Essen was a bit of a mixed bag this year. Good company and good fun but the games were a bit weak. To some degree this was as expected and partly stems from the recent emphasis on releasing games at the Nuremberg Toy Fair and, for me, their subsequent play at the Gathering of Friends in May. So some wonderful new games, such as Die Siedler, and some nice looking games, such as the Goldseiber line, were old hat by the time they arrived in Essen.
Still there were some sleepers and nice surprises. El Grande from Hans im Gluck is a solid game that suffers slightly from a flurry of German on special event cards. DTM Hockenheimring lead the way on (almost) affordable but overproduced games. Kunst Stucke from Moskito took top honors in the abstract category. And Mü lead a crowded field of new card games that included Speed (a two person, duel version of Set), Flaschenteufel (an interesting little trick taking cardgame), Mogelei (a lying game that just doesn't seem to work despite sounding like it probably should - perhaps there are a few missing rules in the early translations), Ole and Foppen (two variants on the same theme of emptying your hand - Ole just edges Foppen out but both are a bit light).
El Grande - A great game of political intrigue set in Old Spain. Features a nice self balancing system of supply and demand. Players attempt to control the regions of Spain by dispatching more cabelleros to each region than any other player. Five action cards are displayed each turn and players bid for picking order to decide who gets to play which card. Action cards control how many cabelleros can be moved from your yard to the board - more powerful cards allow fewer cabelleros to be stationed on the board. Bid cards control how many cabelleros move from the provinces (the reserve) to your yard (your hand). The higher the bid card, the fewer cabelleros can be recruited. Nice, sane action cards. Great color. Not quite the instant classic that Die Siedler was but a solid game. Elfenwizards - Moon hits a goody. Wizards duke it out in a political battle to be head honco at the pointy hat club. Players assign dice to wizards and/or spell boxes. The spells are later shifted to wizards to boost them past their fellows on the ladder to success. Lots of room for dirty dealing and backstabbing (all in good fun, of course).
Kunst Stucke - Invented by Karl-Heinz Schmiel. Published by Moskito. This is a very nice looking, very abstract game. Players place and move abstract shapes on a grid in an attempt to group them according to scoring chits which the players choose throughout the game. Recommended if you can deal with the purely abstract. Since Sumo liked it I think most folks will be able to overcome the dullness of the pure abstraction.
Zundstoff - Published by 1x1 Spiele. Twisted little card/board game of space exploration. Happy little prisoners are being rocketed to their deaths in rocketships that cut through a hyperspace that twists and turns as play progresses. Wacky but not as fun as it sounds. Results of card play are just as random and uncontrollable as hyperspace.
Totem - Published by Queen Games. Players compete to build the tallest totem pole by breeding the largest family. The men hunt, the women have babies, the old folks pass on the familial traditions. Republicans will love it.
DTM Hockenheimring - Extensively overproduced dice based motor racing game with double plus good bits. Each turn players roll three dice, 2d6 and 1d3. You can turn to flip a dice over to either shift up to higher gear or shift down. Nice system of flags and pit stops that only seem to hang up on the final lap.
Tricks and Rainbows - Moon, again, with two light but decidedly funky card games. I'll leave Peter to review these as he's much more the card expert. I liked 'em, though.
Speed - Invented by Reinhard Staupe. Published by Adlung Spiele. Head-to-head Set. Two players race to empty their hands by matching cards by color, shape, or number of small icons on each card.
Mu - Invented by Doris Mathaus and Frank Nestel. Published by Doris & Frank. Beautiful game crying for a rules tranlsation (the Bavarian remains impenetrable to me...). Siggins declared it the best card game since Was Sticht. Comes with rules for four other card games, besides. You can't go wrong on this one.
Mogelei - Published by 1x1 Spiele. Game of bluff and deception that allows the players to count cards and see right through all bluffs and deceptions. Another poor showing by 1x1 (unless we've missed a rule somewhere).