Okay, it’s time to continue on with my seriously late (oh
moving and interweb problems…how you suck!) posts and take a look at my top 5
game anticipations that came out at 2017 Essen Spiel! These 5 games all look amazing
and they will be on my shelves as soon as I’m able to get them. Before I move on to the post feel free to
take a look at the previous four posts in the series.
Man this year’s Essen Spiel seemed to be a really good
one and I wish I could have been there!
There were so many interesting releases coming out and I think it
actually topped last year (2016) in the amount of games that really looked
interesting! That being said, let’s move
on to my top 5 anticipated releases that came out at this year’s Essen Spiel!
#5 – Riverboat (Lookout Games/Mayfair Games)
Riverboat is a card-drafting and tile-laying game
designed by Michael Kiesling and published by Lookout Games and Mayfair
Games. This game puts players in the
role of 19th century farm owners on the bank of a river. They need to organize their workers in a way
to make sure that they are able to harvest crops in time to put them on a boat
to sell in New Orleans. In order to
accomplish this, the players will place their workers in the fields, organize
their crops into same types, harvest the crops and then place them into
riverboats and finally get victory points according to what they shipped. This game popped up on my radar due to the
publisher and also the designer.
Kiesling really seems to be on a roll lately and I’m excited about all
of the releases that he has had this year.
He has an extremely impressive Euro-style design repertoire and
everything I’ve played with his name is amazing elegant. These are all the reasons that I’m excited
and plan on buying this game when I am able to.
#4 – Nusfjord (Lookout Games/Mayfair Games)
Nusfjord is a worker-placement and economic game designed
by the great Uwe Rosenberg and published by Lookout Games and Mayfair Games. This game puts players in the fishing village
of Nusfjord, Norway at a time when the village was developing and building
itself into what it would be. The
players are the owners of major fishing companies who are all vying to be the best
one and satisfy the elders. To do this
these companies must manage their workers in order to cut down trees, develop the
harbor, enlarge your fleet of fishing vessels and erect new buildings. This has some classic Uwe tropes where you
have workers that you place on a central action board in order to do what they
want to do. Once a worker is in a place no
one else can go there. The players also
have their own boards where they’ll be clearing trees and building different structures
during the game. This game seems really
interesting where the players can put shares of their companies up on the
market to get some quick money but they may lose them to other players who
decide to pick them up. I unabashedly
love Rosenberg games and can’t wait to get this one!
#3 – Dinosaur Island (Pandasauras Games)
Dinosaur Island is a worker-placement, tile-laying and
set-collection game designed by Jonathan Gilmour and Brian Lewis and published
by Pandasauras Games. This game has
players building up a dinosaur park and attempting to have the most thrilling
exhibits in said park. To do this the
players will have to collect different dinosaur DNA, research the different
sequences of the DNA and then correctly combine them in order to bring these
extinct creatures back to life. After
sequencing and brining back these dinosaurs the players will place them into
parks that they’ve built. The players
can be safe and sequence herbivores that are large but relatively docile or
they can create the large carnivores that want to eat your visitors! The players have to make sure they have
enough security to protect their visitors or else mayhem could ensue. This game uses heavy doses of
worker-placement and tile-laying during the rounds in order to complete the
mechanisms of the game. This game looks
absolutely beautiful with a large retro-influence in the art. I’m very excited for this game and can’t wait
to try it out!
#2 – Charterstone (Stonemaier Games)
Charterstone is a worker-placement, city-building and
Legacy-style game designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier
Games. This game has players taking on
the roles of a citizen in the Kingdom of Greengully who has been tasked by the
king to go out and create a charter in the world. These players will build up their charter
over twelve games by opening up different boxes and cards and placing stickers
on the board where it will change up the look and actions that the players can
take. The game primarily uses
worker-placement as the players will be placing one of their two meeples on a
board space and then takes the appropriate action. This game has a cool idea where the players
will place their meeples and will have to take an entire turn to get them back
unless some other player kicks them off the space. This is a great mechanism as it gives the
players more decisions to make because they will want to go to places they
think other players will kick them off of.
This game looks like a very fun Legacy-style Euro-game and I can’t wait
to get my hands on it!
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 is a co-operative,
set-collection, Legacy-game designed by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau and
published by Z-Man Games. This game is
the second in the series by the talented designers. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 was an absolutely
incredible experience as we had a group that played through the 12 months (we
played 15 total games) and ended up with an overall win! We had such an amazing time that the follow
up was absolutely going to be my number one anticipated game when it was
released. I’m not going to go too far
into this game as I don’t want to give any spoilers and to be honest I’ve tried
to stay away from them myself. I will
say that I love the idea that this is somewhat like Pandemic turned on its
head. This game is on my Christmas list
and I can’t wait to be able to try it out!
Well, there we have it!
These are my top 5 anticipated releases that came out at this year’s
Essen Spiel and they all look great!
With my top 10 complete I think I’ll do one more post in the series that
will take a look at my most anticipated games that weren’t available for sale
at the convention. Many of these were
demos but couldn’t be purchased. Thanks
so much for reading and I hoped you enjoyed!
Until next time, game on!
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