Gamer’s Christmas – Essen Spiel 2015 (world’s largest board game fair) – is over. We came, we presented and we conquered most of what we wanted. But first let us treat you with the interview with the Pandemic’s author Matt Leacock.
Essen Spiel 2015
The road to Essen was a nightmare, it was raining the whole 1100 kilometers from Slovenia to North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and when we got there is was a cold and rainy autumn afternoon. Luckily we had three drivers to rotate at the wheel as the traffic conditions sucked the life force out of each of us. And tired as we were we still had to set up both of our booths – the main one in Hall 2 and the prototype booth at the Author’s area in Hall 7.
To be honest I did not get that much of the fair as was mostly occupied on our Author’s Booth in Hall 7. Thursday and Friday were somewhat slow in the terms of the visitors, so that was the only time I got to browse around a bit and check up this year’s Spiel des Jahres winners; the Colt Express and the Broom Service. Saturday was insanely crowded – to the point it was almost impossible to move even in the main corridors. And having people sit or lean in the hall gates did not help a bit … perhaps because that is not why they were meant for! But then on Sunday after lunch the fair started turning into a ghost town – something I do not remember from the last year.
The Cool Stuff
This year we got many promising meetings in Essen Spiel 2015 with the publishers who were stopping at our boot more often than at any other table in the Author’s area and our main star was our new game, the “Pumpkings”. But also the “Fire Brigade” and the “Ranch” out of our new stock caught the eyes of the publishers from the four continents – from Brasil to China (and that is not across the Pacific)! We have sold our “Five Elements” to the largest online retailer in the USA – the CoolStuffInc.com, so I guess you will be able to get it there soon.
ut our brightest moment was on Saturday when Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower came by with Jerry Sunkin of the CoolStuffInc and got him interested in our “Fire Brigade”. But other than that we were busy most of the time, specially due to what looks to be our next big title – the “Pumpkings”. It looks like the awesome artwork did the most of the job because people were just drawn to it – and that means the small and the big people.
And for the finales – not that I want to brag … but i will anyway – we made an interview with Matt Leacock, the author of Pandemic. The interview is published at the top of this post. Please note that the sound is far from perfect, but we have provided the captions (turn them on by clicking the CC button).
See more of the images of Essen Spiel 2015 on the Value Ad Games facebook page.