For Spiel 2015, the Lamonts published A Game of Gnomes, and in the run-up to the show all of the talk (including this designer diary from Fraser) seemed to center on this thing being the largest game in Essen. Surprisingly this turned out to be only the second-largest game at Spiel 2015, with Mega Civilization taking first. Who knew?
For the Lamonts' BGG presentation, their costumes were somewhat subdued compared to those of past Spiels, but they were probably exhausted from moving mountains...
• Wait a sec! There was a second gnome-themed game at Spiel 2015: G.Nome from James Dickinson and La Mame Games, and the pun in the name deserves heavy praise/groans depending on your predilection for such things.
• La Mame Games also had Coup: Guatemala 1954 – Anarchy, an expansion for Rikki Tahta's Coup: Guatemala 1954 that adds seven new roles to the game. I'll admit that Ernie looks a tad out of place on the thumbnail image for this video.
• Mysterium co-designer Oleksandr Nevskiy showed off parts of a Mysterium expansion due out from Ukranian publisher IGames in early 2016. We weren't featuring many previews at the BGG booth, but we had a five-minute hole in the broadcast (due to being ahead of schedule!) and IGames was nearby in Hall 7, so we grabbed them to fill the hole and that was that.
• Thanks to the success of the Tiny Epic empire of games from Scott Almes, U.S. publisher Gamelyn Games was making its first appearance in Essen at Spiel 2015 with Tiny Epic Galaxies, which was also available in German through Schwerkraft-Verlag.
• This video is something of a mish-mash as U.S. publisher Stronghold Games had many new releases at Spiel 2015, but most of those releases originated from other publishers and were scheduled to be presented by those publishers on their own in the BGG booth. Thus, Stronghold's Stephen Buonocore showed up to present an overview of his entire line-up and take time away from his busy booth to breathe the cooler air found in Hall 7. (I'm pleased that the cropped SG logo resembles a pumpkin, with the video adding the whipped cream triangle of a nose. Quite appropriate for this time of year!)