We stand in a dimmed room, surrounded by bright warning signs, and are briefed by an Agent from the T.I.M.E. Agency, a German in a black suit whose eyes are veiled by dark glasses. An anomaly has been detected in an Asylum in 1921 and we are to be transported back into the bodies of Receptacles there. The cause for the disturbance in the time continuum must be found, and fast. We step into the next room to see three low white tables surrounded by white chairs. As we sit down onlookers peer at us through large windows in the opposite wall. We look at the table to see a panorama of an Asylum Dayroom and as we focus on the details we begin our attempt to unravel the mysteries within.

This was how the first day at Essen started for us. The annual boardgames fair/convention/show held in Germany every October and attended by some 160,000 gamers from all over the world (you can learn some more background here). At the last count almost 800 new games were available.

Now that we are into 2016, and have had the chance to really chew over the 2015 releases we can sit back and single some out that stood above the rest. While what follows is purely personal opinion there is major overlap with many other ‘best of the year’ lists, and virtually every title is among the top 10 from 2015 in the over all game ranking at boardgamegeek.com. One other thing they also have in common is that they could all be found at Essen, along with most other contenders for the game of the year that have not quite made my shortlist.

TIME STORIES

The mysterious experience we began Essen with was T.I.M.E. Stories. It is comfortably in my 2015 top 5 as well as that of many others. One of the most striking features about this game is that it can be played only once! That’s right, for around €40 (or $33) you get a single co-operative gaming experience for four people that lasts about 4 hours, then it’s done. The puzzle has been solved, the plot revealed and the experience is over. To many boardgamers this seems insane, and I was put off buying it at first, but when you compare it to the cost of a trip for four people to the movies, or to a decent restaurant, it seems much more reasonable. Add to that the fact that this is a game system, with new scenarios being released regularly for around €23 (or $20) and things seem less crazy. In the Asylum scenario the team move around an Asylum, talking to the staff and patients, making choices, picking up items and overcoming challenges. The plot unravels as you play and you slow piece together clues in an attempt to solve the mystery. Everything you do in the game costs time, however, and if you run out you will have to reset the scenario and try again, using the information you have gained to do better the next time. The pleasure comes from the combination of the puzzle solving, the unexpected twists of the plot, and the immersive environment created by the combination of story telling and art. A unique game that has sent some fair sized ripples across the boardgaming pond.

CODENAMES

A few stalls over is a very different beast. The presentation is stark by comparison, a 5×5 grid of cards, on each one a single word is printed. For me this is possibly the best new release of 2015. Codenames. This is a team game, the Red team against the Blue. A secret card tells the Spymaster (the clue giver) from each team which words belong to which colour, which are neutral and which is the Assassin – the card that if selected spells instant defeat. Each Spymaster takes it in turns to give a clue that leads their team mates to select as many words from the grid that belong to their team as possible. The clue takes the format of a single word and a number. “Fruit 2” says the Blue Spymaster, that means there are 2 words on the table that belong to Blue and are related to fruit. You see “Apple”, that’s clearly one, but what is the other? “Bat” as in Fruit Bat, that must be it. Your team mates disagree, “Ninja” as in Fruit Ninja, the mobile phone game. You all try to get inside the head of your Spymaster to work out what they mean, while they are forced to sit poker faced as you veer off on a wild tangent. The Red team meanwhile throw in helpful suggestions; “Platypus! They eat fruit” “Fan Fruit, everyone has heard of Fan Fruit”. This game is so simple yet so clever. The deck of word cards that make up the random 5×5 grid always conspires to throw in words that confound your clues and risk your team helping your opponents out by accidentally picking one of their words. Whenever you are not the Spymaster you want to have the job because you are so convinced you could do it better than the current one, and when you are the Spymaster you almost wish you were not, the pressure piling on for you to pick a decent clue as your team watch you expectantly. I have never played just one game of this in a sitting, people always want to try again. It is also among a select number of games I have seen work as well with a group of hardcore gamers as it has with my easily distracted family, including my 90 year old granddad. Genius.

FOOD CHAIN MAGNATE

Not far away from T.I.M.E. Stories is a modest collection of two tables. Immediately after the doors opened on the first day it was surrounded by a snaking queue of people all waiting to secure a copy of this sought after game. The table is absolutely covered in stuff. A compact board sits in the centre depicting a simplistic suburban area. It is surrounded by about 40 little stacks of cards, and tons of colourful little wooden pieces. On closer inspection these are shaped like little hamburgers, pizza slices, coke bottles, beer bottles and lemonade bottles. And all the art is in a predominantly monochrome 1950s style. This is Food Chain Magnate. I hovered around the table for a while but was deterred by the €60 price tag and did not want to burn so much of my budget so early on, there were about 799 other games still to see. Sadly by the time I decided that I would take the plunge and buy it half way through day 2, it had sold out. Happily one of the others in my group been more decisive and had picked up a copy.

