Another early start, as I was working the Sunriver booth for the first couple of hours. Pretty quiet going in that time, although we did sell about 10 or so copies.

After that it was time to hit the floor in the company of Tom Powers and Michelle again. First up was Aloha,from Cwali. When we arrived there weren't any tables available, but one opened up just as we were waiting, and it turned out that Morgan (SisterRay) was one of the players. He hung around to give his thoughts on the game and help with rules. I'd picked this one after looking at another person's copy, and it seemed interesting. The theme is that you're a tourist agent developing a new island, looking for the best beaches. In your turn you draw a tile and add it to the island, adjacent to your agent if possible. If your agent (meeple) can move onto it from the current location, then you add a sunlounger to the beach, and you can stop and draw another tile. If you can't place the tile next to your agent, then you lose your turn and all laid sunloungers this turn. These sunloungers count for controlling the beach,and the longest beach gets 10 points at game end, next longest 9, etc., down to 1 point. Michelle had some bad draws at the start of the game (and pointed this out at every opportunity!) but came back to lose to Tom by only 1 point. There is a fair amount of luck in the tile draws, but that's the whole point of the Can't Stop type push your luck type game, and at least you can mitigate the draw possibilities by moving your agent to a better location. I enjoyed it, even though I came in last. Cwali were also doing a deal - Aloha, Ahoy, Titicaca and 2 copies of Typo (card game) for 37€, which I took as I like Titicaca, and I'm told that Typo is a good game.

Next up was Kaivai, which a couple of people had bought and was on my pre-Essen list. I had a quick look at the booth the other day and the game comes in a huge box, way larger than need for the board and components. However, it is georgeous! Morgan had joined us and was also interested in this one, so we timed it right once again and arrived just as someone was finished. It took a little while to explain the rules, and we made a couple of mistakes in the 4 rounds we played, but it was enough for both Morgan to buy copies. Despite the box size. This could be, so far, my favorite game of the whole Essen Spiel fair. Another of those choosing actions in order, to build stuff which gives you money to do othe stuff. The theme is good and seems to work well. And at only 25€ it was a steal.

I had also been interested in trying Railroad Dice 2. This had got a general thumbs down in out group, although I hadn't played it, so I was curious to try the second version. A very small board, and a very limited number of dice are a problem. We spent a lot of time just rolling orange dice to no effect. Everyone gave it the thumbs down, and no copies were bought. It didn't help that the guys on the booth couldn't agree on the rules. I just didn't like how it was totally dependent on the die rolls, with nothing you could do to mitigate that. I don't mind luck in games, but we should be beyond games where you just roll dice, decide you can't do anything and pass them on. Yucky.

After this I went to dump games and get some water, adn then caught upp with Morgan and the Bambus Spiel booth to play Socks in the City. This comes in a bright red sock with drawstring, and is a 2-player game. A set of hex tiles are arranged into a contiguous map, each one having the name of a street or location, and six exits. Onto this map are place a set of 2 sock in 6 different color. The players then take turns to place sticks to make connections between adjacent hexes to create a path between the sock pairs. When a player has connected the matchig pairs he takes a third sock of that olor to show this. After all 6 colors have been claimed, you total up the distances between each pair, and total them up. The winner is the one with the higher score. Both Morgan and I were in the 'was that it?' camp, and neither of us bought copies.

Our final game of the afternoon was Skyline, a tower block building from GameMaster. You have a set of tiles in your stock, and more in reserve. It costs cash to move them to your stock, and the same again to build them. They are numbered in sequence, 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 (penthouse), which represents the building cost. You are not allowed to build a tile on top of one of your own tiles, and if anyone build on your tile they have to pay you the cost of the built tile. You get income each turn of the build cost for the largest visible chain of tiles when looking directly down, and there are bonus cards which give you more cash for specific patterns of tiles. The winner is the the one withthe most points or cash at the end of the game, although we didn't get that far as it was 7pm and closing before we could finish. I came in dead last, and just could never get going at all. I'm not entirely sure what I did wrong, but I enjoyed playing. I'm not sure I have room for it however, and it may miss the cut.

And that brought Saturday to a close. I did hear various comments that it was the quietest Saturday at Essen Spiel for several years. Certainly everyone at the Sunriver Games booth said that it was quieter than they had been led to believe from Essen veterans.

The conference room had been previouly booked for some card game demonstration, but they were happy to share some os the spare space with us. I managed to get in a teaching game of Timbuktu with KC and Julie, and then a hand of the Fly Catching game wih KC and Matthew.

At that point it was time for the great packing to begin. At last count there were about 70-80 games to be packed, and with judicious nesting of games I managed to get them down to the suitcase, rollerbag, and 1.5 boxes to be shipped. I reckon I even have a little space for some more, but I'll have to check the box I left at the fair. Certainly lots of small card games are on the list for tomorrow, as they can fit anywhere. I'll have another go at fitting everything in tomorrow. I may switch games from my big suitcase to the roller for laundry to save weight as it will be checked in on the return flights. I can stuff as much weight as possible in my carry ons.