After an even later night updating the blog, I managed to get up at a good enough hour to get some breakfast, although I was still rather the worse for wear. Even so, I was at the fair in good time to cover for KC while he was off in to meet some people. I needn' have bothered, as the booth was quiet for quite some time, in fact for the whole day. Fewer copies were sold than yesterday, but still around half of all the copies there have been sold.

Today I had resolved to go play some games and report on them, so off I went with Tom Powers (of Boards and Bits) to see what we could see. First stop was Freya's Folly. Each player represents a dwarven jewellry company, whose dwarves mine the gold and jewels to make jewellry. Each player has a number of dwarves, and using their 2 actions per turn they can move, make a setting, put the jewels in the setting, take an ability, trade with the black market or make an offering to Freya. Moving is kinda like cartagena, where the dwarf moves to the next open lantern, jumping over other dwarves. However, you can only jump over 2 dwarves, unless you have the stealth ability, in which case it's 4 dwarves. When the dwarf arrives in a cave it picks up all the jewels (colored cubes), and then transports them to the mine entrance. Once there they may be placed in a setting, represented by cards with various combinations of cube colors, kinda like Keythedral. These have various points values, and are negative if not complete at the end of the game, depending on the combinations and sizes of the cubes - large ones are more difficult to get to in the mine. Once a setting has been completed, a dwarf has to be placed on it, which reduces the number you have to play with, a balancing mechanism of sorts. Gold cubes can be made into offerings for Freya, which also give points. The game ends when either 4 offerings have been made to Freya, or one player has used all their dwarves to complete settings. A pretty strait forward game, after a brief teaching we played a 4-player game in 45 minutes (the box says 50-75). I liked it immensely andimmediately bought a copy.

Next up was Timbukto, a new Dirk Henn game. One of my favorite game designers, this was another game I enjoyed immensely. Each player has a number of camels, each loaded with a variety of goods. The game board is in 4 sections, the camels start in the first (in a 5x5 grid), all move to the second, one camel per player per turn, until they are all in the second section, another 5x5 grid. At this point you work out which goods the robbers steal from the camel train. There are three stacks of 5 cards, the first represents the colum, the second the rows (2) to identify the locations in the grid. The third card identifies the 2 goods that are stolen from the camels in those locations. A set, one of each type, are dealt out to each player at the start of each section, so they know where some of the locations to avoid are. As they move their camels into the next section, 2 of the spaces indicate that the card sets are rotated around the table, so each player knows 3 of the 5 combinations that will be robbed. The same is then done for the next 2 sections, and that is the end of the game. The players calculate the value of the remaining goods on the camels, each good being worth the number of that type that were stolen by the robbers, total it all up and the highest value wins. Pretty simple, but a very nice game, and one that I had planned to purchase when it came out at home.

However, later in the afternoon I came across one of the stores, and they had dirk Henn there signing games, so I immediately purchased it. One of the great things about Essen is that there are a lot of the designers here, and they are more than willing to sign the games, especially from the smaller game companies.

At this point it was time to go on a shopping break. I picked up a lot of smaller games to fit the corners of other games boxes. Mostly in the 2-5€ range, I also picked up a copy of Razzia (the Knizia one this time) for 5€ and several other good bargains.

After that I joined, Anye, Derk, Morgan (SisterRay on BGG) and Richard Bethany for King's Progress. This is another game from the JKLM people. We managed to screw up quite a few rules, as we were learning as we went, and whilst it isn't a bad game it didn't do much for any of us, and we wouldn't be in any great rush to play it again. Damning with faint praise, I fear.) I'm sure I've seen this one before, as the king card mechanism looks very familiar. (Doug, did you you me this one at your place?)

I then browsed for a while, found Lost Valley for 10€ and various other small items, enough to fill my roller bag.

I bumped into Fraser Lamont from Fragor games and we were discussing the availability of Shear Panic. He said that he'd seen one for sale for 80€ at one of the game sellers, 4 times the retail price is quite a mark up, but that's the way the market works.

Later that same evening...

After a brief stop for some food after the fair closed, we had arranged to use the conference room at the Hotel Arosa for a gaming session. time to play some of the games we bought!

First of all I managed to get the webcam set up and working, so we had live pictures available all evening. We're hoping to get the conference room again on Saturday and Sunday, so it should be up again both those evenings if you're desperate to see pictures of people playing games....

KC, Tom and I played Freya's Folly with Ron and Steve. Steve is over for the Settlers of Catan championships as the national champion. They start tomorrow. Anyway, I still enjoyed the game, especially as I won it. :)

Mimi, Doug, Ben and Michelle play Cash 'n' Guns. These guys are in the booth next to Sunriver. From what I've heard this game is a blast and totally wacky. I may have to look into it...

Michelle, Ben, Mimi, Lorna and some ghost hands play Il Principe. This is another on my list to play tomorrow, so watch this space.

I don't know these two people, but they're playing Garten of Alhambra

I saw Chris and Jacob playing Xig, and later Matthew and Richard played. It seemed to get the thumbs up from them, so I'll have to ask Jacob to show me how to play. Another I might add to my list as I'm always interested in games for the library or Cathy's school (She's my wife, for those who don't know me.)

Curt, Ken, Robin, Scott and someone else play Angkor. Looks like nice bits, but I've not played it not heard any feedback on it.

The final game of the evening was Caylus, one that I had already bought based on the buzz. I was joined by Ken, Robin, Michelle and Lorna. In the first part of each turn, players place their pawns on the desired locations in turn. Each location allows you an action - get resource cubes, trade for cash, add tiles to the path, trade cubes for points, and a few other things. After all have placed then each location along the path is evaluated and cubes or cash acquired, buildings built, screwage completed, etc. It's another game like Freya's Folly (or Keythedral) where you acquire cubes and trade them in various combinations for points or other benefits. I was favorably impressed, although it will take a couple of games to fully explore and understand to possibilities. Ken and I put in a superlative performance to come in joint last.