All of the above titles are being brought to the US by Rio Grande. I’ve played both Yspahan and Zooloreto, but neither particularly blew me away. Arkadia was described as “stock market tetris” to me, and Jenseits von Theben sounds a bit more “gamery.” And nobody seems to be gung-ho about Thief of Baghdad. There’s no clear winner this year- but not in a good way. Yspahan is my top pick to win, because there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, it has a decent core mechanism (that involves dice), and camel pieces.
After the jump is the list of the “Recommended” games. Thanks to Boardgamenews for the list.
The Kaleidoscope Classic
Burg Appenzell
Jetzt schlägt’s 13
Skybridge
Würfel-Bingo
Der Prestel Kunstmarkt
Die Säulen von Venedig
Alchemist
Notre Dame
Wikinger
Die Säulen der Erde
Imperial
More discussion in this geeklist.
Yo, T. Game, what newish games that you know of, if any, will I be able to try out at Balticon this year?
With me not running gaming, I don’t know if the game store guy will be at Balticon again this year. But Hal’s massive collection will be there, so we’ll be able to dig into that, and if Family Game Store makes another appearance, there’s a better chance that any of these Spiel nominees will be there.
Are you planning on bringing your laptop? Because if you do, I’ll do a critical-hits article for any new games I play from a non-game designer perspective.
I will. Hope to do some kind of blogging from the show! (Maybe even attempt the long fabled podcast)
Zooloretto has won this year’s Spiel Des Jahres, which is cool because it’s probably the game I enjoyed the most out of all those.