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Essen 2017: Top 5 Games

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Only two more weeks until Essen, time to ramp up the preparations for the busiest time of the year. A useful instrument to get a feeling for the interest in the new games presented at Essen are Youtube videos about the most anticipated games of the board game show.

I watched a few during the last couple of days and made notes which games where mentioned. The result is an aggregated Top 5 which in most parts is not very surprising:

1) Charterstone: The only game that was mentioned in every video. But not everybody is convinced that the game will work, but the combination of Legacy game and Eurogame has too much lure.
2) Nusford: After last years A Feast for Odin there are high hopes for another special Rosenberg game.
3) Altiplano: A new bag building game from the team behind Orleans? Count me in and it seems like I’m not the only one.
4) Meeple Circus (the only real surprise in the Top 5, I didn’t hear anything about this games before I started watching the videos, but I can see why people like it: stacking Meeples? What’s not to like?) and Gaia Project (Terra Mystica still has a lot of fans and the promise of a streamlined experience secures this heavyweight a Top 5 spot)
5) Clans of Caledonia (Radho called this game the Terra Mystica killer, so let’s see if Clans or the Gaia Project will be the bigger hit) and Photosynthesis (an abstract game with beautiful artwork and components which got a big boost in popularity after a pre-release at Gencon)

Honorable mentions of games that were mentioned quite often, but didn’t make the cut for the Top 5:

  • Fast Forward games from Friedeman Friese / Stronghold Games
  • Noria: the debut title from Sophia Wagner brought to life by Michael Menzel and Klemenz Franz
  • Azul: the new game from Plan B Games
  • Queendominio: the gamers’ edition of Kingdomino with more ways to score points
  • Pandemic Legacy Season 2: Season 2 of the most successful Legacy game so far
  • Merlin: a new Feld, enough said 🙂
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Week in review

A busy week comes to an end and a lot of new games are now available.

Today sees the release of The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire, the new big box game from Cool Mini Or Not designed by Eric M. Lang.

Early this week we have received more interesting new games and expansions:

We have also received a restock of Roll Player and this time in larger numbers, so we put the game back up on our website.

And good news in regards to the reprint of Cthulhu Wars: It has cleared customs and has arrived at our supplier. We will receive our delivery and will start shipping pre-orders on Wednesday.

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New releases for this week confirmed

With a bit of a delay, we have received confirmation of the new games we will get delivered this week.

Arriving soon are:

We also had hoped for an arrival early this week of the reprint of Cthulhu Wars, but unfortunately, it is stuck in customs and will need a few more days. Hopefully, by the end of the week, we should know more about the exact release date.

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May Top 5

In the run up to the UK Games Expo May was a quieter month. But we still had a few interesting games to sell and we also added new pre-orders. Here are the Top 5 of May:

Top 5 Pre-Order
1. Caverna – Cave vs. Cave
2. Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island (Reprint)
3. Charterstone
4. Dark Souls: The Board Game
5. Cthulhu Wars

Top 5 Sales:
1. Magic Maze
2. Ethnos
3. In the Year of the Dragon: 10th Anniversary
4. Sagrada
5. Notre Dame: 10th Anniversary

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April Top 5

As always at the beginning of the month, we are looking back to the last month to see what the bestsellers have been.

Here are the Top 5 of April (Sales):

1) Capital
2) Clank! (Restock)
3) Yamatai
4) Clank! Sunken Treasures
5) Bärenpark

Capital was a surprise in April and despite an ugly graphic design the gameplay was a big success with our customers and we received a lot of great feedback. Yamatai is a success like all the big box releases from Days of Wonder, but this one is especially interesting for fans of Five Tribes. Clank! Sunken Treasures is the first expansion for Clank and after the success of the base game a Top 5 spot for the expansion was to be expected. Rounding up the Top 5 is Barenpark, the newest game of Cacao designer Phil Walker-Harding.

And the Top 5 Pre-Orders:

1) Caverna – Cave vs. Cave
2) Charterstone
3) Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium
4) Gloomhaven (Reprint)
5) In the Year of the Dragon: 10th Anniversary

The two player version of Caverna took the top spot in the pre-order Top 5 easily. Charterstone and Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium kept their Top 5 spots from last month and are still going strong. After the disappointment with the cancelled retail release of Gloomhaven 1st edition a lot of customers jumped on the chance to secure a copy of the reprint. And the Anniversary edition of In the Year of the Dragon is a game quite a few of our customers have been waiting for.

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News round-up (05/05/17)

Here is a quick round-up of the most interesting news of the last few days:

  • Clank! is one the five winners of the 2017 Mensa Awards. (Source)
  • Capitals is the first expansion for Between Two Cities and is expected to get released in July. (Source)
  • Warring Colonies is the next expansion for Dead of Winter and will add a team-based mode (two surviving colonies are fighting each other) to the game. The release date is not known yet. (Source)
  • Catalyst Game Labs will release a D&D deckbuilder called Dragonfire. The game is based on the Shadowrun: Crossfire engine. No release date yet. (Source)
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March Top 5

Another month of a busy year so far is gone, time to see what our bestsellers of March have been:

Top 5 Sales:

  1. Anachrony
  2. Scythe (Restock)
  3. Great Western Trail (Restock)
  4. Flamme Rouge (Restock)
  5. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures

Clearly, the month of the restocks with a lot of great games coming back into stock. Terraforming Mars missed a restock in March just by a few days, otherwise it would have taken the 1st spot.

Top 5 Pre-Orders:

  1. Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium
  2. Charterstone
  3. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
  4. The Expanse
  5. Cthulhu Wars (Reprint)

After the success of Terraforming Mars, it’s no wonder that the first expansion goes straight to Number 1. Out of the five, The Expanse is the biggest surprise, but I guess the success of the books and the TV show on Netflix are playing their parts. And it is a good sign that the new board game unit of Wizkids (lead by Zev Shlasinger, formerly head of Zman Games) is off to a good start.

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February Top 5

Last weekend I had time to look back at a busy February and check what our Top 5 Games in pre-orders and actual sales have been. Here are the results:

Top 5 Sales
1) Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures
2) Inis
3) Flamme Rouge
4) Unlock!
5) The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire

The top spot for the new Sherlock game was no surprise: the first game was a big success and everything Space Cowboys are touching at the moment turns into gold (proof is Unlock, the second Space Cowboy game in the Top 5). Inis and Flamme Rogue have finally been available in bigger numbers, so you could actually order them without having a pre-order in place for months. And The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire is one of the positive surprises of the new year and now two months in a row in the Top 5.

Top 5 Pre-Orders
1) First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
2) Charterstone
3) Dice Forge
4) Santorini: Golden Fleece
5) Quadropolis: Public Services

First Martians looks great and I can’t wait for it to arrive. I really like games with an app integreation, so this one has been on my wish list for a while. Charterstone sounds like an interesting concept and like Space Cowboys Stonemaier Games can’t do anything wrong at the moment. Not so sure about Dice Forge, the idea sounds good, but is there enough game in the box to go beyond a shiny new concept? And two expansions (Santorini: Golden Fleece & Quadropolis: Public Services) for highly successful games rounding up the pre-order Top 5.