Spiel 2012: Designers and Publishers in the BGG Booth II

I was floating around the floor of Spiel 2012 for most of the show – getting game demos at publisher stands and elsewhere, and picking up news bits and germs in roughly equal measure – but I did spend a few hours at the BoardGameGeek stand during the live broadcast, and part of that time featured a blitz of titles from Simon Lundström and Tak at Japon Brand, with Simon doing most of the talking.

For those who don't already know, Japon Brand isn't so much a publisher as it is a promoter of Japanese game design, an organization that attempts to increase awareness of both Japanese games and Japanese game designers outside of that country. Part of that outreach effort includes a stand at Spiel each year featuring lots of (typically) small games that either play unlike anything you might see in a "standard" Western game or twist gameplay in a traditional design into something unexpected.

The title that caught the most attention at Spiel 2012 was Hisashi Hayashi's Trains, published by OKAZU Brand. The game, a combination of deck-building and rail-building, sold out on preorder and had only twenty copies available for sale on Thursday morning at Spiel, with folks lined up for those copies before the show even opened. I'll be dumb-founded if this isn't released in a new edition before the end of 2013...

Another title from the same designer and publisher was Trick of the Rails, which combines elements of 18xx designs with a trick-taking game.

Unlike most of the other titles featured, Seiji Kanai's Love Letter was a co-production between Kanai Factory and Japon Brand as the game was being released in a special English-language edition for Spiel, thanks to a special agreement with Alderac Entertainment Group, which had already licensed the game for an English-language version of its own.

Japon Brand also had English-language copies of Kanai's R, which like Love Letter is a game that consists of only sixteen cards. Kanai has been challenging himself to see what he can design within what seem like incredibly constrictive boundaries, yet as Magic: The Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater says all the time, "Restrictions breed creativity", and Kanai has indeed been finding new ways to play in this small sandbox.

Yoshihisa Itsubaki's Simple Shogi – a.k.a., Rocket Shogi – from Saikikaku is a boiled-down version of the centuries-old game.

Similarly Itsubaki's Ninja Chess is a smaller version of that traditional game, with a 6x6 playing board and fewer pieces to match.

Spiel 2012: Designers and Publishers in the BGG Booth II - Japon Brand I

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