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CURRENT
24. Spellenspektakel in Eindhoven
Similarities and Differences
Germany’s neighboring country to the west is home to many enthusi-
astic players. Once a year, board gaming fans for whom the journey to
Essen is just too long or who like to play in a familiar language, go on a pilgrimage to visit the Eindhoven Spellenspektakel. The event location
is the Beursgebouw, a 5,000 sqm hall right in the heart of the city of Eindhoven. The entrance to the fair is embedded in a street full of shops
(one of them a toy store). One dreary weekend last November, more
than 10,000 visitors were flocking into this gamer’s paradise. Entering the halls on both days, the first 2,500 of them each received a bag full of goodies, a promo version of Wizard, a Dobble demo game, a calendar by the cartoonist Jan van Haasteren and a free event magazine.
domino (distribution in NL: also WGG) in the family category. Because White Goblin Games had managed to take over Chronicle Games ahead of the event, the now more sales-oriented publisher man- aged to score a notable double-victory here.
Interestingly, the few original designs were mostly by German authors, illus- trated by well-known graphic designers such as Dennis Lohausen. Apart from independent Dutch productions the country also publishes games from other foreign countries, mostly from the USA, which have (so far) not made an impact in Germany.
On the gallery, a round walkway one level up with striking views on the hustle and bustle below, there is a row of small designer booths. The enthusiastic games club Ducosim promotes gaming with goodies and a member magazine, the local games club Roll the Dice Veldhoven lends out games for free. And a big Magic - The Gathering tournament is of course a must.
Each nation has its own peculiarities. As the Dutch people are missing their mountains, they become all the more fond of them. That may explain why Niels Ramon Pieterse was extolling the merits of mountaineering for his game Rifugio about the Dolomites. This is some kind of Carcassonne, where the pawns move about on tiles to catch glimpses of Edel- weiss or ibex. He was also one of the few exhibitors who were not present at Essen, mainly for budgeting reasons, as his pres- ence here in the stock exchange building cost him a mere fraction of the big event.
For all the goodies in the bag, the entrance fee is quite considerable (19.50 Euros for both days), and cloakroom as well as toilet use have to be paid extra –
At first sight, the two large retail- ers – 999 Games and White Goblin Games – attract the most attention as they seem to occupy half of the entire exhibition space. The first com- pany’s hit game is 30 Seconds, a quiz of South African origin in which the teams have to deduce words from pop culture and current trends. Also unfamiliar to many is Picture Party, which literally arrived to the fair at the last minute.
Both titles are symptomatic of a world- wide market trend for easy to really shallow games. The latter title by the Dutch designer Daan Kreek evokes the old Ravensburger game Lifestyle, where players ask pointed questions about indi- vidual photos and then hazard a guess about the hierarchy of the active player’s preferences. The modern version is only about secretly assigning the picture on
display to one of the participants. If a majority comes to the same conclusion, they score points. The picture selection has significantly changed. Whereas in the old days there were honest and con- servative photos, the current ones are sometimes cheeky, sometimes funny, sometimes snapshots or staged, and all of them peppered with allusions.
I Continuing to play all night Almost all titles of the most important German companies are published simul- taneously in the Netherlands, or at the most, one or two years later. This might explain the nominees for the Nederlandse Spellenprijs, whose winners were awarded on the evening before the fair. Orléans won the prize for the expert game and Droomhuis (Dream Home) beat the German “Spiel des Jahres” winner King-
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