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Essen Spiel 2023 Day 2: News, reveals and previews live from the world's biggest board game convention

Get that Friday feeling as we return to Germany's enormous board game fair.

Essen Spiel 2023 is well underway as we move into the second day of Germany's massive board game convention. We're back on the show floor looking to scoop up the hottest news, biggest reveals and thoughts on this year's must-play games!

As before, fire away with any questions or comments and we'll try to hunt down some answers on your behalf.

If you missed yesterday's live round-up, you can find it here. Make sure you don't miss the weekend haul by bookmarking the feeds for Days 3 (Saturday) and 4 (Sunday) ahead of time!


Essen Spiel 2023 - Day 2 LIVE!

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

Key points
Es ist Freitag! Well, not quite yet, it's not. Still, we're gearing up for the second day of Essen Spiel - keep this page pinned to get the latest scoops as we see them!

Matt Jarvis

We enjoyed a little roll-and-write game this morning called Tiny Mini Golf that has players designing courses for each other. The first part of the game has players rolling dice and drawing different features on their sheet - such as sand-pits. The second half sees players attempting to putt their ball in the course their opponent has drawn for them. A fast and fun experience that utilises the roll-and-write concept in a really interesting way.

Alex Meehan

Maddie and Wheels caught up with Disney Lorcana designer Ryan Miller for a match - which Ryan absolutely dominated - and got their hands on a copy of the special Essen Spiel 2023 promo card: Donald Duck, Musketeer!

Alex Meehan

We've grabbed copies of some quick card games such as Brain Games' Mimic Octopus, Arcane Wonders' Gap and Zombi Paella' Rebel Princess!

Alex Meehan

Stalking about in the Halloween board game

A chance to play a board game based on Halloween turned out to be a great experience! Featuring the one-and-only Michael Myers, the Halloween board game has one players taking the role of the killer himself and the others becoming his unwilling victims.

An image of Halloween the board game.
Image credit: Trick or Treat Studios

As Myers, the players moves around the board in secret, hunting the other players. Meanwhile, the other players will be attempting to search for the things they need to escape from the various houses on the board.

The hidden player will use a grid board to keep track of their location but is revealed if they choose to attack, or if they stop in front of a player facing them. If Michael can kill three players or make it to 24 rounds without the others achieving their goals, they win. Alternately, players can attempt to take Michael down by attacking him themselves.

An image of the Halloween board game.
Image credit: Trick or Treat Studios

The victim players can find weapons and other helpful items they can use against Michael in the houses.

Both the hidden role aspects and the helplessness of the victim players help to make the game feel true to the original movie. The Halloween board game feels like more than just another shallow licensed title.

Alex Meehan

It's been a busy one today so I'm posting late but we played another load of fun things today! The morning started by picking up some copies of games to play later on so head to our TikTok if you want to see a wrap up of those, but after some lunch I finally sat down to play things. I started with Passengers, a social deduction game about ferrying souls to the underworld. However, some of you are tired of working without reward so have buddied up with demons. You help them get into the afterlife but can't let the morally good soul-workers find out. Throughout the game you secretly play soul or demon cards onto a boat then vote which one goes forward, either hoping to sneak demons in or keep them out. Whenever you play a card you get to pick up a power for the round that lets you peak at cards, swap them, or change their colours to help your cause. I'm not normally someone who's super into deduction games, but the added mechanics mean it doesn't turn into a game of people shouting at each other endlessly and instead has some quiet strategy behind it.
Passengers board game, purple cartoon art of person and spirit mask
Image credit: FableSmith

Maddie Cullen

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