move their ducks, trying to use the lower value ducks to cover the ducks with the higher value, because at the end of each round the players will count the points on their remaining ducks and it’s the goal to score the fewest point after a total of three rounds.

During a round, each duck may be triggered up to a total of 3 times, and for activating the ducks one of the players reveals cards from a random Activation deck. So, for example, if the player reveals the card with value 2, all players now get an action for their value 2 duck, being allowed to move it to cover an adjacent duck, or to move it to a free space within their own flock display.

In this fashion more and more ducks will be covered and vanish, and there comes a point where no player can activate a duck when a new number is revealed. In this case all players have to shout “QUACK!”, and the number card is discarded into the middle of the table. When 7 cards have been discarded in this fashion, the current round is over, the players calculate their points and set up their display of 12 ducks once again.

This sounds incredibly simple, doesn’t it? But I remember that Cedrick told me yesterday that there is more to Duck & Cover than meets the eye. Indeed I played quite carefree during the first round, resulting a shameful high score. However, I started to plan more carefully in the second round, trying to keep track of the activation cards and guessing which ducks might still receive an activation before the round would be over again.

Even more important is the detail that you can also use a duck’s action to move it to a free space in your duck display. On first sight it might seem strange not to use an action to cover another of your ducks, but if you remember that a duck can only be covered by an adjacent duck you will discover that bigger gaps in the display aren’t really useful. So, you start to move your ducks into gaps, trying to create “bridges” which allow good moves of other ducks in your display.

Once again Cedrick and the team from CAPTAIN GAMES succeeded in serving me quite a surprise game which turned out to be highly entertaining. Duck & Cover features a rather delightful twist which makes you shout for instant replay – event though no one will understand your quacking. The game strengthens CAPTAIN GAMES reputation as a new but serious player on the games market, and as could be seen on the booth all day, this perception is shared by quite a few of the SPIEL visitors!

Well, after this delightful ending, I guess it’s time for me to duck and cover! Good night everybody!!!

Wednesday, 02.10.: Press Day

Welcome to Press day!

Despite the fact that I don’t get to play any games on Press day, for me this is always the most interesting day of the SPIEL. On the one hand it’s an opportunity to meet quite a few people from the boardgames sector in a setting which is slightly less crowded (and loud) than SPIEL on a public day, and furthermore quite a high number of publishers are actually exhibiting their new games in the New Games Show. This is always helps me to refine and finetune my roadmap for the days to come, because it allows me to look for interesting games and add them to my list.

Exactly at 10 AM Carol Rapp and Robin DeCleur from MERZ VERLAG entered the stage and opened the press conference, and as usual we first received a bit statistical background about this year’s SPIEL. Once again the exhibition space has grown by 9,5%, now covering 68,500 square meters. With this space used, halls 1 to 6 were totally sold out, and MERZ VERLAG had to stop bookings for publishers a few weeks ago. For next year they are contemplating whether the SPIEL should be extended to cover halls 7 and 8, the last remaining halls of MESSE ESSEN, but it’s not sure whether they will do it. For one, new agreements must be made with MESSE ESSEN, and furthermore these halls were used to speed up admittance of people in the mornings before opening on public days. Tickets were checked and people could wait in these halls, and this opportunity for speedy admittance will fall away if the halls are used. Nonetheless, a solution needs to be found, and if there still is demand for new space there seems to be no way around using these halls.

Quite impressive is the fact that 923 exhibitors from 52 countries on 5 continents will be present at the show, and they bring an overwhelming 1,562 new games with them. These numbers always give a first impression on the size of the event, but even more surprising is the fact that the SPIEL – for the first time ever – will be sold out for visitors. Today at the press conference it was announced that tickets for Thursday are sold out, and Friday will follow soon. I asked whether this means that there will be no more tickets available at the ticket offices at the entrances, and indeed it was confirmed that all tickets come from the same contingent. So, if a day is sold out online, you won’t be able to buy a ticket at a fair entrance.

I talked with Ralf about this, and he mentioned that many fairs and events now operate almost purely on presales, but nonetheless this development is still quite new for me. For example, Nicole usually decided on short notice on which day she will enter the show with me, and especially families living in or around Essen used to just come and visit the show without major preparations. The SPIEL was created and has grown as a family event, and this new development of whole days selling out will require people to change their thinking and planning.

