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 I woke up really early and went down really early for breakfast. After yesterday's horrible traffic jam and parking experience, I decided to plan to be at the Messe early. Being early, I tried not to ogle at the buffet spread, as I was really hungry. After ordering coffee, I made a beeline for the delicious buffet line and also ordered an omelette. After settling down in my seat, I played my first game of the day: Spot the Gamer. Never heard of this game? It's an observation and deduction game. Here's how it works: Look around the restaurant discreetly. Observe the people eating and getting food. Take note of their appearance. What are they wearing? What are they eating? Do they look cheerful? What are they talking about? If they are alone, are they in deep thought thinking about games? Do they laugh out loudly? Do they have a beard? Make your own conclusions.
I was about to go for the sausages when I saw a familiar face of a game celebrity friend who just entered the room: Tom Vasel, game reviewer extraordinaire. A bit of historical background: Tom had visited Malaysia and played games with us several times. The first time was in 2005 when he was the Special Guest in Gamecon 1, where he presented his Top 100 games for the first time, and taught lucky Malaysians how to play Descent: Journeys in the Dark. He then visited us again 2008. I remembered that well because he played Container for the first time with our gaming group...and told us what he thought of it. Tom also introduced us to Bacchus' Banquet and got us splitting our sides laughing. Back to Essen 09: what a pleasant surprise bumping into Tom at breakfast! His wife and youngest child were also there. ‘I did not know you were coming to Essen,' I asked Tom. He replied ‘I didn't tell anyone.' ‘A wise move,' I said, thinking of all the games my friends who tumpanged me to buy (Not that I mind-‘cos I eventually get to play them. But you guys owe me big time, OK?) Tom and family joined me for breakfast. This was his first Essen. We talked about what would be the hot game this year. He recommended some games for me to check out. I took mental notes. Shortly after that Shyam turned up and the game chatter really started! Shyam, who attended Essen every year, except for last year, related to us his past Essen experiences. He was also very keen on some new releases of 2009. I was thinking, after this Essen Spiel, the number of games in his collection would probably go past 2000! This could be a world record. We were also joined by Tom's friend Moritz, who is a gamer as well as an award-winning professional musician. Moritz had visited Malaysia before, and will be visiting us again, attending a music function soon. No doubt I will invite him for a game or two with our gaming group. The game chatter continued, and Tom remarked that Malaysian gamers were the friendliest he has ever met! Keep it up guys and gals!
Pre-Essen breakfast: L to R : Moritz, Tom, Mrs Vasel with baby on her back, Clarissa, Shyam and I. You can also play Spot The Gamer using this photo. See that guy in the background 'above' Mrs Vasel, the one with the beard?
After breakfast, we went off to Messe Essen. Eventhough I was there early, the I finally found a car park space about half a klick from the nearest entrance of the Messe! Dang! That was a long way to walk, dragging heavy games to and from the car.When I reached the main entrance, I saw lots of people waiting for the doors to open. It was a nice cool day, so I stayed outside for a while taking photos and looking at the Live Role-Playing fans in costumes.
These two knights in scarlet (above) were really friendly. They did a video for me. I might put this up in Squark Blog later.
I love the shiny armour, especially the chain mail undershirt.
For me, this second day was also to be a day of many meetings. I met lots of friendly people in the business. They were really, really genuinely friendly and also, on occasion, very funny. I guessed those attributes were prime requisites of people who were in the game business. There was no point being grumpy and unappreciative if one is in the business of fun. In the process, I discovered that there were some halls that I totally missed on the first day. Yes, Essen was that BIG. These halls were where the comics and RPGs and miniatures were. The Live RPG guys, like those I saw at the entrance, hung around here in their costumes. I marveled at the quality of the foam weapons and shields. There is an booming industry in producing these live RPG accessories and stuff, as their booths were huge. The most impressive costume was the dude in highly-polished golden plate armour made of metal. Like the real thing! I also like the small group of orc warband. These were big dudes and dudesses! The least impressive were the dudes in polystyrene WH40K Tau armour. (Nice attempt guys, though. Keep it up. Try to learn something from the orc warband guys and guyesses and do better next time, OK?) I also saw the Chessex dice stand, which I also missed as they were in the same hall as the RPG booths. I already had lots of Chessex dice, so I just glanced at the many dice and walked to the next booth. Later, I saw the Spiel Material booth with tons of meeples, animeeples vegemeeples and and allsorts meeples. I guess there were lots of people who would like to pimp up their games. Later, I received my cute ‘Dominion: Die Erfrischung' mint in a tin, Carcassonne meeple wine gums and Livingstone (one of my favourite games) postcards from the friendly Hans im Glück girl! Danker!
My Livingstone postcards, Dominion mints and Carcassonne meeple wine gums.
The business meetings were great! These were the funnest business meetings I've ever had. However, it was not all work and no play. I played a giant Rolit with Shyam and his daughter. It was fun!
The giant Rolit board-mega fun with Shyam and Clarissa!
Today, I also learned about other games like Colonia, Samurai The Card Game, Ra The Dice Game, Factory Manager, and the funnest and most daring game in Essen 09: Pony Express. I was laughing for most part of the game! Needless to say, Squark Games will be bringing Pony Express to Malaysia soon, amongst other hit games! As most of the day was spent in meetings here are some more pics to finish off the Essen Day 2 article:
Above: Assyria: A ssyrias (a serious) game - pun intended!
Above: A life-sized Kleine Magier. This game is about finding animals which are hiding inside the magical hats. The gears actually work!
Above: I can't remember the name of this German language-only game, but it plays well on the floor.
Above: Fraser and Gordon Lamont, both are lawyers and gamedesigners, in their Savannah Tails booth giving a hilarious interview where all participants actually laughed out loud. It can't be seen in this pic, but the Lamont brothers are actually wearing their trademark kilts.
Above: Valentijn Eekeis, the designer of Day & Night, giving his interview shortly after teaching me the game.
Above: An Amigo Spiele Pokemon CCG promoter. Maybe I should learn to play this fascinating game - in Essen, that is.
That's all for now. In my next Essen 09 instalment on Squark Blog, I will discuss and reveal THE ESSEN 09 WEEKEND and I will write about the woman whom I wondered a lot about.
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