October 2018 was the preliminary highlight for Adellos with the fair “SPIEL” late in the month and by far the most exhausting month in years. But first things first:
The month began when I developed “Adventures of Navrith” with John. The adventure game which John is working on for 15 years, that is now gradually taking shape. In addition, I have already received the ordered flyers, posters and business cards as PR-material for the SPIEL18. But I was worried about the ordered roll-ups, which only arrived broken and then didn’t arrive for a while at all. In the end, the “City Media Shop Wiesbaden” fortunately replaced the broken roll-ups and everything arrived punctually before the fair.
On a completely different construction site, my designer recommended an artist (Matthis) from his circle of friends, with whom I was to develop the buildings for the worker-placement game “Founding Tarnaris” from then on. We started with the watchtower, a building with which we should also decide at the same time for a temporal epoch of the buildings and a drawing style of Matthis for all future buildings. In addition, I contacted the first artists that now create the first Cards for the CCG of Adellos.
And then the SPIEL18 is upon us. The SPIEL is, to my knowledge, after the “Gen-Con” the second largest board games fair in the world and the largest board games fair in Europe. It takes place every year at the end of October in Essen and is a kind of mecca for boardgame-players. Since I haven’t been there last year, because Adellos had production difficulties at the time and was unable to finish early, I am leaving this year with worries in my luggage.
Unfortunately, the Polish printing house “Trefl”, with which I had the first edition of Adellos printed, could not yet deliver the game to me.
So I drove to the fair without games, with the hope that the games might still be on time for the fair on Wednesday.
And luckily they were! Although not on time, but the games were actually coming and all my worries just disappeared. The joy of being able to unpack my finished product for the first time outweighs and totally excites me. The following days (the fair lasts a whole week for exhibitors) are primarily filled with noise, because even though with my little corner stand I’m positioned at the very end of Hall 4, the noise level of the fair is surprisingly high. So high that you can not just ignore it, but it hovers over you all the time. After I was able to equip my stand with rented furniture from Messe Essen and to attach all of my decoration and PR materials, I am ready.
To my relief, I was also able to invite my friends Martin and John to help me lead the stand, otherwise I would not have been able to attend meetings myself (live stream from BGG, for example) or to run through the fair myself. Meanwhile, the fair is so big that it seems almost impossible to see everything even in a whole week.
My personal highlight, however, was the small 2-person game “Crimson Company” of which I actually had to take a copy.
On Sunday, the last day of the fair, I am driven home in a completely crowded car, rather exhausted but also happy. The fair, with its sheer size, noise and the amount of time it takes to explain the Game over and over, can really suck and will take me another two days to recover. The social media channels of Adellos, talking about Youtube, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter, experienced a revival during the fair. Time and time again, consultants tell me how important it is to be active on the social channels. I’m aware of this, but unfortunately I cannot clone myself yet, so it’s a little bit down the back.
And with that, October is over. An exciting month full of gripping new experiences.
On to November! Let’s see what awaits me there.
Love from,
Till Engel ist der Erfinder und Gründer des Adellos-Universums. In seinem zweiten Leben arbeitet er als staatlich anerkannter Erzieher, seine Passion ist aber das Spiele erfinden.
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Till Engel is the inventor of Adellos and thus founder of the Adellos universe. In his second life, he works as a state-recognized educator, but his passion is to invent games.
