Die Pegasus Spiele Tage finden noch bis zum 10. Mai statt

Friedberg, 13.04.2026: Auch diesen Frühling gibt es für Spielbegeisterte und alle, die es noch werden wollen, wieder Grund zur Freude, denn die Pegasus Spiele Tage sind zurück! Bis zum 10. Mai können an über 200 teilnehmenden Eventstätten sechs Spiele kostenlos ausprobiert werden: Magic Maze Pocket, Light Speed Arena oder Boss Fighters QR ebenso wie Symbiose, Burst und Punktegalaxie.

Pegasus Spiele hat abermals Pakete mit Neuheiten gepackt und sie an zahlreiche Spieleläden sowie -clubs in Deutschland und Europa geschickt, damit die Spiele dort in geselligem Umfeld gespielt werden können. Das Mitspielen ist kostenlos, eine Anmeldung ist nicht nötig. Zum Spielen von Boss Fighters QR und Light Speed Arena wird jedoch ein mobiles Endgerät benötigt (Handy oder Tablet). Die jeweiligen Apps können kostenlos aus dem Apple oder Android App Store heruntergeladen werden. Alle Titel sind ab acht bzw. zehn Jahren empfohlen und punkten mit leicht zugänglichen Spielkonzepten. Damit eigenen sie sich für Familien ebenso wie für Fans kurzweiliger Partien. Für weitere Informationen sowie eine Auflistung aller Veranstaltungen steht die Pegasus Spiele Tage Infoseite bereit.

Mit Magic Maze Pocket ist ein kooperatives Spiel mit dabei, bei dem die Spielenden in Echtzeit den Raubzug einer Held*innen-Gruppe durchführen. Dabei kann jede*r potenziell alle Figuren steuern, aber diese nur in bestimmte Richtungen bewegen. Eine gute Abstimmung zwischen den Spielenden ist da unerlässlich – allerdings ohne zu sprechen.

Ebenso flott gespielt ist Light Speed Arena. Hier müssen alle Mitspielenden gleichzeitig in nur wenigen Sekunden ihre Raumschiffe so in einer Weltraum-Kampfarena positionieren, dass deren Laserstrahlen möglichst Asteroiden oder gegnerische Raumschiffe anvisieren – und nicht aus Versehen die eigenen treffen. Bei der Auswertung hilft dann eine kostenlose Begleit-App.

Ebenfalls App-begleitet ist das SPIEL 2025 Highlight Boss Fighters QR. Bis zu vier Mitspielende versuchen sich gemeinsam daran, mithilfe ihrer zusammengestellten Kartendecks digitale Bosse zu bekämpfen. Dank der nahtlosen App-Integration wird nicht nur der Effekt der gescannten Karten sofort angewendet, sondern die Spielgruppe sieht auch direkt die Reaktion des Bosses. So entsteht ein dynamischer wie taktischer Schlagabtausch.

In dem Kartenspiel Symbiose geht es nicht um Geschwindigkeit oder Schlagkraft, sondern darum, die beste Teichlandschaft zu kreieren. Dazu wird in jeder der insgesamt sieben Runden eine Karte des eigenen Teichs mit einer aus der offenen Auslage getauscht. Bei der Wertung sind dann jedoch auch die Teiche der Nachbar*innen von Interesse. Nicht zuletzt wegen der simplen Regeln ist Symbiose Teil der Spielereihe Einfach! Schnell! Clever!.

Ein weiteres Kartenspiel mit simplen Regeln ist Burst: Karten nachziehen oder ausspielen – nur bloß nicht die Auslage auf eine Summe von über 21 treiben! Für Personen, die die Kartenauslage zum Bersten bringen, gibt es nämlich leider keine Punkte.

Nachdem Punktesalat im Jahr 2021 auf der Empfehlungsliste zum Spiel des Jahres gelandet ist, geht es bei Punktegalaxie nun in die Weiten des Universums. In jeder Runde werden zwei Karten gezogen, um – clever kombiniert – in der eigenen Galaxie Sets zu sammeln, Reihen zu vervollständigen und Ziele zu erreichen.

Der Beitrag Der Frühling lädt zum Spielen ein erschien zuerst auf Blog und News.

Before the fall fair and convention circuit is coming to an end, I had the opportunity to attend Süddeutsche Spielemesse (Southern German Game Fair) in Stuttgart. As when I went last time, it was a pleasant, laid-back experience.

