Spiel 2012: Notes from the Messe and Elsewhere

by W. Eric Martin

• Looking for a personalized and slightly weird gift for the gamer in your life? Check out the German company Luudoo, which can insert images into customized versions of Carcassonne, Halali!, and old-time gaming standbys like Backgammon and Mensch ärgere Dich nicht. I filmed an overview of the company and service at Spiel 2012 and will post that once Aldie has finished processing such things.

• As Quined Games notes on its news page, two of the six punchboards in its new edition of Homesteaders had the wrong backs. If you bought the game at Spiel 2012, contact Quined, which notes "we will send the replacement boards a.s.a.p. after Essen". If you're having the game shipped to you, it will be packaged with replacement punchboards.

• Engraved dice for King of Tokyo were available at Spiel 2012 at the IELLO stand for €4, and IELLO's Stephan Brissaud notes on BGG that these dice will sell for $5 and be available for purchase through IELLO's online store by mid-November 2012.

• Artist Andreas Resch has posted links to more than three hundred images he took at Spiel 2012. Makes the four images that I took look even sadder than they did beforehand. Seriously, I'm just not much for taking pictures, preferring to write about games rather than take pictures of them – although I'm becoming much more of a video person by default due to the tyrannical demands of the BGG overlord.

• As he has done nearly every year since 1997, Frank Schulte-Kulkmann has once again provided a huge write-up of games he played at Spiel 2012, with bonus write-ups from "Ralf", whoever that might be. While I go for breadth in my Spiel preparations, trying to list every single game available at the show, Frank goes for depth, picking out high-interest titles ahead of time and making sure to find table space during the event so that he can get them played and provide a decent summary for these releases.

• BGG user Nicola reports on a talk he had during Spiel 2012 with designer Bruno Cathala about ideas that he and co-designer Ludovic Maublanc are mulling over regarding the inclusion of a sixth player in Cyclades and what would change in the gameplay to make such an addition possible. Still a long way from having anything go to print at this point, but for those who love to speculate, have at it!

• Ystari Games has posted a paste-up sheet of corrected special tiles (JPG) for Myrmes, which had a lot of love flowing its way during its Spiel 2012 debut. In this BGG post, Ystari's Cyril Demaegd explains why you're unlikely to need to make this correction, but now you can do so if the occasion moves you.

• Along the same lines, Eric Hanuise at Flatlined Games has noted that the Spiel 2012 release Rumble in the Dungeon includes the same player colors as the 2011 release Rumble in the House, when it should contain four new colors to enable play with up to ten at once. If you acquired the new game at Spiel 2012 or elsewhere, you can submit a request for the proper player pieces, which will be shipped by the manufacturer, Ludo Fact, in February 2013.