I guess there will be quite a bit of disappointment at the entrances since spontaneous visitors can’t get in, but in the following years people will have adjusted to the new conditions. Overall, MERZ VERLAG is expecting 200,000 people at all four public days, and introducing a daily cap of 50,000 visitors is probably done due to security reasons. Six halls is not much for people to spread out, and the layout of this year’s SPIEL probably will add to this situation and create some very tight spots.

If you look at the floorplan, there have only been minor changes in comparison to last year. The area for tabletop miniature games and RPGs now covers Hall 1 and a part of Hall 2, but all publishers of “expert games” – that is many of the small and medium publishers from all around the world – are squeezed mainly into Hall 3. It’s a big hall, but nonetheless it’s the hall where most hobbyists will go, either for picking up preorders or for checking out some of the highly wanted novelties.

If you look at this screenshot from the SPIEL app, the stars mark the most important booths which I would like to visit, and it’s absolutely sure that the plans of many gamers from all around the globe look quite similar. From what I could gather, Hall 3 already was quite crowded last year, but if MERZ VERLAG really suspects that all four days might sell out, it’s my guess that we will also see Hall 3 packed even more than in previous years. Halls 4 to 6 with the “family games” will be better, apart from the usual crowds at the ASMODEE sales booths. However, if all these predictions should really come true, it might be an idea to re-think the floorplans for next year.

By the way, my friend Dale Yu also has written some information on the innovations implemented by MERZ VERLAG, and if you should be interested in more information on the topic, I recommend reading his post on Opinionated Gamers.

Talking about the SPIEL app, I have mentioned this already in last year’s report. It’s a quite useful helper, especially if you don’t quite know where to find all the different booths which you want to visit. As Mrs. Rapp told, they still haven’t found a good routine for planning your perfect route through all halls, but nonetheless the app now also features a simple route planner to get from one game to the next.

This year’s SPIEL also displays a new face on the convention banners, and the martial guy in a medieval fantasy outfit is Alea, the front man of the German medieval rock band Saltatio Mortis. He was up on the stage for an interview, and as it turns out Alea and his fellow band members seem to be gamers right to their core. Alea confessed that he loves dungeon crawlers, and that his most favourite game still is Labyrinth by Max J. Kobbert. The band is here at the SPIEL to present a new game, and it seems that MERZ VERLAG has seized the opportunity to update their own SPIEL campaign through a cooperation.

Indeed, the organizers from MERZ VERLAG are constantly introducing new reforms since ownership of the SPIEL changed at the beginning of 2023, and so the Deutscher Spiele Preis was once again awarded right here in the press conference. Last year the awards ceremony was hosted in the new games show, but it was generally agreed that the ceremony lost its festive setting due to the hustle and bustle at the new games show. So, today it was moved back to happen in the press conference, and even though it’s still not the same as in former times where there used to be a big festive dinner on Wednesday night, the ceremony now once again happens in a fitting circumstances.

I was delighted to see that the prestigious award in the main category was given to Mischwald, a comparatively small cardgame about creating your own forest by setting trees and aligning animal and plant cards around them to create good scores. The game has and astonishing playing depth and lots to meaningful choices can be made, and it seems that publisher LOOKOUT GAMES really has met the taste of the gaming scene.

The global sales numbers for Mischwald have topped a quarter of a million copies, an really impressive amount regarding a usual print run of about 30,000 copies for a “normal” game. And of course, as can be suspected when a game wins one of the big awards, two new expansions for Mischwald will be released right here at the SPIEL.

However, not only Mischwald was a worthy winner for this year’s awards, but also the runner-up games on second and third place were really strong contestants

1. Mischwald by Kosch (LOOKOUT GAMES)

2. Sky Team by Luc Remond (SCORPION MASQUE)

3. White Castle by Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero (DEVIR)

And, of course, let’s not forget the winner of the awards for the best children’s game. It’s Die Magischen Schlüssel by Arno Steinwender and Markus Slawitscheck, published by GAME FACTORY & HAPPY BAOBAB.

Congratulations to all the winners!

After all this information you will probably be curious to get a first glimpse on some of the new games, but you will have to restrain your curiosity just a little bit longer. Yesterday Ralf couldn’t join us for the start, but today he is back to our SPIEL reporting, and so let’s check what he is up to!

Dear SPIEL enthusiasts!

