Game moment
SPIEL! Messe-Insider?
🇩🇪 Original in German
Moin, I'm looking for hidden gems from smaller publishers and this is my first time at SPIEL in Essen. Do you have any experiences that might help me out? Or are you even there with your prototype yourself?
🇩🇪 Original in German
So far, I’ve always gone through the Preview List on BGG (https://boardgamegeek.com/geekpreview/93/spiel-essen-2026) beforehand and made a list to check off. Usually, I skip the big publishers. At the fair itself, you should definitely make time to visit the small booths instead of wasting an hour in line for the next big Feuerland title or something like that.
🇩🇪 Original in German
The last year, Hall 4 was always a good starting point to discover smaller trade fair gems.
🇩🇪 Original in German
I’d recommend the expansion for Feed the Kraken 🙂
🇩🇪 Original in German
I can only recommend the small foreign publishers, those are mostly games you can't get your hands on outside of the game fair, and they usually have really interesting games, though they're in English. But a lot of games are language-neutral anyway, with just the rulebook in English. I think they're in Hall 4 and 5 this year. Otherwise, a game I'll probably definitely get is the 2-player game Fireflies. A cooperative campaign game with a really nice cover.