The game fair is part of a conglomerate of hobby and leisure related fairs which are all held over the same long weekend in neighboring fair halls. As the ticket covers all fairs, you are free to explore everything. That’s great if you go as a group or family with differing interests: Your creative-minded daughter can get all inspired at the arts & crafts fair, your animal-loving son will try to make friends with the cats, rabbits, and camels at the animal fair, your gourmet spouse samples their way through the food fair, and then everybody meets at the game fair because you all love board games. Right?

With that setup, Süddeutsche Spielemesse’s target audience is broad, from the hobbyist to the very casual gamer. Consequently, you’ll find a lot of games outside of the hobby board game niche – from classics like chess and go over sports games to role-playing games. The exhibitors are usually either vendors (game test opportunities are rare), clubs looking for new members (like many of the role-playing clubs), or, my favorite, the big gaming island run in the middle where you can just borrow a game and play it free of charge which gives Süddeutsche Spielemesse a certain convention feel.

At this point, it is tradition that the gaming island remains open until 10pm on Friday, allowing for a beautiful evening of gaming. I met with a friend there and we played three different two-player games:

Rival Cities (Andreas Steding, Pegasus)

Northern German cities Hamburg and Altona try to outdo each other – yet while the usual victory point collecting occurs, these only matter if the game runs its full seven rounds. And it is much more likely that one of the cities will decisively outdo the other in one of the four areas of competition (alliances, ships, lawsuits, and prestige) and score an instant victory. With such a plethora of instant victory conditions, you will always feel the thrill of chasing one yourself and being threatened with another by your opponent.

In our game, we both started conservatively, getting a little bit of everything. Then my friend made a play for the alliances and was only one of them short of victory… but I could stave off defeat and counter-punch with ship dominance. I guess more experienced players would be at each other’s throat from the get-go which should make for exciting gaming and high replayability (at a very moderate complexity).

Solstis (Bruno Cathala/Corentin Lebral, Frosted Games)

Two players chart their path up a mountain built from a shared supply of tiles, each of which has a unique combination of a color (indicating its row) and number (indicating its file). Thus, you always know that a tile you took cannot be accessed by your opponent – and vice versa. This kind of very abstract game with almost-perfect information is usually not up my alley, and Solstis proved no different. We were both unenthused by its mix of logical planning and high randomness in the rare case of placing a nature spirit. However, each play only took 10 minutes, so we didn’t spend much time to gain the valuable knowledge of what’s not our jam.

Agent Avenue (Christian Kudahl/Laura Kudahl, Nerdlab Games)

Maybe our highlight of the fair: Agent Avenue pits its two players against each other as retired secret agents trying to catch each other. To unveil the other’s identity, they enlist their suburban neighbors, all of which are anthropomorphic animals, from daredevil wolves over codebreaker owls to double agent vixens. The recruitment comes by “I cut, you choose” – but as one of the two cards the active player offers to their opponent is face-up, the other face-down, there is a spy-appropriate amount of bluffing and deduction. Pair this with a varied, but not overwhelming amount of instant victory/defeat conditions and card effects, and you have a light, but tense contest which resolves in no time at all (we played three times in 40 minutes).

Any games of these that sound like your cup of tea? Have you attended any cool local conventions or fairs recently? Let me know in the comments!

Once more, the SPIEL fair at Essen has come to an end. It’s been a few intense days of looking, meeting, and, of course, playing – for me and 200,000+ other attendees. Even though the fair has expanded to another hall now, tickets for the busiest days (Friday and Saturday) were sold out a week before the event, and I also had the impression that more of the games sold out (at least that was my experience at several booths). Thus, I went home with zero purchases – which is fine! I travelled with a light suitcase on my way back, and I’ll be able to catch up on purchases via the usual local and online vendors.

Something you cannot catch up on, however, is meeting the people who mean something to you. I’ve always enjoyed going to the fair with a friend or two, and over the years, my SPIEL schedule has been enriched by more and more meetings with my fellow friends of board games and history whom I’ve met over the internet. In that regard, this year’s SPIEL has been exceptional: Not only have I gotten to dinner with my Boardgame Historian colleagues (a great way to start off the fair experience with some sparkling conversations on history in board games from a research and museum perspective) and to play a few games with Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle (more on that below) – both are almost traditions by this time – but I (and Michal) also got to meet Grant and Alexander from The Players’ Aid on their very first trip to SPIEL! I think that we all had a blast, and many plans to meet again are already in the making… and maybe play more games together!