A warm welcome from me too. And my sincere apologies that I'm only starting my report today. I had imagined a very different start to the week. The plan was to publish my first report as an appetiser on Monday or Tuesday at the latest and, of course, to go full throttle today.

But then this happened: on Saturday, I was invited to a Zombicide boardgame evening at Frank's house. There I started to feel more and more pressure in my stomach, the night was a bit painful and on Sunday I got a fever. On Monday, I briefly thought that it would have overcome the disease, but Tuesday almost completely knocked me out. So I rushed to the doctor and returned home with a suspected urinary tract infection and a box of antibiotics. Fortunately, these little tablets show their effect quickly (even if I don't really like swallowing them), at least I was able to sleep properly for the first night since Saturday without a heavy stomach and actually turned up in time for the press conference today, which Frank has already told you all about.

So, enough moaning, now it's time to catch up. What was planned for yesterday is now coming today,

What a time it has been: We spent weeks preparing for the next adventure, most of all, of course, the master, who had either purchased one of the ready-made adventure volumes or - far more frequently in our case - lovingly designed the adventure himself. In our case, the master changed for almost every adventure, and so all the heroes, be they fighters, magicians, tricksters or other heroic characters had a chance to level up.

A short time earlier, in 1994, the first really serious German role-playing game Das Schwarze Auge was published. It quickly became the first serious competitor to well-known Dungeons & Dragons. I think, we really got into the game in 1986 or 1987, at least with the first version, in which a hero sheet still consisted of a single sheet. There were only a few traits and talents, but the fun was immense for us back then.

All of a sudden you could run around freely in a game, explore dungeons and fight orcs and ogres, goblins and giants and many other creatures. Our Saturdays were always legendary, when we sat together at one of our parents' family table, being cooked for in between by the host's parents, and by the afternoon at the latest, the first tears flow because on of the favourite heroes had once again rushed forward too brashly and couldn't parry the opponent's attack as well as his owner had thought. The master's skill was then required to ensure that the day ended well for everyone.

The second edition of the game, which was published in 1988, was much more complex and I even started planning houses for my heroes at that time. The holidays were perfect for this, of course, but I must also have spent the one or other afternoon after school doing this.

An entire continent called Aventuria was created for the game and to this day there are books and films set in this distant and yet so close land. Unfortunately, I gave up Das Schwarze Auge a short time later to devote myself to other role-playing games until I finished school. This RPG period also ended with the begin of my studies, but I always had my old boxes, heroes and notes to hand and they moved with me from one flat to the next. It was only recently that I had to part with them, thanks to a mould attack in my cellar.

And now I realise that the game of my youth is 40 years old this year and that it is still alive and enjoying further editions. The last version from 2015 was the first also released in English (aka Dark Eye), who could have guessed that back in 1984? This version is now published by ULISSES VERLAG, the publisher will still be important in this report.

Well, these 40 years have to be celebrated. Let's start with the most remarkable appearance that is called Finsterwacht.

Finsterwacht is a project that came about rather by chance, but more on that in a moment. Let’s first focus on what it is: Finsterwacht is a cross-media concept in which the German band Saltatio Mortis, Das Schwarze Auge and two authors have worked together. The result is an album by the band, a new novel in the land of Aventuria and two new role-playing game volumes and background music for Das Schwarze Auge. In the meantime, this project has actually reached number one on the German hit list, despite the rather niche genre.

Alea, singer of the band Saltatio Mortis, explained at today's press conference how this project was born: well, two of the band members had designed several adventure volumes for Das Schwarze Auge in the early years. And after a brief appearance by the band at a Comic-Con, ULISSES editor-in-chief Niko came to the band's table and told them that he was a huge fan of their work, but not of their music. He was, of course, referring to their work as story writers for Das Schwarze Auge. It turned out that Gunter, one of the band members, had written Niko's favourite adventure and so one thing led to another.

But what is Finsterwacht? It is a mountain region in Aventuria, a stronghold between the orcs and the kingdom of Waiden. And the idea of having the project take place at this exact location was born because the band was planning to organise a castle tour across Germany anyway, which fitted to the stronghold idea.

By the way, the people behind Finsterwacht, i.e. the band and the authors, are organising smaller or larger events at various locations at SPIEL tomorrow, so it's best to check the SPIEL Essen homepage if you're interested.

If only there had been something so cool like this earlier...my Das Schwarze Auge boxes would hardly have gone into the cellar and I'd be starting all over again now. Although, I can still do that....

