Essen

Here the many games realized through the support of studiogiochi at the Essen Internationale Spieltage 2015!

Great satisfaction for Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo, the Premio Archimede that launched it and of course its authors Tascini and Luciani

Another prize for Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo, by Tascini and Luciani: here in Essen also the International Gaming Award goes to this game. Ferdinand de Cassan personally rewards the authors, representing the jury that chose it. Also Andrea Ligabue is part of the jury.

Liguria by our Alex Zucchini, who should definitely leave behind himself his pessimistic attitude: the Queen Games stand is very crowded with people playinghis game… and his new projects are top quality. Tested and approved.

And what about Titus Tentakel in a giant version at the Haba stand! Children have a lot of fun with it: the path is easy, but if you press the button the octopus wil strech some of its tentacle… and the pawns fall. A brilliant idea by Leo!

Here is Cacao, by Phil Harding, another game awarded by the Premio Archimede, played at the Abacus Spiele stand:

The popular game by Leo Colovini Think Str8!, published by Huch&Friends:

The Ares Games Stand presented Odyssey by Leo Colovini:

The Piatnik stand presented Golden Horn – Dominio da mar by Leo Colovini, the tye expansion of the popular game by Leo Colovini and is playable only with the first Golden Horn.

Concerning Pacal’s Rocket, thegame by Günter Burkhardt published by Piatnik, studiogiochi played the role of external product manager, taking care of its developement, its graphics, choosing the topic and checking its rules:

Go to the Reports

AMIGO GIVES IKARUS FOR FREE AT ESSEN 2011!

Atlantis – Ikarus
During Essen 2011, Amigo will distribute for free Ikarus, the new expansion of Atlantis by Leo Colovini. Don’t miss it!
The same expansion will be distributed for free at the “Spielefest” in Vienna (18-20 November 2011).
There will also be a new edition of the game containing already the expansion.

OUR BOARDGAMES AT ESSEN 2011

• Aquileia by Cielo d’Oro (winner of Premio Archimede 2010), edited in coproduction by Zoch and 999 Games. Besides its victory, at the Premio Archimede it also won the IDG Special Prize. An important game of optimization of resources that convinced all the members of the international jury. Illustrations/Graphics: Geoffrey Cram, Victor Boden, 3-5 players, age 12+, duration ca. 90 min., Price ca. 30.00 €
• Dobbelduel by Leo Colovini, edited by 999 Games. You have to find out the numbers of four coloured dice: you have 7 attempts available at most and every time you must decide how many dice throw.
2 players, age 8+, duration ca. 25 min.
• Hol’s der Geier by Alex Randolph, edited by Amigo. The intriguing mechanism of simultaneous playing of cards is back through this classic by Alex Randolph. Who will play the right cards at the right time?The game will also have another indipendent publication in Japan with the title Hagetata no ejiki edited by Möbius.
Illustrations/Graphics: Björn Pertoft, 2-5 players, age 8+, duration ca. 20 min., Price ca. 6.99 €
• Kalimambo by Antonio Scrittore, edited by Zoch. Finalist of the Premio archimede 2010 (with the title Crazy race). Everybody is in a row, trying to escape from a rhino, and the last one will get the penalty “horns” .
Illustrations/Graphics: Tobias Schweiger, 3-7 players, age 8+, duration ca. 20-30 min., Price ca. 20.00 €
• Poker Carré by Dario De Toffoli and Giuseppe Baù, edited by Winning Moves. A new version of the card game Kluges Köpfchen: players have to be really clever to position in the best way their cards in the Poker-Domino scheme that is formed on the table.
2-4 players, age 8+, duration ca. 15-20 min., Price ca. 9.95 €
• Schnapp’s by Carlo A. Rossi, edited by Zoch. A bit party, a bit cooperative, surely interactive. It seems easy to name an object… but how to describe it best if there are many very similar versions of it on the table?
Illustrations/Graphics: Christian Fiore, 3-8 players, age 9+, duration ca. 30-45 min., Price ca. 20.00 €
• Tuareg by Francesco Berardi, edited by Adlung Spiele. Nomads are busy loading their camels before making the endless journey to the next oasis. Who will be able to arrive with the most valuable resources?
2-5 players, age 10+, duration ca. 20-45 min.
• Urbania by Simone Luciani, edited by Mayfair Games. The ideal city is flourishing and the most famous architects have to work to construct new buildings and present new projects.
Illustrations/Graphics: Franz Vohwinkel, 2-5 players, age 10+, duration ca. 45 min.

