First day at Spiel and already a very busy one. This morning managed to get on time to the press conference, which is great although a bit useless as I can’t understand much of what they say. Still, it’s a great atmosphere.
The press preview event is great. Saw a ton of new games and arranged four more interviews with small companies.
Managed to meet Rick Schrand, who happens to be as nice in real life as he is in Facebook, and had a very impressive selection of games from Eagle Gryphon games.
Found Meow Godthing too, which is pretty amazing as yesterday we were late at the hotel and didn’t get to have dinner together.
Agnieszka Emilia Kopera and Andrei Novac booth for NSKN Games looks fantastic and I reckon the two immense piles of games they have on display won’t last until Sunday. Or even Saturday.
Also found Daniel Yarrington and tried to get an interview, though both he and his wife were already buried beneath tons of boxes of games that arrived too late and the time for us to depart came before they could spare any time for us. Still… four more days to go, so this time they won’t escape!
Sandcastles was doing well at the press preview too, so Andrew Harman and Jenn can be super proud.
Lovely surprise to see Dominic McDowall and Jonny Hodgson with a booth here for Cubicle 7 Entertainment too! Dom was his cheery self (can’t think when I have seen him without smiling) and Jonny was looking worried as usual (because he worries until everything is going well… I’d probably worry too). By the end of the show they probably won’t have books left. It tends to happen.
I am so glad of the decision I made of concentrating this year on smaller companies from Europe and the Far East. Ive seen so many super cool stuff already coming from Japan, and the booths of Arctic Union and Polish Games Association have some incredible stuff there.
So sorry if I am not going to cover the big games and big companies this year, but there are plenty of other websites, podcasts and videos that will. I am going to do the weird thing and try to help the small designer.
More news to come tomorrow!