But that's not the only highlight of the anniversary year of the German RPG, AMIGO has also come up with something very special:

40 Years of Das Schwarze Auge, a game that still manages to inspire even after all these years. Not every game manages this feat. Although you certainly still know one or two games from this year, would you still enjoy playing them today? The answer is probably no for most games.

However, the answer will be often yes for one game: the card game Wizard by author Ken Fisher, which revolutionised the trick-taking card game in 1984, initially only in English. The German version from AMIGO came onto the market in 1996, which is quite a long time considering the short-lived games market too.

And AMIGO had this brilliant idea of combining the two long-running game favourites and is presenting us an amazing special version of Wizard at this year's SPIEL.

The Das Schwarze Auge special edition of Wizard comes in an extremely classy, book-like box, with high-quality metal coins and beautiful cards showing all the characters and figures from Aventuria. The whole thing is rounded off with a short letter from Werner Fuchs, one of the initiators of Das Schwarze Auge, a pen and a scoring pad.

I don't think I need to say much about the Wizard game itself, but here is a short summary: Wizard is basically a simple trick-taking card game with 4 colours and Wizard cards that trump every trick. The revolutionary thing was and is that at the beginning of the round, after the cards have been dealt and looked at, each player has to make a prediction as to how many tricks they will win with their hand in the round.

Only if this prediction is kept the respective player can receive victory points. This mechanism has been copied many times since then, most recently in last year's Cat in the Box, for example. Another special feature of Wizard is that the number of cards in hand is increased by one each round. So, in the first round there is only one card in each player's hand, in the second two and so on. I still remember my first game very well that immediately impressed me. And even today I often see players sitting together over a game of Wizard.

But now I have also a reason to play Wizard again - of course in the Das Schwarze Auge edition.

Thank you, AMIGO, for this fantastic special edition!

So, I don't have enough energy for much more today. I hope I can sleep as well as I did last night so that I'll be back stronger tomorrow. But I don't want to leave completely without giving you a few more impressions of the novelty show, of what I experienced there and what I might want to take a closer look at, so here are a few pictures:

Yes, I would have liked to sit in the bathtub too, but the game wasn't that bad either, maybe I'll buy it. Monopoly remains a permanent trend, of course, and there were two new editions of this game too:

And finally, a few games that I would like to take a closer look at:

I could go on like this, but I need some rest now. Goodbye for today, sleep well and see you all tomorrow!

Forever yours

Ralf

It’s great that Ralf is back on board as well, because this will double our report’s volume in the days to come. However, I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer about my own expedition into the New Games Show. So come along, let’s visit it together!

This year the New Games Show was situated quite conveniently in Hall 8, one of the still unused convention halls which is directly next to the eastern foyer where the press conference was hosted. Using a complete hall for this one-day event certainly has the benefit of lots of available space, but still the New Games Show was quite crowded in the first hours, looking almost like a convention hall during public opening times.

In total, approximately 750 new games where displayed here by the publishers, which is about half of the total number of new games released at the SPIEL 24. I have been in this hall for three hours, and to be honest it was both a thrilling and exhausting at the same time. On the one hand I always feel a bit like a child on Christmas when I get to see the new games for the first time, being able to check out the components and getting a much better impression than by simple images. However, with so many new games released, it’s quite easy to get a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer number, because it takes quite a bit of time to walk through every aisle since there is so much to discover. But still, apart from the Essen Preview at BGG, the New Games Show sets a major part of my roadmap for the whole show, and after my forced break last year it’s just great to be back in the halls.

And what could be a nicer start than meeting an old friend right away? Directly at the entrance I run into my old friend Cedrick Caumont, dressed in a quacky duck costume. During my preparations I had seen that Cedrick and his team from CAPTAIN GAMES will be presenting Duck & Cover here at the SPIEL, and I had wondered what kind of silliness Cedrick would come up with to generate some buzz for the game…

One of the first things which I discovered was that Meeps, the cute SPIEL mascot which was introduced last year, will be getting his very own game. And of course, it’s a SPIEL-themed game, because the game Loot by SKELLIG GAMES (3 C 311) takes the players right into the halls, hunting down their most wanted games. But you have to be quick if you want to claim Loot as your loot (I couldn’t resist this one), because preorders were high and only a few copies will be left for purchase at the booth.

