Fair and convention season is upon us! I�ve been to SPIEL in Essen in October (together with Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle), and I�ve seen so many other board game writers go BottosCon, SDHistCon, or one of the many...
Fair and convention season is upon us! I�ve been to SPIEL in Essen in October (together with Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle), and I�ve seen so many other board game writers go BottosCon, SDHistCon, or one of the many other great events held in fall. For my second and last event this fall, I�ve been to the S�ddeutsche Spielemesse (Southern German Games Fair).
One of the nice things about the fair is that it is held concurrently with a lot of other fairs (your ticket entitles you to visit all of them): You can check out the animal fair, the gems and jewellery fair, the food fair, and quite a few more. The hall with the board game fair also houses model trains, creativity and photography equipment, and lots of very dedicated Lego models.
The S�ddeutsche Spielemesse itself is decidedly a post-SPIEL affair: As all the shiny new things have already been shown off, there are not a lot of booths for you to get quick glimpses of games. Instead, you can get all the hot new titles (and older ones at a discount) for sale (without the lines, and usually the uncertainty of SPIEL), and there are a lot of options where you can just sit down and play games for an extended period. It�s a bit of a crossover between a fair and a convention. The convention feel is particularly strong on Friday: Most of the booths close at the usual time at 6pm, but the big �gaming island� in the middle of the hall remains open until 10pm � just lots of tables and games which you can check out for free.
Here�s what I played:
It�s a Wonderful Kingdom (Fr�d�ric Gu�rard, La Bo�te de Jeu) was recommended to us by the friendly folk of Game-Point Bietigheim, a local non-commercial board games meetup which runs the gaming island. It�s a tactical engine-building game. First, players distribute the cards in a �I Cut, You Choose� way, then they opt if to start constructing the cards they got or to recycle them for resources (which you�ll need for construction), and then they produce more resources with their completed cards. There was a certain sense of scarcity in our games:
It�s hard to complete cards to begin with Cards often don�t produce for long (the game lasts only four rounds) While you�re trying to score points (none of us was ever able to out-score the negative points we each got from catastrophes), you also want to complete a mission (without which you cannot win in the module we played).It was an okay game, but neither of us would put it on a Christmas wishlist.
Mindbug (Skaff Elias/Richard Garfield/Marvin Hegen/Christian Kudahl, Nerdlab Games) takes inspiration from co-designer Richard Garfield�s Magic: The Gathering. Your goal is to reduce your opponent�s life to 0 by attacking with a host of devilish creatures, ranging from a Rhino Turtle to a Kangasaurus Rex. Countering your opponent�s creatures with the right antidotes is key � as is knowing when to employ your Mindbug cards which allow you to take control of a creature your opponent just played. The game plays so quickly that we managed five games In slightly over an hour. As I was defeated each time, you probably shouldn�t take strategy advice from me, but I had a great time playing it� and would have been up for a sixth game, if time had permitted it.
What are your favorite local board game fairs and conventions? Let me know in the comments!