Food Chain Magnate is a heavy game. Not heavy in terms of mass, although it does actually weigh more than the average game due to all the cards and bits of wood inside the box, but heavy in terms of depth and complexity. You are each running a fast food restaurant chain in the 1950s and the one who makes the most money wins. After placing your first branch down on a spot you feel is close to neighbouring households and supply points, but far enough away from the competition, the game begins. By running ad campaigns you generate demand in households for certain products – burgers, pizzas, beer, coke and lemonade. They will then buy from the player whose restaurant can provide the combination of products they want at the best price, provided they are not too far away. At the heart of your empire you have employees represented by cards. Each card is an employee who can perform a certain function such as make burgers, pick up drinks, reduce prices, increase prices (if you have a monopoly), hire more staff (get more cards), carry out ad campaigns, open new restaurants, train staff and thereby upgrade employee cards, and so on. And this is the heart of the game. The staff you hire determine your strategy. Do you get an early start in a particular product and aggressively market at hiked up prices, do you slowly build up a massive array of well trained staff to swamp the market with a host of products and undercut the competition, do you poise to jump in on a product your neighbour has marketed, do you open up extra restaurants so you are always just round the corner from every house. One of the marks of a great game is when it occupies your mind after each play as you try to modify your strategy; optimising, fine tuning or completely revolutionising it for next time. Food Chain Magnate absolutely leaves you with that feeling, particularly when you keep losing like I do.

THE GRIZZLED

Finally we travel to a small single table staffed by a friendly Frenchman with a dry sense of humour. The booth is adorned with beautiful comic book style art. The game is The Grizzled, a co-operative game where you and your colleagues attempt to survive as French soldier in the trenches of WWI. At the heart it is a team hand management game where you try and avoid getting in a situation where you have played cards with matching symbols (gas mask, bullet, rain etc.) on to the table. The mechanics are simple with some nice additional touches, like the ability to give a rousing speech at a particularly difficult time. As the game goes on players will suffer the psychological effects of war with certain cards like Frenzied, Demoralised, Clumsy, or Mute having specific negative effects on how you must play the game. Somehow the game is simultaneously fun and yet manages to evoke the depressing hopelessness of war. Some of this is evoked through the artwork, which was one of the last projects of Tignous, a French artist who was killed in the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. The mechanics of the game also manage to call to mind the camaradare of the squad and at times the feelings of futility. While these are noble achievements, the game also needs to be good, and it is. Like all well designed co-ops, when you get beaten down to start with you feel the urge to try again and are convinced that you were defeated by the wrong decisions you made rather than the blind luck of the draw.

PANDEMIC LEGACY

A final honourable mention must go to Pandemic Legacy. This was the big launch title at Essen for one of the pretty big publishers, Zman games. The game is based on the popular co-op game Pandemic that is now 7 years old. In Pandemic you are a group of scientists trying to cure diseases by moving around the globe, collecting cards to find cures, and fire fighting outbreaks as you go. In Pandemic Legacy the core game is the same, but it is played out over multiple sessions, each representing a month. During the games decisions will be made and events will occur that fundamentally change the game – cards will be added or ripped up, stickers will be put on the board, and standard rules will dramatically change. Every time you sit down and play the game it will have evolved, with an accompanying narrative that drives these changes. Once you reach the end of the campaign you are done. That game cannot be played again, the surprises have been revealed and permanent changes have been made. Like T.I.M.E. Stories you buy the game and get a single play. In this case there are no new expansion scenarios to give further replay value, although to get through the whole game, over multiple sessions, will take many hours. Pandemic Legacy is a veritable phenomenon, shooting to the all time number one spot on boardgamegeek.com as the game rated by voters (based on over 7000 votes at present) as the best boardgame in the word, dethroning Twilight Struggle which had held the top spot for years. I have yet to try it, but will hopefully know before the end of 2016 whether I think it was the best game of 2015, or even of all time.

So what will 2016 bring? I already have my eye on a few upcoming releases. And I have my tickets and hotel booked to go to the Essen Spiel fair again in October and see what delights it will offer up for the 2016 hit list.