Very nice illustrations and thematic components can be found in Rock Hard 1977 by DEVIR (3 D 611), a game where the players take the roles of up-and-coming rockstars hoping to make it big. It’s mainly based on a worker placement mechanism which takes the players through the daily (or better nightly) life of an upcoming rockster, and it seems to be very thematic with lots of events and options all supporting the theme.

A rather unexpected find was Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs which is distributed by CEPHALOFAIR GAMES (3 T 211). It’s a tiny solo-player spinoff of popular Gloomhaven, and it was astonishing to see have much playing material the designers have been able to squeeze into this tiny box. It features a 20-mission-campaign based on Gloomhaven’s mercenaries, and it comes with lots of cards, floorplans and even some tiny miniatures.

A rather awesome looking game is Forests of Pangaea by German publisher TREECERATOPS (3 N 310). Funded through a successful crowdfunding campaign, the game is a perfect example that even a small publisher is able to realize an ambitious project if a good idea is brought together with the needed funding. In this beautiful looking game the players take the roles of wood spirits involved in the circle of growth and decay, and they need to plant trees and let them wither in order to score by fulfilling aims set out on scoring cards. So, the forest keeps changing all over the game, making the players think and rethink their strategies all over the game.

The contrast to my last stop couldn’t be bigger, because my next find was with a global player. About two years ago HASBRO (5 F 411) has re-released their classic dungeon crawler HeroQuest, updating many components and especially the miniatures (because the old cooperation with GAMES WORKSHOP wasn’t continued), and to the delight of many fans they also re-released and updated all the classic expansions. Especially the old Elf & Barbarian Quest Packs were fetching incredible prices at the used games market (500 US$ and more), and now these pack are back in stores for decent prices. However, here at the SPIEL HASBRO presents The Jungle of Delthrak, the first new expansion released for HeroQuest after more than 30 years. In contrast to the older expansions, this new expansion now features a choose-your-own-adventure storyline, giving the players a choice in which way they want to continue during the campaign.

And on a sidenote, Nicole and I have been playing the new edition of HeroQuest quite a bit, because a new companion app is available which eliminates the need for a Game Master and allows for a full cooperative experience. It’s an official app from HASBRO, and even though it’s a bit simple and some things aren’t implemented perfectly, it’s free and allows you and your friends to take the roles of the heroes if no one wants to play evil Zargon. And what’s more, all expansions are included in the app!

Oh my god! My next find was looking cute indeed, and there is no way that I can skip the game Kyoto no Neko by MATAGOT (3 F 111). It’s a light family game about kittens growing up in the city of Kyoto, making their first life experiences by finding friends, climbing trees, fighting stray cats and avoiding the dangers of the city. As usual with MATAGOT, all components look fantastic, and this is certainly a game which Nicole will be delighted to have. So here it goes – added to my growing list.

CZECH GAMES EDITION (3 Z 411) also has a nice presentation of their new games today, and I will get together with their press representative Pavlina on Friday. Today I got a first impression of their new big game SETI – Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a game in which the players become managers of space agencies launching galactical probes in search of traces of aliens. Indeed, aliens can be found in the game, but it’s a quite long process in which the players have to develop their technologies and patiently wait for signals from their probes. There are many levers and screws which the players can adjust in this game, and it’s certainly and unusual but interesting theme.

Not available here at the SPIEL, but soon to be released is a big box for The lost Ruins of Arnak which will fit the base game and all the expansions. However, Petr Murmak and his team from CGE wouldn’t just want to ship empty boxes, and so the big box actually will contain some extras like a new, double-sided gameboard and coursed ancient tablets. All this will add additional variation to the game, and it’s nice to see that the line of Arnak is still supported and continued by CGE.

Talking about a nice presentation, quite a few publishers actually had set up nice displays just for today, sometimes even with dressed-up presenters to provide an atmospheric presentation for their games. Among these stalls was REPOS PRODUCTION (6 D 200), presenting their new game The Lord of the Rings – Duel for Middle-earth.

Do you recognize the card layout? The game is actually a spin-off of REPOS’ acclaimed two-player game 7 Wonders Duel, but after reading the rules in advance of the SPIEL, I can assure you that the game offers some unique new features which justify it’s release. It’s not just a re-theming, but an interesting variation of the classic game.