REPORT

ESSEN – Messe Essen
20-23 October 2011
Spiel ’11

_____________________
23 October 2011
THE META-GAME OF THE GAMER
You walk in front of the Boardgamesgeek stand and see a giant screen that constantly updates the rankings of the best games with the visitors’ votes. Wow, cool! So now I know better how to take my choices, I look for games with higher ratings. And so do many other “gamers”.
Cool? Ehm… not really…
It’s a place where the lobby of this or that game push their product, so that appearing in the top of the screen it guides the choices of others.
I couldn’t believe it.
So I tried, I sat at one of the terminals and they gave me a code immediately, without asking my name, if I had any conflicts of interest with a few games in the competition and completely uninterested in the fact that I had actually played the games I wanted to vote. And so I put some votes (a few), even in games that I had never heard and it immediately affected the board.
Then I have also been asked to come back later to vote again.
The tragic thing is that these random votes (in fact, not really random because the different people voting knew what they were doing) really influenced the choices of the public.
At this point we have set a sort of “moral issue”, but then, what’s wrong? If the rule of the meta-game rating is this, just follow it. It’s the rule itself to be wrong! Maybe next year you could put on a beautiful lobby and taking advantage of all the possibilities, without ever going against them and affecting the results as we prefer.
What a nice game!
I have not investigated about the Fair Play ranking – and therefore I will not say anything about it – but there seemed to be more control over the voters. For sure this classification affects gamers even more than the other …

CHAMPIONSHIP
We already mentioned the European Championship Boardgames. This year there were two Italian teams and they both did pretty well, with an eighth and ninth position, both with 49 points, well above the 44 average. They were the “Gobbi di Notre Dame” [Hunchbacks of Notre Dame] (Paul Ciuccatosti, Alfonso Albanian, Marco Bonanni, Irene Ragni) and the “Pintupi” (Sandro Arnod, David Genestreti, Gabriel thymol, Solcia Matthew). Note that the Pintupi at the end of the first round were alone in the lead with 18 points (3 victories and 2 second places!). A rather good year for the Czechs, who win with Trebotov (56 points) and also earn the 3rd place with the One Day Heroes. Well done!

STUDIOGIOCHI
Getting finally to the games licensed by studiogiochi, we can not but be very happy.
We already talked about the evidence of Aquileia, Kalimambo and Schnapp’s at the Zoch stand. About the other games:
– Tuareg by Francesco Berardi was leading the game stand Adlung and the print run was already sold out by Saturday.
– 999Games presented the Dutch edition of Dobble Duel by Leo Colovini and begun to show it to possible international partners: we think that it is a great product, also the object itself is very pleasant and funcional.
– Amigo presented the new version of Hol’s der Geier, the classic card game by Alex Randolph. E al suo stand è andata subito esaurita l’espansione-omaggio Ikarus del gioco Atlantis di leo Colovini: troppo poche copie! And and its stand the free expansion Ikarus of the game Atlantis by Leo Colovini was very soon gone: too few copies!
– Urbania (Mayfair) by Simone Luciani was not ready; it will be available in early 2012. But the cover is the most beautiful, really well designed and we all look forward to handle the finished product.
– Winning Moves was not present in Essen, but Poker Carrè by De Toffoli-Baù should already be in distribution.

_____________________
22 October 2011
With the beginning of the weekend the crowd rises and walking through the halls is no longer so simple.
It ‘amazing what happens here in Essen: there’s nothing else like this in the world.

And what nostalgia for the European Championship of Table Games (which was once called Intergame). I remember with pleasure all the exciting games with the Italian teams that I led in the ’90s: with Baù, Zaccariotto, Boscolo, Castlelli, Obert, Comerci, Plebani, Voicu and many others. Sometimes we came out as winners, some other time as loosers.
Now the tournament is run by Ronald van Lent and the 4 games this years’ competition was Troyes, Olympos, 7 Wonders, Navegador.

At last the organization of the Mind Sports Olympiad has shown up here in Essen to promote the next year event and of course the place selected to show up is the hall of the Championship. It is possible that between the two organizations arises an interesting collaboration.

As for studiogiochi we continue the meetings with publishers from around the world and our Colovini signed autographs for an hour at the Mayfair stand.

_____________________
21 October 2011
The poo!
It made it to the finals of the Premio Archimedes presented by Antonio Scrittore under the name of Crazy Race and here in Essen it is played by a great number of people under the name of Kalimambo. But why this transformation? The change of setting is quite normal: to be chased by a gray rhinoceros is definitely much more fun than being chased by a car. But the publisher (Zoch) added something more to embellish the project: the poo! And what poo! Elephant poo! And the ones fleeing in haste that can’t avoid it – it makes sense – get penalties.

Satisfied
The image of satisfaction? The “team” Cielo d’Oro, the authors of Aquileia, here in Essen in a expanded version: 14 people! All dressed with the T-shirtrepresenting their game. It is probably a record!
Let’s think... At Essen there are over 700 games being presented, if for each of them there are 14 “authors” and if everyone came at the show, for3 days … there would be nearly 30,000 entries!

_____________________
20 October 2011
Usual flood of fans at Spiel ’11, the most important event in the world concerning table games, with an always more international environment.
For now, no chance to make a real visit to the fair. For us from the studiogiochi staff, locked in our “little bunker-office”, this is an occasion to show our games to as many publishers as possible.
It is nice to see our games, however, that only were prototypes last year, that became a product that has earned its place in the exhibition.
Today we begun to see some.

PHOTOS

PHOTOS

PHOTOS

PHOTOS