Essen SPIEL 2026 Diaries | VLOG No. 2 (Thurs 22nd Oct)

0:12 Hi everyone, it's JP here from the Just Play Podcast. And no, this is not an episode. This is another vlog for day one of Essenspiel 2026. And I am tired. You can probably tell from my face. As I mentioned in the day zero uh vlog, I've kind of been nursing the cold and it's still kind of lingering around.

0:31 I think my everything's just kind of blocked, and yeah, I need to get rid of it. I've been again popping pills, the legal kind, by the way, uh, to try and shift it. And uh yeah, it's been a long day, an excellent day, but it's been a long, long day. Um, so yeah, day one of Essence. It's very exciting.

0:49 This is where everybody kind of basically gets a chance to enter the halls, and everybody will kind of get to get their hands on a lot of stuff. And yeah, it's busy, busy, it's a busy old time. So, yeah, what happened? What did I do? What did I get up to? Mainly, to be honest, today was mainly a meetings day.

1:06 Um, so kind of a continuation of of the novelty show from from yesterday. So I actually started the day um speaking with uh again uh Czech Games Edition. So we had actually an official meeting with them on first thing at 10am. And yeah, we just get to get gonna catch up with with those guys, and we talked a little bit more about in depth of um you know Kingdom Come Deliverance and some of the other titles that are coming, uh things that I can't obviously share, and um, yeah, also hopefully some opportunities to get uh some kind of interviews and things up in the future.

1:38 So fingers crossed we'll we'll get that to happen. But I then picked up my first pre-order somewhere down here. I picked up time span. So again, this uh was on my my preview list. Um so I'll pick this up now. Um looking forward to playing this. I'm gonna hopefully get this to the table um downstairs at some point this weekend.

1:59 Time is running short with lots of different things going on, but that's that's the plan. So I'll pick that up. Um, and also headed to uh Pink Troubadour. So Pink Troubadour, I didn't get one, I didn't get two, but I got three things. Let me show you. So I got again on my S list, it's probably no surprise because these three things were all on my list.

2:20 So I've got the growing forward expansion to forestry. Uh so I really like forestry, I think it's uh uh a fun old game, and uh yeah, so I I've got this one. Um, so more more about that one soon. Um and I got uh Carl von Linne. Um oh look, ring light, you can see that that's fun. Um so yeah, beige euro.

2:43 Yeah, more beige euros, please, in our life. So yeah, so I've got this. I'm looking forward to this. This looks crunchy right on my street. Um, and I also picked up carpet races. This one isn't in shrink, that's because I've played it more on that in a minute. Um, and I also picked up uh the expansion for Ash's uh Ascendancy, uh the natural magic expansion.

3:07 So this it basically adds a dragon ball, which is a solo, oh you can't see it, can you uh solo boss um that you can kind of play against. And and those who know I've got the uh Ashes uh Ascendancy kind of big box. I've got pretty much a lot of content, and uh yeah, I've been kind of wanting to get a bit more for it, why not?

3:27 Uh so here we go, we've got two more Phoenix Bawns and uh a dragon launcher to kind of throw into the mix and more dice that I probably don't need, but I've got them anyway. Um, so yeah, if you haven't played Ashes before, you should. It's a it's a really good kind of card battler. Um, you can play 1v1, you can play, I think you can play like 1v1v1, all that kind of stuff, and you can play solo and it's fantastic.

3:49 It gives you that kind of um TCG feel of putting minions out on the battlefield and and beating the other people up and and doing all sorts of nice combos with your cards, and yeah, it's it's it's a cool little game. It's a cool little game. This one I was excited for. Deckers duplicity. So, Ricky, if you're watching, I've got my copy, mate.

4:11 I've got my copy, and ever since I interviewed Ricky on the show, I've been keen to get obviously hold of duplicity. And I've been playing a lot of Deckers actually. I've been taking it away with me um for work. And uh yeah, it's been it's been a joy to jump back into the world of hacking. Um, and yeah, I'm looking forward to to exploring a little bit of this expansion, um, which is quite cool because I was speaking to um uh the kind of PR marketing uh team at Deep Print on the Wednesday, which I forgot to mention.

4:41 And it we had one of those moments where it's like, oh yeah, whereabouts in the UK are you from? And I was like, Well, most people that are kind of German or from Europe ask you where you're from, they don't really know the small towns, just like I don't know any of the small towns in Germany, right?

4:54 Um so I was like, Oh, well, let me just say the biggest city, so like Bristol. And it's like, oh, okay. And she then she kind of says, Well, I used to live in North Devon. And I was like, Oh, right, so you actually do know I said, Well, it's not Bristol, it's it's Taunton. Um, and and she goes, Oh yeah, I know exactly where that is.

5:09 And I said, Well, funny enough, um, she she actually lives not far from where my brother lives in in Cornwall, so just literally on the North Devon kind of border. Um, so yeah, so we had a good chat, um, and yeah, picked that up as well as uh some other things. Um we also met with Aries in in the afternoon, and uh I managed to get a little copy of uh Todoku.

5:33 So Todoku little flip and write, um, where you do Tetris and Sudoku. And I know Rob, right? So Rob shares a room with me. So I know he might be kind of keen with this. Look at this, look, I can't even show you. He might be keen to play this. He does a daily Sudoku, so I thought, why not? Let's let's get get my kind of hands-on some of that, and maybe we can have a go.

5:53 Um, and I think other things that I might have got, I'm trying to think, probably other stuff, other bits of Bob's next and that. So, yeah, so quite a big haul already on that first day. And you know, haven't learned anything in the four years now I've been to come to Essen. And I always say to people, don't pick up everything early in the day, and don't pick up, you know, um all of your pre-orders in one go, unless you have to, because guess what?

