:)

I am back from taking my breather - just like every year, we went to the Spiel in Essen together with a bunch of friends. That is a fair all about boardgames, and we spent the days there looking at an enormous amount of games, checking out the rules of lots of them, having a still impressive number explained to us and played a few (at least for a few rounds, so we could get a feel for it). For example, we got to try out "Firefly - the game". If you just look at the game mechanics, it's a fairly simple merchant simulation with lots of bad things that can happen to your ship and your crew... but the game manages to catch the spirit of the series really beautifully.

We all managed to escape without con-crud (in this case, we non-lovingly term it the "Essen-Pest", the plague of Essen). We did, of course, not escape without games - there was an expansion out for "Flashpoint", which we currently play a lot. I also consumed way too much chocolatey stuff (if that is possible at all, that is).

If you are tempted now to go to the Spiel yourself one day, boardgamegeek.com has an Essen FAQ here. I am quite exhausted, gaming-wise, after the four days of the show and the drive home, but I absolutely love it. It really is an experience!