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Videos from Spiel 2014 VII: Grog Island, Port Royal, Hook!, Fungi, Der 7bte Zwerg & Hospital Rush

Videos from Spiel 2014 VII: Grog Island, Port Royal, Hook!, Fungi, Der 7bte Zwerg & Hospital Rush
Board Game: Grog Island
• Today's batch of videos from Spiel 2014 will constitute a half-dozen game demonstrations instead of the usual fifth-twelfths of a dozen since all the games come from the same company (sort of) and were presented in the same block. Plus, I'm in them, so you probably want to get them all out of the way at once.

We'll start with Grog Island from designer Michael Rieneck, who's probably best known for The Pillars of the Earth and Cuba, eggertspiele being the publisher of that latter title as well as the new Grog Island (with Pegasus Spiele being co-publisher). The game board, with artwork by Klemens Franz, is a treasure trove of Easter eggs.





Board Game: Port Royal
• The pirate-themed games from Pegasus continue with Port Royal from Alexander Pfister, which was first published in 2013 as Händler der Karibik by the Österreichisches Spiele Museum, then rejiggered by Pegasus to allow for play with up to five players and with somewhat different endgame conditions.

Between game demonstrations, I tried to ask Katharina and Benjamin why pirates are such an appealing subject matter — or at least an accepted one — for Germans, but we didn't have much time to talk about it before Aldie was set up for the next video to start. I think it boils down to pirates allowing for players to have conflict (although that's not really the case here or above) and pirates representing travel and adventure in popular culture more than actual theft.





 
• The third pirate-themed game from Pegasus was Marco Teubner's Hook!, a quick-playing card-grabbing game in which you try not to die from cannonball fire while collecting points.

For Spiel 2014 I was scheduled to be on camera in the BGG booth more than at previous cons, when I typically appeared only before or after whoever was scheduled, so I was trying to prep for particular games by thinking of questions to ask or situations to present to the demonstrators, and for some reason I got in mind the idea of ending this segment by facing the camera and presenting this cheesy, news-announcer-style closing line: "If you give this game a try, you're sure to be hooked!"





 
• Naturally I'd then follow the presentation of that game with Fungi, which was originally self-published by designer Brent Povis as Morels, because I'd be able to do an equally smarmy and insincere closing: "Bring this game to a party, and you're sure to called a fun guy!" So many plans that didn't pan out, although I did remember to ask Katharina and Benjamin about the new artwork in the Pegasus Spiele edition of this game.





Board Game: The 7th Dwarf
• And should I have actually strung together those two closing lines, I would then be rewarded with the opportunity to close the presentation of Peter Neugebauer's Der 7bte Zwerg with this winner: "When you roll this game out for your guests, you're sure to be Der Argle Bargle Gargle Zwerg." I liked the sound of all this in my head, but as in high school when I imagined all sorts of clever things to say should I by chance interact with this girl or that, they sounded good only in my head, not in this atmosphere that we share.





Board Game: Hospital Rush
• We'll close by sandwiching everything with the second eggertspiele title of this batch: Hospital Rush from the design team of Laursen, Storgaard and Thomsen. This design was sort of on display at Spielwarenmesse at the start of 2014, but the artwork was so rough that Pegasus didn't want to put it on camera at the time. Since the game has now been published, that has all changed, of course. Let's get that puppy on camera!

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