6:17 You're gonna have to carry those things around. Um, so I've kind of got long uh probably orangutan arms now, um, having carried all of these hefty games uh lugging them around the whole day, um, which you know just ties you out, which is all good fun. Um, we stopped by uh hegemonic project uh games as well and spoke to Demetria and yeah, we we got a little uh overview of the shadows of authority expansion, which is which looks very cool because I'm starting to see it now.

6:46 Because I think the last time we spoke was at UK Games Expo, and yeah, that that was more of a verbal kind of conversation, but now they've got like a prototypey uh example of how the main board looks like with the extra axes that you can kind of interact with and the extensions to the the player board.

7:02 So again, I'll try and dive into a bit more about that on the main episode. But that was cool, that was kind of nice to see um, yeah, see that coming along and yeah, hopefully kind of get the crowdfund campaign uh early part of next year. Uh so that was what's all good fun. Um, and I also had a meeting with Roberto from Rockstone and Dice.

7:24 So we met Roberto last year when I was part of Whose Turn is it anyway? Podcast, and we played a little game of uh called Trigger Warning, um, which I think was someone else actually sharing the booth, uh French designer. And um, yeah, he we just had a quick kind of party game where you're all kind of um basically it's like Russian red roulette, really.

7:43 We trying to shoot each other and trying to get items to basically kill the other players, and that was quite a lot of fun. That was just a little warm-up game because we wanted to play Power Punch. Um, and I think I mentioned this in my my preview episode for for Essen. So Power Punch reminds me straight out of the the video game Punch Out or Super Punch Out, and we managed to speak to Roberto, and absolutely that was inspiration.

8:07 Um so me and Mark, we we put on our gloves and we we duked it out and uh basically yeah, had my boxer versus his boxer. I think mine was called Reggie, and his was called Chanel. So we had a very, very pretty lady, and I had to beat her up, so that was kind of weird. And we had these coaches that helped give you kind of abilities, and his was straight up out of if you know the video game of Super Punch Out, you'll know who Bold Bull is, and he is well, in other words, a bit of a git because he headbuts you, and that's exactly what that coach does.

8:38 He kind of helps you your player do a bit of an illegal move, but that's quite cool, and again, I will go through some of the mechanics of this, but it was just a fun little dice rolling, beat the other player up, trying to knock them down. Um, and as you kind of get closer to the knockout, they get dangerous and start doing double damage back and things like that.

8:55 But yeah, I had a blast with that, and I really hope we can uh basically do a little playthrough. So me and Roberto were speaking, and yeah, fingers crossed we'll get a little online playthrough and an interview uh done so we can kind of show you how it works near the campaign when it goes live next year.

9:10 Uh, but yeah, fun, fun game, and that's kind of ended the day. Um, which I was quite thankful at this time. It's like four uh four pm, and I was like, I'm ready, I'm ready for my schnitzel, which are words that you can only say when you're here. Um, and Thursdays is the Gaming Rules meetup event at Fritz Patrick's uh Irish bar or German and Irish bar.

9:33 Um so we headed out way over there, met with uh Rob, uh the Curlies, uh so some of our friends of ours and Ian, and so me and Mark kind of joined uh those four, and then we headed off to the pub, had some beers, which is again very nice when you've been on your feet all day. And at the event, it's always the thing, tradition that well, we get schnitzel, a few beers, and we play a game.

9:54 So then we played the game that I did open, which is Carpet Racers, which is actually designed by Thomas Holllock. You know, if you don't know if you've heard of Thomas Hollick, he seems to develop like a 15,000 games now uh a week. He's giving Rainer Kenitzia a run for his money. Um, and we had a game of this, and it it's a pretty fun game, it's like social deduction racing, but you kind of got um yeah, micro machine kind of style, you know, racetracks.

10:20 And I can't even trace my finger, can I? This is awkward. Um, but yeah, you kind of are trying to move cars around the track and you don't know which one you are. And and yeah, it gets quite thinking by the end trying to work that out. But that was good fun. That was perfect for the pub. A nice pubby kind of family game that you don't have to take too seriously.

10:37 So, again, I will go through that in more detail. And then I've literally just got back and I thought I need to do some vlogs and get them done so I can share a little bit about uh the the fun and games that I've been having at Essend, but only day one has gone and day two tomorrow. What is happening on Friday, day two?

10:54 So day two is more stuff. I've got a few more meetings, I've got Mind Clash meeting, I've got uh there's another meeting, and it's uh yeah, with Albi. So yeah, I'm gonna speak to Albi and learn more about some of their catalogue. Albi has a very exciting game coming up next year. I kind of don't think I can mention it, but those that know my gaming tastes, those that know that uh I like my economic games, um, like stocks and shares and things like Chicago 1875 and Arkwright, things like that, I think this is gonna be right up my wheelhouse.

11:29 And yeah, talking with with Peter uh yesterday about it, and I'm like, oh god, this sounds sounds amazing! So, yeah, want to learn more about that one. Um, so that's cool. And uh tomorrow also there's a content creator uh kind of meetup and uh cardboard alchemy are hosting a meal, which I'm going again with Mark.

11:49 It seems that me and Mark are uh at his words, double teaming Essen. So read into that what you will. Um, so that's been been good fun. So yeah, that's tomorrow. I'll try and record another one tomorrow night or soon after and give you a little update of what's going on. But thanks as always if you're enjoying these little vlogs.

12:07 Uh I quite enjoy doing them. Um, and it allows me to kind of diarise what the hell's been going on. Um, again, all will be revealed in much more detail later. But anyway, I'll catch you on tomorrow's vlog uh vlog, and uh yeah, I'll see you later. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.