That thing that I said about Essen seeming emptier than last year? Forget about it. Day 3 was more crowded than everything else I have ever experienced there. It was close to impossible to move, and even more impossible to get a table and play. We spent more time waiting for tables than anything else. But the games we played were worth it. I was especially happy to try Raid & Trade, another Kickstarter prototype for a project going live next month. For more details about this game, and our other adventures in Essen, you can find all the details in our Flickr album. For more details about the games we tried, the reviews will of course start coming in next week. Stay tuned, you’ll love them!
As always, we had a great time in Essen, tried many great games and met a lot of awesome people. We enjoyed talking to old friends, game designers and publishers alike, but we also had a lot of fun trying games with complete strangers. Special mentions go to the lovely English couple that tried Pandemic: The Cure with us, and to the group of French guys we had fun with playing Illegal.
I’m looking forward to seeing many of you next year, or maybe before that if the opportunity presents itself, and I hope you all get home safe. Leaving Essen will be challenging for some thanks to the Deutsche Bahn being on strike this weekend. I hope you all will catch your planes and get back home without too much trouble!