At the fair Spiel in Essen, around 1,500 novelties will be presented this year on an area of 86,000 square meters. Visiting all titles within four days is impossible for visitors. For exhibitors too, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd of new releases with completely new games. That's why the big publishers in particular prefer to rely on established titles in order to profit from successors and variants of the existing brand awareness. Of course you can still find something new, but you have to take a closer look.
In the photo gallery we introduce 15 new games:
Fresh from the fair - 15 new board games
"Catan: star driver"
Next year, Catan celebrates its 25th anniversary. The game is largely responsible for the renaissance of board games since 1995. In addition, "Catan" was the first board game since the classics such as "Monopoly" or "risk", which has become a world famous brand thanks to extensions, variants and various special editions. Consequently, for the twentieth anniversary of the offshoot "The Starters of Catan", a completely reworked and lavishly equipped edition of the game called "Catan: Stardriver" appears. On the occasion of the anniversary of the basic game 2020, we are ready for further releases.
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Franckh cosmos; 3-4 players; from 12 years old; about 70 euros
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"Azul: The Summer Pavilion"
Almost a year and a half ago, "Azul" was voted the "Game of the Year 2018" and sold a whopping 375,000 copies in its first year in Germany. With "Azul: The Summer Pavilion" now appears a third independent "Azul" game. According to the first reviews, this game is kinder and "nicer" to play than the two predecessors.
"6 takes!" board game
Already this year, another classic sold millions of euros was 25 years old: "6 takes!", One of the most popular card games in Germany. After innumerable card game variations there is for the first time a board game based on the well-known filing mechanism. The game is also called "6 takes! Board game".
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Amigo; 2-6 players; from 8 years; about 25 euros
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The "EXIT" series
Completely new standards in the area of expandability are the "EXIT" series of Kosmos Verlag. There are now 17 different escape rooms in the box, plus a few books. The peculiarity that these games can be played only once, because material is destroyed, should help with the sale. Four million "EXIT" games have already been sold worldwide. In the first half of 2019, according to a retail study, "EXIT" in Germany was "the strongest brand in terms of sales in euros".
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Franckh cosmos; 1-4 players; from 10 years on; about 10 euros
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"Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Khan"
Does anyone remember the MB television ad for this game from the early nineties and gets nostalgic? Now "Fireball Island", also in a new and improved version, has returned to the market. Brisk and revived, the game has none other than game designer Rob Daviau, who as the inventor of many legacy games spearheaded one of the biggest innovations in the gaming industry of recent years. With his publishing house Restoration Games Daviau now also takes on the retro trend.
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3-7 players; from 8 years; about 60 euros
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"Minecraft: Builders & Biomes"
These cubes may also seem familiar to many. With "Minecraft: Builders & Biomes" Ravensburger has ventured into a board game to one of the most popular video games of all time. It was developed by renowned game author Ulrich Blum, who explains that it would not have made much sense to adapt Minecraft one-to-one. "Why would you play the same game then?" says Blum. "Instead, I searched for the core principles of the game, and especially the emotions that trigger them on the player." "Minecraft: Builder & Biomes" works especially well in families where kids played the game digitally and now everyone could play this board game together.
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Ravensburger; 2-4 players; from 10 years on; about 30 euros
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"Cities Skylines: The Board Game"
At the fair, "Cities Skylines: The Board Game", another analog adaptation to a popular computer game was released. There have been board games for such licenses for some time, but in the past they were often carelessly cobbled together and therefore bad analog games. What is new is that today established authors often take on the games. In this case, it was the Swede Rustan Håkansson, who has already invented a number of excellent analogue civilization games.
Advertisement "Cities Skylines: The Board Game"
Franckh cosmos; 1-4 players; from 10 years on; about 30 euros
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"Down through the wall"
Naturally, there will also be real innovations at the fair: For some years, a particularly innovative game has been awarded the innoSPIEL. This year he won the family game "Through the Wall", which prevailed against illustrious competition from the adult games sector. In "Down through the Wall" ghosts can actually "go through walls" thanks to a three-part magnet system and a rotatable playing field. The game is likely to be as unusual as it was "The Mad Labyrinth" for its release in 1986.
Display "Off through the wall"
Noris; 2-4 players; from 7 years; about 25 euros
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"Team 3"
Say nothing, hear nothing, see nothing - and yet build a Plastikturm after submission in the team of three, how should that work? By getting the players involved in each other and getting into the right flow. "Team 3" is an unusual game for larger groups, which has left a very good first impression on many visitors who tried it out at the show.
Display "Team 3"
Abacusspiele; 3-6 players; from 8 years; about 20 euros
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"Kitchen Rush"
"Overcooked: The board game" could mean. However, "Kitchen Rush" is a stand-alone real-time game in which all players try to run a restaurant together. The clou are hourglasses that simulate that certain work takes time. To cook a dish, you do not have to pick just a few ingredients, but also cook them by letting the timers run several times before the food can be taken off the stove. It all happens while the time for the team goes down mercilessly. The game is hectic and was released two years ago by a Greek publisher. It was an insider tip then. Now, completely redesigned and equipped with different introductory scenarios, "Kitchen Rush" could become a hit of this game year.
"Fog of Love"
A very special game is likely to be "Fog of Love", which appears for the first time in German. In this two-player game, the players create their characters, who then enter into a relationship that needs to be kept going. You can not play too selfish, otherwise the team will fail. Nevertheless, a happy ending is not guaranteed and it can go up and down. This is certainly a very unusual game approach - whether "Fog of Love" really works as a game will show.
Display "Fog of Love"
2 players; from 17 years; about 47 euros
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"Freshwater Fly"
Fortunately, there are still many alternatives to games with familiar names and mechanics, namely lovingly crafted games on off-topic topics. "Freshwater Fly" is a very special case: a game that aims to make fly fishing realistically playable. Thus, the game is symbolic of the many small publishers from around the world who hope for the breakthrough at the board game fair. "Freshwater Fly" is one of the few games in which the theme and mechanism are so intertwined that you can not separate them. The game will be released in German by Spielefaible, a young publisher from Schleswig-Holstein.
"Cthulhu: Death May The"
"Cthulhu" themes always go in the niche of miniature games, also because the figures in such games are becoming more and more detailed thanks to improved manufacturing processes. But that has its price. Games like this cost around 80 Euro.
Advertisement "Cthulhu: Death May Die - Basic Game Season 1"
1-5 players; from 12 years old; about 95 euros
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Product information is purely editorial and independent. The so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the dealer when buying. More information here.
"Terra Watts"
Of course you can also discover real novelties and surprises at the fair like this game by a Taiwanese publishing house. There is no informative information about the game either in the brochures of the fair or online. It says: From in hall 5 to the exotic publishers for testing! Fortunately, at the show you can still see every match live and be explained before you buy it.
The new "King of Tokyo"
Game publishers have not only learned from the film industry to produce sequels and offshoots, but also to assimilate them in good time. In 2020, a new, apparently much gloomy edition of the Haudrauf hit "King of Tokyo" will be released. If you look closely, you realize that the first character will be revealed on October 31, and all others will follow in the next few months until the release of the game - which we'll probably introduce in a year's time.