Essen Recap: The BoardGame Geek Convention – Part I

Essen. You know, probably the biggest gathering of geeks in the whole world? Every October in the industrial town of Essen in Germany? No?

For boardgamegeeks, this is it. Over a period of four days 156,000 visitors come to see 828 exhibitors across 48,000 square metres of exhibition space. Officially titled Internationale
Spieltage SPIEL’13, it is generally just referred to as Essen.

This was my 7th year and I thought I would share the experience.

WEDNESDAY

So we had a crew of eight of us going this year. Seven from sunny Glasgow in Scotland plus Colin from gay Paris. I flew over to Paris early with the family as Colin and I planned to road trip from there to Germany. The rest of the gang flew into Amsterdam and drove their way in too.

First order of business – sort out the suitcase. Inevitably many games will be purchased and it is crucial to maximise suitcase size and minimise the unnecessary clutter that you put in it. A few years ago I inadvertently did such a good job that I forgot all my clothes other than spare underwear (thankfully), and the clothes I was wearing of course.

Crucial equipment – small quantity of clothing, lots of bubble wrap, baggies for game bits, luggage scales, and loads of snacks including compulsory mallow and Monster Munch. Oh, and a print out of my list and map. The list is the collection of games I am interested in playing, collated by hours spent pouring over the 552 games that have made it to the Boardgamegeek Essen 2013 list. And a map of the halls, all the better to find them with.

Having dropped my family at the airport we were off – road trip. Our 5 days of shitty food started with a McDonalds as we made it through the travesty that is Belgium; hideous roads. For some reason we thought it would be an appropraite homage to German music to relive our industrial music past en route. Ministry, Lard, Sheep on Drugs, Front 242, Revolting Cocks, Warlock Pinchers and so on..

We made pretty good time and decided to head straight to the fair. Officially it doesn’t open until Thursday but as we were demoing for Portal Publishing we knew we could get in during the setup day.

Now would probably be a good time to explain how Essen works. I have never been to any other geek cons for comparison but I suspect some of it is pretty similar and some of it not. The central premise is that game publishers bring their new games and we play them. That simple. Each publisher has a booth, size obviously dependent on budget; from sharing half a table with another publisher to having a collection of 20 or so tables like so (shown in the quiet before the doors opened)…

Us geeks then roam around the halls, we jump onto a table with a game that interests us when a seat comes up, we get taught how to play the game by the booth staff, and then we play. And that is Essen. Pretty much anyway, there are of course a lot of stalls that are essentially board games shops. And a small minority of stalls that differ from these two standard models.

So where were we? Wednesday. The fair is not open yet but you can go in. On previous years this has been slightly pointless. All the publishers are busy setting up and are not ready to teach, and nobody is supposed to sell anything. We were keen this year for two reasons. One, the halls had moved. For the last six years it had been the same halls that were in use, and generally the publishers were in the same place. So you get to know your way around; where to find your favourite publishers, how to shortcut between hall 9 and hall 2, where the hotdog stands are, where the toilets are. Crucial survival information. This year, due to refurbishments, everything had moved so a chance for re-orientation a day early was very welcome. Secondly we wanted to pick up some of our pre-orders to play that night. So we completed aforesaid missions and cruised around a bit.

We even managed to get a couple of games in. Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice, which was a fun light wrestling game, but ultimately a bit disappointing, and Donburiko which is officially ‘Genius’. At times in our group we opt for a simple binary rating system ‘Genius’ or ‘Broken’. Sometimes a game will start of as Genius but get a verdict of Broken before the end of our first play. Or move from Genius to Broken and back to Genius. You get the idea. Donburiko was consistently Genius. One of the nice chaps from Japon games taught us this. The game designer in fact (a common Essen bonus). It’s simple mechanic – add a card to a row (the numbers of rows equals the number of players) or pick up a row. However for a small fee you can play cards face down. Numbered cards in each row are totalled. If you manage to pick up a pile worth 6 you end the round early and everyone else still in gets nothing. Under 6 and you score your total, over 6 and you are ‘bust’ and must pay the bank a fee. There are minus cards and “make all minus cards positive” cards. When you see a pile with one hidden card you have to decide; was it the perfect 6 the other player was setting up for themselves and so you must take it, or is it a trap and you will be bust. I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me! This has had quite a bit of play since the fair and remains universally popular.

