Game On…

Recently I went to the International Spieltage at the Messe Essen centre in Germany with Marc Harrison. It is probably the largest event of its type in the world with something like 150000 people visiting during the 4 days.

Marc and I were not there for the whole event but we did spend a good couple of days visiting the many stands, playing several entertaining board games, looking at the wide array of folk wandering about (families with small kids, enthusiasts with sack-barrow loads of purchases, strangely costumed LARP fans, comic writers and artists, and all many of geeks of all shapes and sizes). It is a vast place spread of three major halls with an emphasis on board games (although there are a number of other table top games, role play games, live-action-role-play stands, comics, dice shops, scenery and paraphernalia, and much more on display. Some of the games have a generic popular appeal and others are quite niche (such as the Glass Blowing in the Bavarian Forest board game that was very popular).

We stayed out of Essen at the small town of Mulheim an der Ruhr beside the river at a hotel recommended by our friends Gary and Mary who have been here before. Hotel Handelshof is a pleasant place with friendly staff who were happy to provide a large room where we could play our newly bought games with fellow gamers.

As I was flying budget and only had hand luggage I only bought one game (some of the other guests from the UK had driven over so that they could fill their cars up with games). I was captivated by the prettiest game on show called Tokaido where the object is to travel this renowned Japanese route and become the most well-travelled player, tasting the most exotic food, buying gifts, viewing majestic scenery, donating to roadside temples, meeting people and bathing in hot pools. It is a simple game to pick up and is ideal for the more social rather than hard-core gamers.

The plan was for Marc to go on to the UK where he had another event to attend before returning to his home in Sweden, but sometime after arriving in the UK he lost his passport so he had an unexpected delay and spent some time staying with us (where we got to play some more games), before he got a replacement and managed to get home just in time for Heather’s birthday.