For some reason, Essen this year was a little lackluster. Hard to explain why, maybe it’s just me… I haven’t tried the 20+ games I brought back – so no qualified opinion yet – but at first glance there was a couple of standouts:

- Cyclades (by Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc) is to board games what AAA is to video games: amazing production values!

- Pony Express (by Bruno Faidutti and Antoine Bauza) is the second game out of Funforge, my friend Philippe Nouhra’s company. A fast and fun little game with lots of character.

Also, lots of buzz around Vlaada Chvátil’s  Dungeon Lords and, as usual, the latest Lamont brothers – Savannah Tails – looked super weird.

I am just back from four days in Essen, Germany, where I stayed for the annual game fair. Essen is all about analog gaming: from LARP and RPG to board and card games. As usual, I was stricken by the diversity and vitality I felt in contrast to the current staleness of the video games industry. I brought back 35 games which should be enough to last me until next time.

Most notable this year:

- With over 50 people all thursday, the longest queue I’ve ever witnessed at Essen was for a game called “Le Havre“. With a very dry theme, very heavy mechanics and not a very pretty board: this is a game clearly targeted at very core gamers… It’s probably surfing on the reputation of the author’s previous game: “Agricola”.

- Speaking of reputation surfing, Splotter, the publisher of the renowned “Roads & Boats”, came to Essen with a limited run of 200 “Duck Dealer” at €60 a pop. All gone in less than 10 minutes.

- My friend Philippe Nouhra set up Fun Forge – his own game company – to design and launch his first card game: “Illusio“. It’s a game about setting up and performing magic tricks that reminded me a little bit of Colosseum and Citadelles. The production values are very high, which is not all that surprising given Philippe’s talent. Best of luck to him in his new adventure!

- “Space Alert“, a very fast game (less than 10mn) where the players cooperatively and in real time fight threats as they are announced by an audio CD. It made quite a buzz.

- With beautiful and smart (from what I heard) games like Matagot’s “Giants” and Ystari’s “Sylla“, the French board game production is going strong.

- After 20 years of being scandalously ignored by the jury, the legendary Reiner Knizia won both the 2008 Spiel des Jahres and the Kinderspiel (for kids) with “Keltis” and “Wer War’s“. Personnaly, I think he deserved it way earlier for many other games (my favorite being “Tigris & Euphrates”) but it’s still good to see his talent finally recognized by a Spiel.

- Antoine Bauza’s “Ghost Stories” was my favorite game at Essen 08. I was really impressed by this excellent cooperative game where the players fight against chinese ghosts trying to haunt their village. A wonderful mechanic, perfectly integrated with the theme and beautifully produced by the folks at Repos Prod (who, this year, also published a funny version of “Pit” with cows). Well done guys!

Essen has a homely feel, it’s a friendly place for the geeks as well as the casual, family gamers and not everything is trying to look cool and shiny. Of course, the fact that so many boutique publishers sell their wares at Essen contributes to this indy, amateur feeling. Because the cost of making a small run of a boardgame is so low (compared to the cost of making a video game), many passionate gamers take the jump and self-fund their creations. They know it’s likely they’ll never recoup their investment but they do it anyway. Out of passion, out of love. And it generates a vitality and a diversity I can only hope the video gaming world will match one day. I mean, just this year, I brought back over 40 games including one about gypsies fighting for the best camping spot and one about taking part in a stag rut on a Scottish island, competing for food and females…

I can’t tell you if the games are good yet, but I’m already left wondering: when will we see that kind of diversity in computer gaming?