So we took our loot and headed off to find the other 6 gentlemen travellers from our party. They had not been idle while we were working hard and we found them enjoying German food and beverages in the pub. Having reconvened it was time to participate in the other important Essen pastime. Playing boardgames. But in the hotel, and with beer.

The traditional structure of a day in Essen, for me anyway, is as follows. Get up around 7:30 am. With difficulty. Get ready. Go to the bakery round the corner from the hotel and buy an Apfelberliner, a Franzbroetchen and a cup of tea. Drive to the halls. Enter before the doors open with an exhibitor pass earned by demoing. Grab a table for one of your must-play games. Play. Find another table. Play. Grab some low quality fast food for lunch, probably a hotdog. Play. Repeat until the doors close, punctuated by wandering round the halls and maybe buying some stuff. Go back to the hotel, decide whether to have dodgy hotel pizza for dinner to maximise gaming time, or to go out for dinner. Drink beer. Play the games people have bought. Drink beer. Play. Drink beer. Play. Admit defeat at around 5am and go to bed. Start again in two and a half hours.

This year we had offered to demo for Portal Publishing, run by Ignacy Trzewiczek. A bunch of us basically work their stall teaching their new games and in exchange get passes to get into the halls early, as well as usually have a good time in the process. We weren’t demoing until Friday but had picked up a copy of Theseus to learn so thought it wise to make a start. We were slightly hampered by one of the four of us having spent the afternoon in the pub, and feared he would crash and burn. But after a pizza he perked up and it all came good. Thesues is a tactical game with factions moving around a space station trying to kill each other and collect data. You choose from Marines, Scientists, Aliens and Greys. The movemens of your units through the rooms is strictly defined. They move a number of rooms equal to the number of units in the room it starts in. Each room has different special actions and more importantly each faction plays cards into all the rooms, often setting up traps. I have played this game quite a few times now and it continues to reveal new facets. The more you play the better you can see the strategic choices in the game and the strengths and weaknesses of different factions. While the ‘mancala’ movement seems chaotic and uncontrollable at first, you start to see how you can plan several moves ahead, and even better force you opponent to move to certain locations to mess them up.

We played a couple of Japon brand games next, before finishing the night with a game of Coup. This is a game from a previous Essen where players have hidden identity cards that allow them to take different actions. Mainly focused around taking money from the bank or other players, and then saving up to kill other players. It is all about bluffing, or less politely, lying. You can claim to have any card you like, possibly changing your claim from one turn to the next. But others can call you on it. If they are right you lose a life, if they are wrong then they are the ones who lose a life. All the lying, cheating and backstabbing suits our group nicely. This year they added the Reformation expansion. This adds factions that you can change, or be forced to change, between. Catholics and Protestants. Perfect for us chaps from the sectarian city of Glasgow. Genius.

And so to bed.

THURSDAY

The official Day 1 of the fair. Our reconnaissance had paid off and we used our passes to get in early and run straight to our chosen game – A Study in Emerald. This was selected as not only were we keen to try it, but we also knew copies were in limited supply so it might sell out. It was this years release from ‘celebrity’ designer Martin Wallace who has a fairly solid back catalogue. Thematically it’s a strange mix of Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu. It was fun to play but a slightly unusual hidden factions mechanic left us a little uncertain. No purchase was made. We moved on to have our first freeform cruise of the fair.

Did I tell you it is massive. 156,000 people. Comic-Con 130,000. Comikaze 45,000. E3 48,200. In Germany boardgaming is a very popular family pastime. The majority of attendees are Germans, teenagers, old folk, families with young children, just pretty regular folk. For Germans anyway. There is of course a strong Geek contingent. Boardgame obsessives like myself who travel to the Mecca of gaming from literally all over the world. While we will roam all over, you will find us disproportionately crowding round the smaller publishers at the back of the halls. So it gets busy. Walking about can be tough, and it always helps to know the shortcuts through the courtyards, especially to the toilets.

