Essen 2026 Grading Our Pre-Show Predictions

GrantOkay, so get this. I packed my Essen bag last night, and I already feel guilty.

MilesGuilty why?

GrantBecause we made predictions, Miles. Bold ones. Before the show floor even existed at this size.

MilesOh, no.

GrantOh, yes. This is The Design Deck. I'm Grant, that's Miles, and today we're doing something a little dangerous.

MilesWe're grading ourselves.

GrantLive on the floor, no hiding.

MilesThis is the same format we ran for Gen Con, right? Where we made the calls beforehand and then had to actually own them.

GrantExactly that energy, except Essen doesn't do small stakes.

MilesNo.

GrantWe flagged two design bets before any of this opened: Shugendo, Minikin City.

MilesBig swings.

GrantHuge swings. And I will just say one of us is more nervous than the other right now.

MilesIt's you.

GrantIt's me. Fully me.

MilesThere's also the indie side of the floor we flagged, the scrappy stuff bubbling up from contests nobody's watching yet.

GrantWait for it, because that thread pays off later.

MilesTease.

GrantThat's the job.

MilesAll right. Before we grade anything, we actually have to establish what we're grading against.

GrantMeaning?

MilesMeaning how big this year's show actually got.

GrantBecause I've heard whispers.

MilesI've got numbers.

GrantGive them to me. Okay, official Spiel Essen press page just dropped the real numbers on this thing. October 22nd through the 25th, and for the first time ever, they're using all eight halls of Messe Essen.

MilesAll eight? Dude, last year felt like they'd already run out of hallway.

GrantRight? And this isn't a one-time stretch.

MilesWait, what do you mean?

GrantBoard Game Wire reported this is Merz Verlags's fourth floor space expansion in four years. Four years running they've grown the footprint.

MilesFour years in a row? That's not growth. That's a landlord's nightmare.

GrantThey quoted the organizer saying, quote, "We love Essen as a venue and the city and have no intention of leaving."

MilesSo no satellite convention center, no splitting the show across two cities? They're just gonna keep eating Messe Essen one hall at a time?

GrantPretty much. And get this comparison. The venue's now larger than Fifteen American football fields.

MilesFifteen football fields? That's not a convention hall, Miles. That's a small country with vendor booths.

GrantBasically. Okay, but here's my actual question. Does more floor space help the little guys, or does it just mean you walk right past the good stuff without knowing it exists?

MilesThat's the tension. Yeah. More halls means more room for the mid-size publishers to get real booths instead of getting crammed into a corner.

GrantSure, but it also means an indie table in hall Eight is might as well be on the moon if nobody's routing foot traffic that way.

MilesI've seen it happen. Great little game, terrible booth location, and it just doesn't get discovered.

GrantSo scale cuts both ways.

MilesIt does. Bigger floor, bigger crowd, but also bigger chance you miss the thing you actually came for.

GrantGive me a concrete example though. What's an Indie table actually competing against in Hall Eight?

MilesThink about it. You land in a hall with dozens of releases from established publishers, all with real signage, real demo staff, real pull. An Indie designer with one prototype and a folding table is fighting for the same five minutes of someone's afternoon.

GrantAnd most people only have energy for the halls closest to the entrance anyway.

MilesRight. Foot traffic decays the deeper you go, so distance from the door might matter more than raw square footage.

GrantWhich means the expansion could actually make discovery harder for the smallest booths even while it makes room for more of them to exist at all.

MilesThat's the paradox. More space, more inclusion on paper, but no guarantee of more eyeballs per table.

GrantI don't know. I want to believe scale is unambiguously good for discovery.

MilesThe data doesn't say that. It just says the room got bigger. What happens inside it is still on us.

GrantWhich coincidentally brings us to the thing we actually came for.

MilesOh, here we go.

GrantWe made two calls before this show even opened. Actual predictions, actual names, actual games.

MilesStaked our reputations on it.

GrantSo let's find out if we look smart or ridiculous standing here in hall whatever number we're in.

