A Quick One (before I'm away)

As I finish packing my stuff for Spiel in Essen.

The boardgamegeek page with Essen freebies and specials

And the plans for all the halls with the stands in detail. In case you can't aready find your way around blindly.

I'm a loser, baby...

This is also the moment to acknowledge failure. I didn't make my stated goal to play all Essen 2011 games before Essen 2012.

There are of course reasons enough, but our gaming appetite is always greater than the time available to play. Which has caused me to write this anguished post. Which, in turn, has not yet brought on a change of behaviour, and I dread the amount of stuff I´ll be bringing home this time.

But this year I did  manage around a dozen games of Civilization, as well as half a dozen games of Eclipse. So there´s a tendency as well to master one great game rather than discover as many new ones as possible. Not sure this is a long term shift or just a mood swing which will turn back in a couple of years time.

So I´m not much further than I was early September. Yes, René, it sounded really easy then. And I´ve been carrying Apokalypse around in my bag for 6 weeks, but I just couldn´t finish the rules in German. I will download them in English.

The structural boon has been to buy more shelf space, which was not immediately taken up by stuff stacked up in corners. I am still trying to clear away a few books, so let me know if you would like to send one to you for free.

The only thing I can do now is to set myself the goal to have played all games I am bringing home from Essen within one year from now. Let's call that minor project Essen 2012. That should make me think harder the next two days to set a realistic target. Obviously, just stating the plan hasn't worked to full satisfaction. Anyone have a suitable punishment if I don't make it next time?