After yesterday’s victory over the Yu brothers in our game of War of the Rings – The Card Game, Nicole and I are looking forwards even more to trying out the new Fire and Swords expansion for the game. Indeed, ARES GAMES (3 A 112) seems to have done a great job in designing this new expansion, because it now allows the players to include the whole North of Middle-earth in their games. The Lonely Mountain, the Old Forest and many important characters not get to play their part in the game, and I can’t wait to get this on the table!

Yesterday I also received a box from Poland, containing the game Thorgal which my friend Ignacy from PORTAL GAMES (3 K 113) has sent me. The parcel had been delayed, but now I got it just in time for the show, and today I had a first chance to look at the finished game. It looks gorgeous how the artwork from the comic books has been transferred to the different components, and it’s certainly another game which I will try out quite soon, because it’s an adventure game with an unusual twist of solving puzzles.

I think I could go on for hours to tell you about all the things which I have found discovered today, but it’s getting late over here, and so I would like to show you just one more unusal game which I found quite attractive. TABLETOPPER GAMES (3 T 113), a you publisher form Munich, is at the SPIEL to present their first game Under our Sun. It’s a tough adventure and survival game which challenges the players to solve missions on an Earth which is scorched by sun flares resulting in desertification and storms. Humanity is fighting for survival, and the players become scouts of a small community which is on the edge of extinction. Apart from a mixture of apocalyptic challenges, the game features a very distinct survival aspect, reminding me of the old computer game Robinson’s Requiem where the player had to survive after a spaceship crash. Resources must be gathered to build new equipment, food and water must be found and enemies must be defeated, and taken together it’s a quite thrilling, new approach for an adventure game.

Well, just one more game. Remember that I met my friend Cedrick from CAPTAIN GAMES (3 R 611) when entering the new games show? Well, here it is, their new game Duck & Cover (bathtub NOT included). I think we are in for a bit of silliness here, but Cedrick assured me that there is more to the game than just rubber ducks! We will see about that!

Have you noticed that nearly all of the publishers which I mentioned here are located in Hall 3? This seems to strengthen my assumption that we will see quite a bit of traffic in this hall tomorrow. We will see about that in just a few hours when the SPIEL 24 opens it’s gates for the first public day!

Ralf and I can’t wait to meet you in the halls tomorrow!

Tuesday, 01.10., SPIEL-week is here!

Another year has passed, and you can’t imagine how glad I am too meet you all back here for another week of SPIEL convention reports. After missing last year’s SPIEL due to a silly infection, I couldn’t wait to be back in the halls of SPIEL, and even though things on the health side were a bit shaky in the last months, things look bright for this SPIEL week!

Ralf is also gearing up and getting ready, and I can promise you that we have some quite interesting things to tell and show you in the days to come. Over 1,200 new games will be released this year (!!!), and like every year I invested much time to single out some new games which I would like to present to you. But of course, that doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be the one or other hidden treasure to be found along the way through the halls, after all it’s one of the wonderful features of the show that you will find something new waiting for you around each corner.

However, one nice development for me is the fact that more and more publishers are offering pre-orders, allowing a comfortable pickup of the games right at the show. While this takes out a bit of the surprise element, the nice side is that you can ensure that a game won’t be sold out when you want to get it really badly. Due to increased shipping costs and more uncertain delivery times, most publishers seem to have a few games less for purchase at the SPIEL, and this stands a bit in contrast to former times where you were able to get almost any game right until the last convention day. I guess it’s a question of economics, because it doesn’t pay off for the publishers to transport remaining games back home, and so the new combination of less available copies but more preorder pickup options seems somewhat logical.

I have a moderate sized preorder list containing a mixture of some expansions like War of the Ring – The Cardgame – Fire and Swords from ARES, but there are also some new, unusual looking games from small publishers like Rock Hard 1977 from DEVIR on my list. I will introduce some of these games to you when I get them into my hands, and of course I will try to join the one or other playtesting session at the show.

And sometimes I don’t even have to carry something home! It’s the wonderful time of the year when boxes start to arrive from different parts of the world, and just today I received my first SPIEL 24 game in a box from Poland. My longtime friend Ignacy Trzewiczek from PORTAL GAMES has supplied me with a full GAMEFOUND edition of Thorgal, a game based on the famous comic book series and bound to release right here at the SPIEL. It’s a cooperative game with a mixture of adventuring and puzzle solving, and you can be sure that we will examine the game more closely in the next few days!