MilesStarting with the one you were more confident about.

GrantWas I though?

MilesYou absolutely were.

GrantOkay, our first Staked pick, Shugendo. This is the one we called a sleeper before we even landed.

MilesRight, the Devir game. It's a deck builder, but it's also a settlement game. You're expanding a family farm turn over turn.

GrantAnd the yokai. Don't forget the yokai.

MilesHow could I? You're managing spirits alongside the farm, so every card you add to the deck either grows your land or stirs something you now have to deal with.

GrantThat's the push your luck part we flagged, right? You keep drawing, keep building, and eventually a spirit turns on you.

MilesExactly that tension. Add one more card to the deck or stop and play it safe this round.

GrantWhich is basically my entire relationship with a blackjack table.

MilesSure, except the yokai don't comp your drinks.

GrantFair. So does the floor actually care about this, or did we just fall for a pretty box?

MilesThat's the real test. I went and checked what the community's saying before we even got here.

GrantAnd?

MilesBoardGameGeek's got a geek list floating around, Essen 2026 Strategic Euro Game Picks, and Shugendo's sitting right on it.

GrantWait, an actual ranked list, not just someone's wishlist post?

MilesA curated one. Users building out their must-see Euro picks for the show, and this one made the cut.

GrantThat's not nothing. That's people who track sixty games a year deciding this is worth their limited hall time.

MilesWhich lines up with what we predicted, but I wanna be honest about something.

GrantGo on.

MilesShugendo we picked before Essen because the mechanic excited us. That list existing doesn't prove the mechanic works at the table, it proves people are curious.

GrantCurious and excited aren't the same thing.

MilesNot even close. Curiosity gets you through the door. The push-your-luck loop has to actually deliver once you're seated and drawing cards.

GrantWhat would actually convince you, though? Like, what's the tell that it's working versus just looking good on paper?

MilesWatching whether people ask to play it again in the same session. A push-your-luck engine that's genuinely good gets a one-more-round reaction. If people play it once and move on, that tells you the tension was surface level.

GrantThat's a harder bar than a Geek list ranking.

MilesWay harder. A list just tells you someone typed a title into a spreadsheet. Replayability tells you the mechanic actually earned its keep.

GrantOkay, so put a number on it for me. If you watched five sessions of Shugendo on the floor, what would satisfy you?

MilesHonestly, just seeing a couple of tables ask to reset and go again would do it. That's not scientific, but it's real signal. Way more real than a name showing up on somebody's wishlist thread.

GrantSo the question we're really asking is whether that draw-one-more-card tension holds up in a four-player game, or whether it's just us projecting because we like the theme.

MilesAnd whether the crowd on the Floor validates it the same way that BoardGameGeeks list did, or whether the list was just early hype with nothing behind it.

GrantBecause that's the exact same trap we could be walking into with pick number two.

MilesMinikin City.

GrantSame designer, completely different genre, trick-taking instead of deck-building.

MilesIf Shugendo's a maybe, Minikin City's the other half of our bet. And weirdly, I think the answer to both questions is about to be the same answer.

GrantMeaning?

MilesMeaning let's go see what the crowd's actually doing at that table before we decide anything.

GrantFine by me. One bet down, one to grade. Okay, so Minikin City. This is Cranio Creations' next reveal, and it's got some pedigree. Simone Luciani and Matthieu Verdier both designed it.

MilesLuciani's fingerprints are everywhere at this show, aren't they?

GrantRight. And the pitch is tight. Two to five players, about thirty minutes.

MilesThirty minutes is doing a lot of work for a Euro with that many bodies at the table.

GrantThat's the hook. Quick but not shallow, supposedly.

MilesWhat's actually happening on the cards, though?

GrantSo each card does two jobs. The color and the value give you an immediate round reward. That's your short-term fix. And the icons, the icons only score if the card ends up filled with these little Minikin pieces. So you're always torn. Grab the quick reward now or hold out and build toward the bigger payoff later.

