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

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!

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.