Speaking of games: I’ve gotten around to play a grand total of 13 during the two days of the fair (ranging from very short demos to full games). Here are my highlights:

Bohemians (Jasper de Lange, Portal Games)

Bohemians had attracted my attention with its beautiful artwork and its intriguing fin de siècle Paris art scene setting. After giving it a test drive at SPIEL (with Michal, my friend A., and another fairgoer), I can also attest that it has sound mechanics (a mix of long-term deckbuilding and short-term pattern building from the cards in your hand):

You arrange your day as an aspiring artist with activities like “Wander the streets aimlessly” or “Practice a new technique.” The activity cards have symbols on the left and right, which, if matching, give you inspiration. You can imagine that there are some power combos – for example “Get in the mood for composing” and “Compose without stopping” have four matching symbols!

It gets even better if you acquire more inspirational activities (by spending inspiration) or if you don’t do activities alone, but have a muse with you (also to be gotten into your hand by spending inspiration).

In the end, your goal is to make artistic achievements which range from “A mildly positive review in the local newspaper” over “Your family’s quiet acceptance of your new life” to “Establishment dismayed by your work” which – you guessed it – are also acquired by spending inspiration.

As you need quite a lot of inspiration for the achievements (and they get ever more “expensive” as the game progresses), you’ll probably have to arrange for artistic activities in all four slots of the day… which means you cannot work, another (much less exciting) way to spend your time. Every player has a disreputable profession (street musician, beggar, journalist…) which they can use instead of an activity – and, if they do not, they will gain a hardship card into their deck. You know, all the bad things in life that only orderly labor keeps at bay. Abject poverty. Shame. Syphilis.

Ideally, activities, muses, achievements, and hardships come together narratively. For example, I had a great day in which my activities linked up and I could meet with not one, but two muses right after another! That gave so much inspiration that I gained an achievement… but as I hadn’t worked, I gained a hardship – hypersexuality! Apparently, I had frolicked a bit too much with the muses.

Bohemians is a nice light deck-builder which should work especially nicely for casual audiences. I had a very good start at the fair with it and have acquired it since.

Neither King Nor God (Uwe Walentin, Sound of Drums)

And now for something completely different! Neither King Nor God takes players to the European power struggle in the Age of Reformation. Four of them will fill the shoes of England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Papacy in their quest to spread their trade, conquer new territories, and convert cities to their religion. For this task, they send out courtiers to the great cities of Europe. As the courtiers are placed face down, you know where your rivals sent one to, but not what kind of courtier it is – a merchant to plop down trade barrels, a general to move armies, an assassin to murder or a traitor to take over another courtier?

As the courtier stacks in cities will be resolved only when all courtiers have been placed (top to bottom – so the courtier placed last goes first), there’s a lot of tactical finesse in placement: Do you go where everyone seems to go to partake in the bonanza or do you try to carve out your own little domain in less popular cities? Will you place your merchant first so that he’s on the bottom of a stack and will resolve after any general who could raid his trade barrel placement or do you place him last so he can go before anyone tries to murder him?

That makes for very little downtime and great mirth both in assembling and resolving those courtier stacks. Given that everyone’s victory conditions are secret (to be drawn randomly at the start of the game), there is a lot of guessing and bluffing. However, if no one has fulfilled their victory condition by the time the plague hits Europe, different victory conditions will apply.

Despite its length (three to four hours for a full game), the game plays briskly from the first turn on. And while it is involved, it’s not a complicated game – in fact, as the friendly Sound of Drums guy who had explained the game to the group before us had to demo a game at another table, we successfully self-taught the game from the rulebook!

Neither King Nor God is a pilot for a bigger five-player version that is to be published next year.

Verdun (Ren Multamäki, Dragon Dawn Productions)

I’d been eyeing Verdun for some time now, but never got around to play it. Good thing I could remedy that at SPIEL! As Michal and I randomly bumped into each other at the DDP booth, we could try the game together (each accompanied by a team mate).

Verdun is one of the many “trick-takers with a twist” that are released these days – and definitely one of the better ones! Two or four players (in teams of two) fight the World War I battle of Verdun. Whoever has the initiative selects an objective to attack. If their side – Germany or France – wins the trick by at least the (hidden) strength of the objective, they’ll gain the objective and its victory points. As all players draw from a shared deck of cards, that means that anyone will have both German and French cards in their hand.

That leads to all sides of interesting decisions: If you’re defending as France, are you going to play a French card to try and win the trick? Or are you playing a German one to get rid of it, either hoping that you’ll win anyway, or that the Germans win by so much that another German card doesn’t do them any good?