Having said that we did pretty well and never spent to long waiting for a table. Flicking through the rules for the end game conditions to work out which table will finish next sometimes helps here.

Later on Thursday we experienced a classic cultural stereotype at one of the French publisher stalls. We saw a couple of free tables for a game we wanted to check out. Having dashed over and secured it we looked for someone to explain the game. Should be no problem, there were loads of guys in staff T-shirts around. We approached one and politely asked. Sorry, no. He had been working all morning and was going to eat some lunch. Actually no, not just him, all the staff, about 8 of them had decided to simultaneously down tools and stop doing any work on their stall while everything stopped for lunch. Only the French.

Our group of 8 was split into 4 and 4 for most of the fair, very few games play 8. As 4 of us sat playing we got a text in from the others guys. “Game of the show Suburban Dispute, Hall 2 D105”. Wow! We had been looking for a great game so made haste there after we had finished up. The artwork looked cheesy but the man dressed as an Italian Gangster style seemed nice. The concept sounded like it could be fun – try to annoy your neighbours while you amass wealth and develop your home. The rules seemed a little simple at first but things were obvioulsy just about to get interesting. Except they weren’t. Half way through the second round I realised. C***s! We had been conned. On your turn draw a card, it tells you some “amusing” and unpleasant thing you can do to your neighbour, pick another player (who is usually unaffected by the fact that you “tipped over their bins” or defiled them in some other unspeakable way), roll the dice. If you succeed gain the points stated on the card. That’s it. Probably the worst game I have ever played in my entire life. The kind of game you might make at nursery school. If you were a bit special.

Ultimately we managed to play 10 games during the day on Thursday. The best being a light filler called Pick-a-Polar Bear (or Dog or Pig). You lay out a grid of cards and then in a massive free-for-all everyone simultaneously picks cards off the table to add to their hand in sequence. Each card must be the same or one different from the one below. For example sunglasses on or off, one hand or two, big or small. A great fun 20 minute game.

And so we retired for dinner. Dodgy take away fish that night I think. We got a couple more big games in at the hotel before playing One Night Werewolf. Some of you will have played the classic party game Werewolf, this is similar but works for less players, needs no moderator, and is arguably funnier.

There are a selection of role cards, one is assigned to each player and they secretly look at the them, two are left unknown face down in the middle of the table. The 10 min timer is started, or even better the free phone app with a dedicated soundtrack. You are all villagers, but up to two of you are secretly werewolves. Each is faction is trying to kill the other. A couple of villagers have a special ability. Either to secretly look at another player’s card [Seer], or to secretly swap cards with another player, taking over their role [Thief]. Once the secret shenanigans are over everyone opens their eyes and discusses which player should be killed – werewolves try to get a villager voted and vice versa. Claims and accusations fly around the table. “I am the Seer and I saw Nick’s card and he is a villager”. “You cant be because I am the Seer and I saw Colin was a villager, so you must both be werewolves.” “No, you must be a werewolf”. “Then what about the Thief, who was the Theif”…. “So maybe the Thief card is in the middle of the table this round.” “Or maybe the Thief stole a card from a werewolf but does not want to admit it as they are now on the werewolf team.”. So many entertaining logic and false logic arguments to be had. But before you get your head clear the timer runs out and you all point at someone. Whoevere gets the most votes is killed. See if they were a werewolf or a villager and see who won. One of the guys managed to break the game to hilarious effect by refusing to believe anything anybody said as he swore blind someone (ie a Thief or a Seer) had touched his card. Eventually a werewolf “admitted” to it, convincing him to kill his fellow villagers. Doh. Of course, nobody had moved his card.

And on that note it was time for some sleep.

Look for further adventures in Part II on Wednesday. Tune in for coal mining, most embarassing shit, fat men breaking chairs, game of the show, coal mining again, and more …..