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Videos from Spiel 2014 XVI: Deus, ESSEN, [redacted], Town Center & Monster Chef

Videos from Spiel 2014 XVI: Deus, ESSEN, [redacted], Town Center & Monster Chef
Board Game: Deus
• Sébastien Dujardin's Deus from his own Pearl Games ended near the top of both BGG's Geekbuzz and Fairplay's Scoutaktion ranking systems at Spiel 2014, and the game has been skirting the waves of BGG's "The Hotness" since that convention.

I've played Deus twice now on a press copy, once with three players and once with four, and found it an engaging game that you will undoubtedly play like a doofus the first time because you won't have a clue as to what's possible with the cards in the game. (You may or may not improve in your second game. I felt that I did, but I got spanked by someone who put together a shipping engine that cranked out points.) In the first game, I also failed to "go west" with either buildings or armies, so I found myself cornered on a few pieces of land, forced to spend VPs to expand into new territory.

I've seen comments about Deus being multi-player solitaire, but I think that tag fits the way that it fits in a Stefan Feld design — namely, the first few plays might feel like MPS because you're so puzzled over what to do with the stuff in your hands that you're not paying attention to what others are doing. Thus, you may find yourself cornered on the board as I did because one of my opponents grabbed the center and walled off me and another player — but of course being walled off and unable to expand is contrary to the whole notion of MPS, so I'd ixnay that tag from the get-go.





Board Game: ESSEN
• Harry-Pekka Kuusela's ESSEN from LudiCreations was one of two meta-games about the Spiel experience, with this design putting players in the role of exhibitors and publishers who are trying to move their wares to fair attendees.





Board Game: [redacted]
• LudiCreations' [redacted] from the design team of Nimmerfroh, Turczi and Vincze covers the world of __________ in the days of _________ with players trying to __________ within an ambassador's _________ while also looking for opportunities to __________ one another!





Board Game: Town Center (Fourth Edition)
• Designer Alban Viard has self-published a few editions of Town Center, and now LudiCreations has released a new version of the game that includes a number of changes as well as a second game board, with multiple other game boards being available as expansions.





Board Game: Monster Chef
Board Game Publisher: Believe In Games
• I can't say much about Daniele Mazzoni's Monster Chef from Believe In Games except that I was somewhat surprised to find an X-Files reference in the company logo — although given that Pandasaurus and IDW have an X-Files game due out before the end of 2014, I should not be surprised at all. Nostalgia is out there...

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