MilesThat's basically every worker placement game sold, but they've boiled it down to one card.

GrantExactly. It's the tension in miniature, literally.

MilesSure.

GrantBut get this, Minikin City is showing up on its own Geek list. There's a community-run tracker, the Spiel 26 Most Wanted Games list, and it's on there.

MilesSame signal as Shugendo.

GrantSame exact signal. Two different publishers, two different mechanics, and both bets are sitting on hype lists before anyone's touched a prototype.

MilesWait, so this is the moment those two threads actually meet.

GrantThis is it. We flagged Shugendo for the push-your-luck farm loop. We flagged Minikin City for the short-term versus long-term card tension, and both of them are getting the same pre-show community attention.

MilesWhich feels like a win, but I wanna be careful here.

GrantGo on.

MilesBeing on a wishlist tracker means people are curious. It doesn't mean the thing plays well once you've actually got Minikins scattered across the table and someone's engine locks up in round two.

GrantNo argument. A Geek list is attention, not a verdict.

MilesSo where does that leave the grade?

GrantProvisional. Both picks look smart on paper and smart in the room's attention. But until we've watched people actually play these on the floor, I'm not stamping either one.

MilesProvisional it is. Half credit pending gameplay.

GrantHalf credit's generous, but I'll take it.

MilesAll right, so that's the two big swings. A Merz-adjacent hall full of publisher-backed titles chasing the same wishlists.

GrantRight. Both of these had marketing behind them before we ever walked in.

MilesWhich makes me wanna go look at the games that didn't.

GrantOh, now we're talking.

MilesNo booth budget, no BoardGameGeek list campaign, just somebody's prototype and a back.

GrantThere's a whole other layer of this show running on exactly that.

MilesGrassroots stuff. Contest winners, regional design programs, people who built something at a kitchen table.

GrantThat's the pipeline nobody's grading pre-show because nobody outside the scene even knows the names yet.

MilesWhich is honestly the more interesting bet.

GrantWay more interesting. Let's go find out who's actually in that pipeline this year. Okay, so pull the camera back from the publishers for a second. There's a whole other track running underneath Essen that doesn't have any of that hype list machinery behind it.

MilesThe grassroots stuff.

GrantRight. Board Game Wire reported that Vietnam's Road to Essen design contest is running for a second year now.

MilesSecond year already? That went fast.

GrantFeels like it just started, but no, year two.

MilesWhat's different this time around?

GrantBoard Game Wire also said this year's run has a longer runway, and it's built specifically to turn publisher interest into actual signed deals, not just a booth photo and a handshake.

MilesThat's a real shift. Most of these regional contests just want the exposure. Get a prototype in front of anyone with a badge.

GrantExposure's cheap. Deals are the hard part.

MilesSure, but how do you even design a contest timeline around that? Getting a publisher to say interesting takes an afternoon. Getting them to sign something takes months.

GrantThat's exactly why the runway matters. You're not trying to compress a negotiation into four days on a show floor.

MilesRight. Right.

GrantAnd there's a line from someone involved with the contest that kinda nails the whole thing. They said, quote, "Getting a Vietnamese game to Essen was never really the goal. Getting it there ready to sell is."

MilesThat's a hell of a mission statement.

GrantIt's blunt.

MilesIt's also the exact problem every small studio runs into everywhere, not just Vietnam. You can get a table. Getting a table isn't the win.

GrantNo.

MilesI've talked to shop owners at conventions who say the same thing about their local scene. Half the designers they meet have a great box and zero idea how licensing actually works.

GrantSee, this is where the mechanics guy and the theme guy actually agree for once.

MilesShocking, I know.

GrantBut think about what that quote is actually admitting. It's admitting that year one probably didn't produce many deals, otherwise you wouldn't need to redesign the whole runway around getting to ready to sell.

MilesThat's a fair read. It's not a failure. It's a course correction.

GrantExactly. And it tells you something about the gap between getting noticed and getting funded.

MilesWhich, by the way, is the exact gap Shugendo and Minikin City don't have to worry about. Devir and whoever's backing Luciani, they walk in with distribution already solved.

