SPIEL DOCH! 2019
the second time for the new game fair
Duisburg / Germany

29th to 31th March 2019

SPIEL DOCH!, 2019 for the second time: The new game fair with the board game releases of the Spring for consumers. That's how the Nostheide Verlag announces the second edition of the fair in Duisburg. Once again it`s playing time in the old factory hall in one of Germany's biggest industrial areas of the last century. Where once have been a world of coal and steel, there is now a landscape park with many cultural offers and various sport facilities. Some say that boardgames are also a kind of sport, so a boardgame convention seems to fit to this place. And last year the first edition of the fair was already a huge success according to the Nostheide Verlag, the organizer of the event.

And indeed, many of the publishers that attended the convention last year have come back. A lot of the German bigger and smaller companies are here again, but also,many publishers from nearby countries, especially from the Benelux, France, Austria and Switzerland. So let`s see how the fair has developed since last year:

As last year the first day of the convention begun for me in the office of my main job, and I was not able to leave that place before 2 o'clock. On Fridays that's not really the best time to get home, still less to drive to the SPIEL DOCH! As a result it took me about 90 minutes to master the approximately 25 km to Duisburg, and there was not really much time to play many games together. The weather, however, was beautiful, so I took some pictures before entering the hall of the convention. As you can guess a lot of people enjoyed the good weather in the open.

Good for me, so the booths inside the hall were already less crowded. I was told that this morning a lot of school classes visited SPIEL DOCH!, and it was a little bit crazy to explain and play games. But now, most of the staff were relaxed again and were free to explain their games to me. And this was badly needed, because I was on my own, and needed fellow players to beat.

I met my first "victim" at the booth of ASMODEE where I found the nice (family) dexterity game Tokyo Highway. This game has been already presented at SPIEL 18, but due to over 1000 new games, it is impossible to see them all. So I am lucky that Duisburg gives me another chance to find the one or other hidden gem I have missed in Essen. And perhaps Tokyo Highway could be one of them. Originally this game was even published in 2016, but the German version was only released next year. In the game, every player builds up a highway between four high-towers of Tokyo. On their turns, the players construct columns of varying heights (you must always build a column one step higher or lower than the column before). They connect those columns with sticks to represent the railroads. Then, if your last railroad crosses a railroad of one of your fellow players (above or below the other stick), you are allowed to place a car on top of it. In the end, the player with most cars on the railroads wins the game. But beware: If you inexpertly drop material of your opponents (column pieces, sticks or cars), you must offer as many of your own construction material from your personal supply as you have dropped before. Thus you can run out of construction material, which ends the game for you. Easy game, but it looks great with all the wooden material and makes a lot of fun, when you see the roads develop:

From one of the biggest German publishers to one of the smallest: next stop for me was at the booth of TETRAHEDRON-GAMES. This is a young publisher with roots in Nuremberg. Although the publisher only exist since 2017, they already have published their third game. While their first game Valhal is a strategic game in which players build up various projects in the Viking times with many random events, the two other games are short card games. Dodoresque - Jungle Fever and Dodoresque - Cherry Blossom have the same core mechanism and can be combined, but they are still independent games. In both games each player takes one Dodo and three cards, before he tries to build a nest for her or his Dodo. To do so, new cards are drawn from three different card stacks. It is the players' aim to get good nest building materials, but for that they must have the right action cards first. And the Dodos can be hit and must be protected too. The cards have beautifully artwork, and a lot of the cards are unique. Although the game seems to be mostly luck-orientated, I would guess that it is a funny card game you cannot only play with your children.

While I still was listening to the rules of Dodoresque, I spotted the booth of HAL-13 on the other side of the hall. The booth looked nearly the same as last year, and when I went over, I also so why: Rogue Marechal is still promoting his interesting card game Serengeti: A Race for Life. I already wrote a complete review for this game, so maybe you wanna check this in our boardgame section. But Rogue also was presenting something new: two expansions for the core game, called The Hunt and Migration. Both expansions let you exchange some of the animals of the base game to create a new game experience. While the Hunt explores the crucial role of scavengers and make the game more aggressive, Migration introduces new scoring mechanisms. Especially the latter expansion was extremely difficult to design (or better balance), Rogue told me. Rogue also revealed that he plans at least two more expansions, but even more important: he tries to find a cooperation, before he starts a new projects. I wish him good luck for that, because I still think that Serengeti: A Race for Life is a great debut with many options.

