Page 3 - Spielbox Special 2023 – EN

Editorial
Dear readers
Let me ask you in all honesty: How is anyone supposed to keep
on top of things? According to official figures, there will be
around 1,500 new releases presented at the Essen SPIEL. Well, there may have been more in the past, but whether it’s 1,500, 1,750 or 1,300—does it really matter? Nobody is able to play all these games. You could make it your life’s work. But would you want to? Especially in the knowledge that there will be just as many new games again next year—year after year, more and more and more.
You don’t have to play all 1,500, seeing that not all games
will appeal to you and bring you lasting joy. But how can you find those that will? Most titles today look terrific and oh-so- tempting. Well, that’s where we come into play, quite literally. spielbox has been around since 1981, and for 42 years we’ve been at your service—telling you what we think of a game, whether it’s worth exploring or wiser if you skirt around it. Of course, we are not the supreme court for good taste in games. But our current panel holds 25 experienced reviewers, with some of them even members of the jury for Spiel des Jahres. Not that these qualifications can prevent wrong judgments, I know that. But for you, it’s a guarantee that experts have taken a
very close look at why a game might be good (or not so good). For the vast majority of games reviewed in spielbox magazine, several colleagues deliver a rating which they also explain in a short commentary. The ratings reliably show whether a title can be viewed with overall euphoria or if there could be something wrong with it.
Our vast experience has also guided us for the special issue you are holding in your hands. Fifteen hundred new titles seem like an insurmountable climb for us as well; we can hardly manage more than a few of the most beautiful legs of this hike and view some of the vantage points. But what criteria do we use for se-
Visit us
lecting them? We can only rely on our
gut feeling. And, as I mentioned, fall
back on a lot of experience: we have
Hall 6
a solid grasp of which designers reli-
Booth D100
ably deliver terrific games and which
publishers know how to implement
ideas really well. Our aim is to present a
wide range; from simple titles offering fast
and easy access to so-called expert games, where
setup and rule studying alone can easily take up to an hour
or more. We hope to have achieved our goal. By the way, the
current issue of spielbox also has more new releases, not just
as brief introductions, but with full reviews: Forest Shuffle by
Kosch (Lookout Spiele), Barcelona by Dani Garcia (Giant Roc),
My Island by Reiner Knizia (Kosmos), Mycelia by Daniel Grein-
er (Ravensburger), and Ticket to Ride Legacy by Rob Daviau,
Matt Leacock, and Alan R. Moon for example.
In addition, you will find several short interviews with designers and representatives of the publishing industry in this special issue. Because for us, this is also what spielbox is about: we strive to show the people behind the games, to allow them their say, to tell their story (and that of their works). Looking behind the scenes of the industry is an integral part of the rich and critical gaming journalism that our team is so passionate about and that we stand for.
If you are in Essen and have some spare time, please feel free to visit us at our booth D100 in hall 6. The entire team is excited to meet you and exchangr ideas. With playful greetings
Translation: cs
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