However, we will have lots of time to talk about boardgames in the days to come, and for today I would like to tell you a bit about a kind of computer game which I have tested over the previous months. Being somewhat attached to role-play games (RPGs) since the days of my youth, I was quite curious about the impact of artificial intelligence on online adventure games, because I suspected that recent AI developments might open up possibilities of storytelling and online adventuring quite considerably. After a bit of research, I found out that the game AI Dungeon might be quite the thing I am looking for, and so I registered and begun to explore the world of AI augmented role-playing and storytelling.

AI Dungeon is a fascinating experiment in the world of gaming, blending artificial intelligence with traditional RPGs to create a unique, highly personalized adventure. Developed by LATITUDE, the game uses state-of-the-art AI to generate interactive, narrative-driven experiences. Its standout feature is the removal of the traditional Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master (GM), making AI Dungeon a game that can unfold without the need for a human storyteller. This opens up new possibilities for RPG enthusiasts, offering an unprecedented level of freedom and immersion.

At its core, AI Dungeon harnesses artificial intelligence to build dynamic and evolving narratives. Players can embark on adventures set in a freely chosen setting, such as medieval fantasy, sci-fi, or modern worlds, with the AI crafting the story in real-time based on player input. This is where AI Dungeon shines with incredible freedom, because neither the setting nor the player’s actions are not limited by predefined scripts or story arcs. The game’s AI responds creatively to almost any command or action, allowing for a level of freedom that traditional RPGs cannot match.

This freedom is especially potent because players are no longer confined to the choices laid out by a human Dungeon Master. In conventional RPGs, the DM often guides the story, but their decisions are filtered through the chosen adventure book or the story invented by the DM. While players can act with relative freedom, the DM normally tries to guide them in certain ways, because it’s his intention to keep them on the general path of the adventure which he has designed to entertain them. In AI Dungeon, players can attempt ANYTHING, no matter how far-fetched, and the AI will craft a response. This lack of fixed outcomes and infinite possibility makes each session with AI Dungeon a truly unique and personal experience.

Moreover, AI Dungeon allows players to explore scenarios that may not fit into a typical RPG framework, since the AI doesn’t need to balance fairness or maintain a coherent narrative the way a human GM would. Want to suddenly become a god or derail the plot with outlandish actions? The AI will adapt, improvising solutions, challenges, or consequences to keep the story going. However, all this doesn’t mean that the player just keeps writing prompts and getting responses. While this is certainly possible, a more creative player even can begin to craft whole worlds by creating story cards and other elements which will influence the responses which will be generated by the AI. The more cards the player writes, the more details the AI will have about the world in which the player would like to experience during gameplay, and in the end this means that the whole adventure will be tailor-cut to the likes of the player. In effect, this creates a sandbox of unprecedented scale, where imagination is the only true limit.

During my own sessions, I have created a somewhat unique setting by creating a world which blends elements from the Lord of the Rings with sci-fi elements, assuming the role of some kind of agent which was sent to Middle-earth. Indeed I have created quite a volume of background information to get this weird story going, but it was my intention to really drive the engine towards its limits. To my astonishment, I found no limits! All the elements which I invented were smoothly taken up by the AI as the story developed, and the story became more and more thrilling with every prompt I added.

However, there is also no problem if you don’t want to invest the time to create your own world. There are hundreds of pre-designed adventures available, created by other players with unprecedented creativity and rich background information. So, if you like, you can dive in right away and start writing. An amazing experience!

Despite all this freedom there are a few technical limitations which must be mentioned. For one, the AI can’t remember everything that happened in your adventure the longer it gets. While you can activate more memory through a paid subscription, there comes a point when older story information is no longer available for generating new AI responses. Here the player is challenged to keep notes of highly-important elements in a special memory bank, because this information will be part of the information sent to the AI on each and every prompt. A bit of character information, companions, possessions and the current location are better mentioned here, so the AI will always have an overview of all important information. LATITUDE is also experimenting with an automatically generated memory, and there are some astonishing progressions here as well, but a bit of manual work on side of the player still is necessary to ensure the best playing experience. If this is done, the results are extraordinary, and apart from getting a thrilling story-telling experience you can even use AI image generation to let your story come alive with some pictures!