One genre in the boardgame world I still haven't played yet is the murder mystery dinner. But at every convention I stop at least at one booth to have a closer look on this type of games. Here in Duisburg it was the booth of Krimi Kueche who have mystery dinners for 6 to 8 players without the need of a master. All games are played over 4 rounds. Maybe I will make it this year, but the convention is definitely not the right place to test the game. So I just took a picture for you and kept on moving, while more and more visitors left the hall for today.

But there was still over one hour to go, and so I took the chance to have a closer look on Detective Stories: Fall 1 : Das Feuer in Adlerstein by iDVENTURE. The booth promised to present realistic detective and escape games, so I wanted to learn more about what's so realistic in the game. Christoph Kossendey, one of the authors, told me that the game requires not only investigations with the game material (like in every Escape game). Moreover there are not only hints and misleading in the game itself (like in most detective games). Well, you have both these elements in the game. But the authors wanted to make the game as realistic as possible. And that's why you also need to use your computer or smartphone to search the real internet and various Facebook sites. As a result, the criminal case requires similar investigations to real life. At the moment the game is only available in German (distributed by ASMODEE), but the publisher already plans a translation in English, so you can soon experience a totally new way to play the detective genre. I for one am already looking forward to my next gaming night...

Another interesting booth I came across today, was the Austrian publisher RUDY GAMES. While other publishers every now and then try to integrate a smartphone in their games, RUDY GAMES creates all their games around the smartphone or tablet. Unlike many other try-outs, the electronic device is not only an add-on, but it is the core mechanism of the game. The publisher does the programming as well as the game design, definitely an advantage over publishers who must employ specialists who did not design the game. Up to know, RUDY GAMES has four completely different games: Scubi Sea Saga, a funny logical underwater action game, Lost Galaxy, an intergalactic card game, Interaction, a party game with many different micro games and a strong strategic war game, Leaders. The smartphone not only keeps track of the victory points and different scores, it also adjusts the difficulty to each players' ability. For example the tasks in Interaction will be easier for smaller children than for the grown-ups, but nobody has to draw from different stacks. Moreover, the app learns during the game, and as a result, the tasks could get gradually easier when you do a lot of mistakes. To add as much KI as possible, the publisher even cooperates with an university. I honestly must say, that up to know only Chronicles of Crime could convince me to play with a smartphone. But RUDY GAMES lets me want to try it once more in the future...

In the meantime, the hall was really getting empty, but I didn't want to leave, before I had seen the prototype of Fuji Koro by GAME BREWER. This game is actually on Kickstarter and according to Rudy from GAME BREWER it is the biggest production in the young history of the publisher. Especially the deluxe edition will come with lots of material. The final product will be an miniature dungeon crawler game with a variable game board. At the moment, I cannot say any more about the game, but I took a picture for you as a first impression (remember that it is still a prototype):

OK, one more booth and one more game for today. I want to conclude with Silver & Gold from NSV (Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag). The game was shipped to the publisher only yesterday, so that's something dew-fresh to end the day. As usual for the German publisher, the new game is a card game. But unless most other games, it comes with felt pens. At set-up every player draws a treasure map that must be filled with crosses. Those treasure maps have different patterns, so no player will have the same map as an opponent. Then, every round a new tetris-like card is drawn and every player can then mark the shape of the pattern on his map. Only if a map is filled with crosses, it contributes to the players victory points. Of course, there are also a lot of bonus points in the game... After The Game and The Mind NSV once again presents a promising small card game with high potential. Of course, the theme is not the most innovative. I mean, there are quite a lot of tetris games in the world. But NSV always knows how to eliminate all clutter and strip the games to its main mechanism. I think this is really great and it always worth to try out.

