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SPIEL, like all other game conventions, is not taking place in its usual manner, so rather than create a SPIEL '20 Preview that highlights all of the games that you could have seen — but won't see — in Essen, Germany, I have instead assembled the aforementioned Sept/Oct 2020 game release catalog, which as of this moment lists more than 270 new and upcoming games due out during these two months.
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Now, regardless of whether you would have been in Essen, would have had someone mule games to you from SPIEL '20, or would have ignored the whole thing, you can see which games will be hitting retail shelves somewhere in the world during this period of time. What's more, you can experience a bit of ye olde SPIEL '20 mojo by going to the catalog, clicking the "Filters" button, then clicking the associated SPIEL.digital 2020 event. Here's a link to that filter set-up, which at the moment has only 17 titles on it as I've just received the SPIEL.digitalexhibitor list from Merz Verlag and now need to tag participating publishers.
Admittedly this Sept/Oct 2020 catalog is far from complete, but I'll keep adding games to it as publishers submit and I discover more game release dates, just as I've kept adding to BGG's June-August 2020 catalog despite that period of time having ended.
I also have a Nov/Dec 2020 catalog that's already live, albeit sparsely populated right now.
Candice and I will continue to post about new games in this space as frequently as we can, but since we don't have time to write about everything, these catalogs are another source of information as to what's being released, such as the bizarre action game Captain Wonder Cape in which you attempt to "pull the longest possible cape (i.e., strip of toilet paper) out of the box without ripping it" while other players "perform dirty tricks" with plastic poo piles to thwart you. Your life would be poorer for its absence.
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