GrantRight. That's the whole difference. Big publisher bets are betting on execution. A contest like this is betting on discovery even happening at all.

MilesTotally different kinds of risk.

GrantOne's will people like it, the other's will anyone ever actually see it.

MilesAnd Essen with eight halls now is basically the pressure test for both of those at once.

GrantWhich is kind of the whole shape of this exercise, isn't it? We've been grading two publisher-backed picks and one grassroots pipeline, and all three are really just different bets on where design attention is headed next.

MilesDifferent bets, same question.

GrantSo what does that add up to? So three bets down, eight halls, two publisher picks, one contest.

MilesAnd that's the same exercise we ran with our Gen Con coverage. Grade the calls once the floor tells you something.

GrantWhich, credit where it's due, still holds up as a format.

MilesIt does.

GrantBut here's where I land different than you. A geek list entry is not a passed test. It's a maybe with a spreadsheet.

MilesOkay, fair, but two for two on community radar going into a record show isn't nothing.

GrantIt's attention. Attention isn't gameplay.

MilesSure, but attention is the thing that gets a table full in the first place. You don't get evaluated if nobody sits down.

GrantWait, so you're grading it interest as if it's outcome?

MilesI'm grading it as leading indicator. Different thing.

GrantOkay, I'll take that distinction.

MilesGood.

GrantNow zoom out. Eight halls, two hype-tracked Euros from established designers, one contest that's explicitly chasing signed deals instead of just badges.

MilesThree totally different risk profiles all pointed at the same problem.

GrantWhich is?

MilesGetting more games in front of more eyes without the good ones drowning.

GrantRight. The floor space grows so more stuff can exist. The hype lists exist so people can filter what's worth their limited hours, and a contest built for deals doesn't matter if the show itself can't handle the crowd showing up to see it.

MilesSo the honest takeaway isn't the show solved discovery, it's that this show is visibly trying to solve it from three different angles at once: physical space, community filtering, and a funding pipeline. And none of those three answers are the whole answer by themselves.

GrantWhich is a more interesting story than the show got bigger, honestly.

MilesWay more interesting. It's not just more discovery, it's the show widening who actually gets discovered, not just how big the discovery gets.

GrantI'll say this, though. I still think you're being too generous with the hype trackers. A show widening who gets discovered on paper doesn't mean it's widening who gets discovered in practice.

MilesSure, but the intent matters. You can't test execution if the intent isn't even there. And right now, the intent, eight halls, two verified hype signals, a contest that redesigned itself around actual deals, that intent is there in a way it wasn't a couple years ago.

GrantFine, I'll grant the intent. I'm just not grading the outcome yet.

MilesNobody's asking you to. That's what the actual floor is for.

GrantAll right, so where does all of this leave our scorecard heading into the wrap?

MilesHanging, which is exactly where it should be until we've actually walked the halls ourselves.

GrantSo if we're grading ourselves, where do we land?

MilesIncompletes, both of them.

GrantHarsh but fair.

MilesCuriosity's there for Shugendo and Minikin City. The geek lists proved that much. Whether either one earns a table is a different exam.

GrantRight. And that's not us dodging. That's just how it works. You can't grade a push-your-luck loop from a spreadsheet.

MilesAnd the indie side, the road to Essen stuff, that's the one I actually wanna chase down in person.

GrantSame. Find the booth, find the designer, ask if year two actually closes deals.

MilesSo real talk, the real scorecard comes after we've walked the floor ourselves.

GrantWhich means you're stuck with us again once the halls empty out.

MilesWorth the wait.

GrantNow before we go, if there's a game on your radar you want us to crack open next, mechanics, theme, all of it, send it our way.

MilesSeriously, we read every one of those.

GrantWe do. All right, that's the episode.

MilesGo grab your show tickets. We'll see some of you in Essen.

GrantAnd for the rest of you stuck at home, enjoy living through us.

MilesThanks for listening, everybody.