Let me leave you with just some more pictures from the inside of the now nearly empty hall and the surroundings:

So, that's it for me for today. Tomorrow I probably won't have the chance to visit the fair, but I'll definitely be back on Sunday, so stay tuned and keep following...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another day of playing and testing in Duisburg. As I have already told you, yesterday was my day-off from the convention. My godchild, the daughter of our G@mebox author Lutz was celebrating her birthday, and so we enjoyed the good weather in the garden. Unfortunately, on our way home, we got in a complete closure on the motorway due to a heavy car accident. As a result we didn't come home before midnight and together with last night's time change this resulted in much less sleep than I intended. Compared to the SPIEL in Essen I normally have a much more peaceful time during the smaller SPIEL DOCH! convention. But what must be, must be. As I had already an appointment with Lutz and his son, I took my younger son along and drove the short distance to Duisburg once again for another day of gaming:

As we both came with the children, the first game for today was a family game at the booth of AMIGO. In Lighthouse Run everyone of us got a set of 5 sailboats that we had to manoveur along the coast in the safe harbour, everybody following the same road. It's time to hurry, because a storm is coming up and once the storm reaches the ships, they have to stop where they are (they go ashore and aren't destroyed, hey, it's a family game!). But they also only get as many victory points as the last passed lighthouse along the coast. And the lighthouses have another important function in the game. Only when they are turned on, it is possible to move a boat in the corresponding sector. Unfortunately only three of the six lighthouses are turned on at the same time, and so we had not only to master the storm, we also had to manage the lighthouses. All this is done with a single card that you have to play in your turn. On the one hand the card determines the lighthouse you have to turn on, on the other hand it shows the number of boats you can move as well as the number of steps you can move the ships (at least when the sector's lighthouse is turned on). As you can imagine, the further you sail with your ships the more victory points you will earn. A very light game, but perfect for the children, with great artwork and a funny game in game (the turning on of the lighthouses). Really an excellent family start for today.

Let's remain in the family genre! ZOCH was showing their brand-new Go Gecko Go. In this game, each player takes a team of four animals, a gecko (the smallest animal), a frog, a turtle and a crocodile (the biggest animal). If you think that's an unusual team, I agree to everything. But who cares about the strange teams. A team is a team! And a team wants to win. And so every player places her or his team in a swimming lane and tries to reach the finish line first with all of his animals. Dice show us which animals we can move. Of course, the bigger animals are gentlemen and give the smaller animals a lift as long as they are on top of the bigger animals. But there are also two bridges to be cleared. Unfortunately, these bridges are often not high enough for the piggyback rides. And so the "rider" animals will often be knocked off again. Moreover, bridges can't be overcome by a dice roll, but the whole river must be moved one step further (similar to the mechanism in Labyrinth). Go Gecko Go was a lot of fun to play with our smaller children. A great haptic, various methods to move your animals, the element of the bridges, the piggyback and the race in itself will guarantee a lot of funny games with your children. I would say that the game can already be played with 5 year old children and will be interesting enough until the age of 8 or 9. If I had had games like Go Gecko Go in my youth, I would have been in paradise, no joke...

While we moved over to the next game we could play with the children, we came across the booths of HANS IM GLÜCK and FEUERLAND. Here we could marvel at their new games Haddara and Fluegelschlag. Both games are gamer games, both seemed to be very interesting to me, both had great artwork, but both weren't playable for us today with the children around. The same applies to the new Copenhagen from QUEEN GAMES, this time not because of the children (recommended age is 8+), but simply because we couldn't find an empty table. I will keep all of these games in my mind and try to come back to them later this year. If however I now have aroused your curiosity, here are some pictures of the games:

QUEEN GAMES was not the only booth with fully occupied tables. Indeed, today the hall was much more crowded than on Friday. But still it was possible to find the one or other free table (at least if you were not focused on just a few special games) and find someone who could explain the games.

For example, we found a table at DLP GAMES where we were introduced to last year's card game Moorea. Soon after, everyone of us was equipped with 6 resource cards. As the game plays in the South Seas, the resources are clay, shells, bamboo, wood and other base materials. On our turns we could use the hand cards to acquire new product cards. Those new cards are either stronger materials or better products you can use to aquire even stronger product cards. Those new products are again taken on your hand. On the other hand, there are also final products that are layed out in front of the players. These cards are the victory points and some of them have also other useful functions, e.g. expanding your player hand or acting as some kind of trade market. The game turned out to be a little bit a deck building and a little bit a collection game. It run quite smoothly and was even playable with the children (although I doubt they had a strategy). I would think that the game would also serve as a short filler game. I personally was missing a little bit the aggressive parts. Apart from snatching cards away from your opponents, there is not really a way to attack your opponents. But as this is only personal (I bet my wife won't miss that) and because the artwork is nice and colourful I would like to play the game a second (and maybe much more) time(s).