The replacement of the traditional human Dungeon Master with an AI is a game-changing innovation in the role-playing world. On one hand, this frees up players from the constraints of someone else’s imagination. The AI’s neutral perspective doesn’t come with preconceived notions, allowing a more open-ended, player-driven narrative experience. There’s no negotiation or back-and-forth with a DM about what’s possible; in AI Dungeon, anything is. This does, however, come with some trade-offs. While AI Dungeon offers near-limitless narrative possibilities, it lacks the human touch that experienced Dungeon Masters bring to games. Human DMs often provide much more nuanced storytelling, add personality to non-player characters (NPCs), and create memorable emotional moments in ways that AI still struggles to replicate. The AI might create impressive plot twists, but it can occasionally veer into nonsensical territory or generate responses that lack the depth and cohesion of a carefully crafted story.

Furthermore, the freedom offered by using AI can sometimes become overwhelming. While the AI's improvisation is impressive, it can also falter when confronted with complex or highly specific scenarios. Players accustomed to the structure and constraints of traditional games (like us boardgame addicts) may find themselves disoriented by the lack of clear goals or pathways. Traditional RPGs have a sense of progression shaped by human understanding of pacing, character development, and overarching plot. In AI Dungeon, the lack of a guiding hand sometimes results in disjointed storylines, where plot points don’t always follow a clear or logical sequence. While this randomness can be fun, it can also break immersion for players who prefer tightly woven narratives.

This brings us to the key distinction between AI Dungeon and traditional role-playing games, and this is the absence of other human players. In tabletop RPGs, the interaction between players is often as important as the story itself. These games are social experiences, filled with collaboration, banter, and unexpected moments born from shared creativity. AI Dungeon, on the other hand, is primarily a solitary experience. While the AI can generate and manage NPCs to interact with the player, it lacks the spontaneity and emotional depth of human interaction. Human players can bring characters to life in ways that AI, at its current level, cannot. The unpredictability of other people and the connections built through cooperative storytelling are aspects of role-playing that AI Dungeon cannot replicate. This makes the game feel more like a solo journey – it’s a story-telling experience and not a true RPG.

For some, this solo aspect might be a strength. Players who enjoy narrative games without the complications of coordinating a group or following a DM's vision will find AI Dungeon liberating. It provides a way to experience the creativity of RPGs on demand, at your own pace, and without the social pressures of group dynamics. However, those seeking the communal aspects of role-playing will likely find this experience lacking.

In summary, AI Dungeon is an innovative gaming experience that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in RPGs through the use of artificial intelligence. Its removal of the traditional Dungeon Master, combined with the complete freedom of action it offers, provides an unparalleled playground for creativity and narrative experimentation. The game excels in delivering personalized, unpredictable adventures that are only limited by the player’s imagination. However, the absence of human interaction makes the game more suited for solo players who are willing to embrace experimental nature of the experience. It’s a groundbreaking tool for narrative exploration, but for those who miss the camaraderie and depth of human-run RPGs, it won’t replace traditional role-playing games!

And talking about camaraderie and traditional games, the SPIEL week is always the perfect opportunity to catch up with old friends who come to Essen to attend the show. Like so many years before, our friends Dale and Brian Yu came to visit us for dinner tonight, and despite the fact that he arrived at Düsseldorf airport only 3 hours before our date, Brian had the stamina to go into a full game of War of the Ring – The Card Game after dinner.

So it was the Evil Yu Brothers against the Free Peoples of Essen, and after a quick explanation we went right into the fray. For their first game, Dale and Brian did an amazing job to mount considerable pressure on Nicole and me, showering us with corruption and winning some important battles. Nicole and me played this as a team only once before, and so we didn’t have much of an advantage. The table turned against up especially after Brian took Minas Tirith despite a valiant defense mounted by Nicole, and one round before the climax we also received quite a bit of corruption at the pass of Cirith Ungol.

However, in the final round the game showed why is fascinates gamers all around the world, and Nicole and I were able to get through with a truly climatic turnaround. We were able to reactivate both Minas Tirth and Morannon in that round, and since Brian and Dale had stretched their forces to their limits we were able to claim both of these battlegrounds for us. In addition, Nicole was able to equip two of my Hobbits with Lembas, giving us the possibility of getting rid of two Corruption points. All this resulted in a 22 to 16 victory for Nicole and me, but we had never before seen so many decisive events coming together in the last round. A very fitting ending for a great evening with our friends. What a wonderful start into SPIEL week!

See you all tomorrow! And greetings from Nicole, Dale, Brian and me!

If you want to have a look at our coverages of previous conventions, follow these links. But you should bring along some time, especially if you want to read the newer reports...