HYDERABAD: SPIEL is the world’s biggest board gaming convention, and it takes place every October in Essen, Germany. (In fact, it’s going on right now while you’re reading this!) SPIEL is easily the number-one release date for the hottest new games, and so let’s take a look at some of the potential winners coming out of Germany this year.
Ecos: First Continent
Ecos takes the bingo-esque mechanic used in games like Rise of Augustus and builds what looks to be a substantially strategic game on those foundations. There’s a lot of clever combos and crucial timing involved, and this overall just looks like a winner.
Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea
Speaking of winners, Alubari’s already sold out in a lot of places. Based on the building of the Darjeeling railways, Alubari is looking like a worthy successor to Snowdonia for designer Tony Boydell.
Maracaibo
Whenever Alexander Pfister puts out a game, it usually makes it onto lists of this sort because he’s earned that kind of recognition. Maracaibo pulls notes of inspiration from some of his earlier designs, but looks like the result will be entirely original.
Azul: Summer Pavilion
Another year, another Azul; but Summer Pavilion looks like it strays much further from the established formula than its predecessor, Stained Glass of Sintra, did. As you’d expect, of course, it looks lovely.
Glen More II: Chronicles
Glen More II had a massively successful Kickstarter campaign last year, and it will be released to non-backers for the first time at Spiel. Following in the footsteps of Matthias Cramer’s original design, the real draw here are the Chronicles - modules that add different rules and gameplay conditions.
Letter Jam
Can lightning strike twice? Czech Games Edition certainly thinks so, because they’re putting a lot behind Letter Jam this year - a cooperative word-based game that involves giving clues to your teammates. Can this be Codenames 2,0, or is this merely a pretender to the throne?
Wayfinders
Wayfinders is a quick-playing game from Pandasaurus that has players flying around a little archipelago and laying claim to the various islands. The puzzle of how you gain resources has to be balanced with the need to be the first to various islands, and it looks like a pretty good game overall.
Yggdrasil Chronicles
Yggdrasil was a very highly-rated cooperative game that went out of print a few years ago. Now, they’re not only bringing it back but giving it a makeover - now you can play through a campaign that culminates in Ragnarok, and there’s a 3D representation of the Yggdrasil itself.
Babylonia
Reiner Knizia is one of board gaming’s most influential designers, so when people described his latest release Babylonia as a mixture of Samurai and Through the Desert, that was enough for everybody to sit up and start paying attention.
Ticket to Ride: Japan & Italy
It’s a new Ticket to Ride, it had to be on this list. Japan has players working semi- cooperatively on the bullet-train network, whereas Italy introduces a new form of region-based scoring. Like all TTR maps, we’re expecting this one to be solid.