While we were leaving the table, I still had a glimpse to the prototype of Coffee Roaster that will be released by DLP GAMES in June 2019. This game is a pure solitaire game about roasting various coffee beans to find the perfect coffee. The original game is already some years old, but Reiner Stockhausen, CEO of DLP GAMES, told me, that they changed (and improved) a lot of details to make the game even more interesting for the European market. The prototype already looked very promising, so I hope to tell you more about the game in a couple of months:

Meanwhile my son had discovered two games in the chess genres, he wanted to give a try. A lot of schools here in Germany are having chess project groups, and as a result I am playing a lot of chess matches against him at the moment (and hope to keep up with him). But the two games he had discovered today modify the way to play the traditional game, and so I hoped to have a chance. Both games use the same board pattern as the original chess. And both games also make use of the movement rules of the chess pieces. But that ends the similarities, so let's have a look at the differences:

The first game I want to talk about is Katarenga from HUCH!. As you can see in the pictures, there are only the same - pawn like - game pieces. But still these game pieces can use all the moves from the different pieces of the original chess. How does that work? Well, it's very simple: you can see in the pictures that the board is very colourful with each colour also having an individual pattern. In the game, the colour (or better the pattern) of the space the game piece begins its move, determines its movement rules for the turn. So the same game piece can move like a tower in the one round and move like the King in the next (if it ends its movement on a space with the pattern of the King piece). It's the players' aim to reach the front line of the opponent with two pawns (and stay there for one more round without being beaten). A lot of rethinking is demanded if you are familiar with the traditional chess. But it's a great challenge. Also I think it's a great new way to learn the chess rules, really an interesting modification of chess.

Paco Sako is the other variant of chess I want to talk about. At a first glance, this game has much more in common with the original chess. You can see that all game pieces are pretty much the same. And there is the same board, too. Moreover, the chess pieces also move the same way as in traditional chess. But there is no beating. You can see that all game pieces are arched, and if you have a closer look you can also see that two figures fit together, so that they form a union. And that's exactly what's happening. Instead of taking each other's pieces, a union is formed. From that moment a player can move this union with the normal movement rules of his piece, but she or he takes the other player's game piece along. Of course, you can also leave a union again, but you must first take over the union by another game piece. The freed game piece can immediately move according to its movement rules, e.g. to take over another union. By this, you can even start a chain reaction. The game was created by the author to be an expression of peace, friendship and collaboration (that's why there is no beating). But it's also a wonderful new way to experience the chess game. I was told, that in Netherlands the game has already "entered" many school classes. By the way, it's the players' aim to create a union with the King of the other player, that's called putting him in Paco Sako.

While the two chess games are already from 2017, let's end the SPIEL DOCH! report with a real novelty: HEIDELBÄR GAMES is back as an independent company. Most of you will still remember how the old HEIDELBERGER group was growing and growing until the company was integrated into the ASMODEE group. At the beginning of this year however, the old development group around CEO Heiko cut themselves off again and are back with two new games. I had a closer look at Volt which reimplements the older Volt - Robot Battle Arena. In the game, each player takes the role of an operator and has to program a robot in advance. In contrast to Robo Rally only three steps have to be programmed, so there are more tactical movements and - in most cases - less chaotic disasters. I am still a big fan of the old Robo Rally, but Volt seems to be an interesting alternative. Of course, you still have the laser fires and the pits. Maybe the arena fights are more interesting for the younger players, but I guess there will be also the one or other Robo Rally veteran who will play and love the game. Anyway it will be interesting to see where the new (old) design crew of HEIDELBÄRGER GAMES is leading us in the future...

So, that's it from SPIEL DOCH! 2019. The fair once again was a great success according to the organizer. Nearly 100 publishers presented new (and older) games. And over 14.000 visitors (a plus of 24%) came and played many, many games in the last three days. Of course, the fair will be back in the next year again. Stay tuned and come back to our website, there are still many games to be discovered in the next couple of months.

Yours Ralf