It gets even trickier when you consider that all cards have skull icons on them, indicating how many negative points they’ll confer on their respective side if they end up in the casualty pile. After every trick, one card per side (sometimes more) ends up as a casualty. If you can sneak in a skull-heavy card of the opponent side, that might undo all the points they’ll gain from winning the objective.

Consequently, scores will likely be negative in the end. Maybe you’ll win a few objectives, maybe not. But certainly, you will have suffered appalling losses. The question is not if you’ll win big, but if your enemy is losing even more painfully than you. The grim logic of the war of attrition on the Western Front.

Our short test game also showed the importance of keeping initiative, so you can attack and at least have the chance to win objectives and offset some of the losses: In the end, France had gained two objectives (Germany none), which, as losses were pretty evenly spread, was enough for victory (-7 to -13).

Verdun is testament to what relatively simple games can do, and how games which stray far from wargame standards (hexes, counters, combat resolution tables…) can capture the essence of a conflict just as well.

Chuồn Chuồn (Ionah Nguyen, Everjoy)

Self-balancing dragonflies (in Vietnamese: Chuồn Chuồn), often made out of bamboo, are popular toys in Vietnam. They have now made their way to the board gaming world in this charming, gorgeous game.

Players will attempt to attract dragonflies of varying sizes and colors to their bamboo trees to match the patterns on their objective cards – for example, to have a small yellow dragonfly on the highest bamboo, a large purple one on the middle, and a small blue one on the lowest. As everyone takes dragonflies from the same pool and there’s only one in each size/color combination, you will soon run out of dragonflies and will have to use the magic cards at your disposal to re-arrange the flies, shake them off someone’s tree, etc.

I found the game enjoyable and its production values outstanding. The finely crafted dragonflies are guaranteed to catch the eyes of observers, which makes the game also great for introducing new players to board gaming (everyone likes pretty things, and everyone likes to place self-balancing dragonflies!).

The game will be released next year.

Rock Hard: 1977 (Jackie Fox, Strohmann Games)

My recommendation for this game comes from Dave who just published his 1000^th post over on his blog Dude! Take Your Turn – a rockstar if ever I saw one!

As I started the fair with a game about aspiring artists, it was most fitting to end it with another about this subject. The single-minded pursuit of artistic achievements which was abuzz in fin de siècle Paris has by 1977 given way to the much wider notion of… victory points! These you may get for a variety of pursuits and objectives, from perfecting your musical skills over becoming addicted to drugs candy to going to bed early.

Rock Hard: 1977 is a worker placement game, just that you only have one worker – yourself, the aspiring rockstar. You’ll divide your activities between day (say, practicing your craft or giving a radio interview), evening (playing gigs), and night (hanging out with the cool kids at the club). Every once in a while, you’ll also have to work your square job as a veterinary assistant, truck driver or what have you. Unlike in Bohemians, that is not a moral corrective on your life, but fulfils the simple economic need of making some money with which you rent those rehearsal studios, pay for your demo tape recording, or buy drugs candy.

Ideally, your skills will improve, you’ll play at ever greater venues, and your royalties will cover the cost of your rockstar needs. We didn’t get quite that far at the fair – I had to catch a train and another of my fellow players a pre-scheduled game. Until then, we had only dipped our feet in the waters of musical glory, but it was a very thematic affair!

Rock Hard: 1977 has been released in English last year already (by Devir), but the fair showed off the new German edition.

What do you think of these games? Anything up your alley? And if you’ve been to SPIEL or would have liked to go – what are your highlights?

I’m incredibly grateful for my coworkers (Dave, Susannah, and Alex) for traveling across the world to Essen for the Spiel festival this past week, along with the many incredible members of our demo team who made the trip from Iceland, England, Belgium, and a variety of other locations. Huge thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth to learn about our newest products: Vantage, Origin Story, Wyrmspan: Dragon Academy, and more.

Last year we tried a secret experiment at Essen that resulted in some fun for the team and customers; I think a variation of it was implemented this year as well. I asked my coworkers if they tried anything new at Essen Spiel this year that other creators and publishers might be interested in, and Alex shared the following:

1. Combined Sales Counter at a Shared Booth: While Stonemaier and Inside Up have shared a booth the two previous years, this is the first time we had a single combined sales counter. It was really cool how the intermingling of stock led to people coming to the booth looking for games from one company and walking away with games from both. It really exemplified the synergy we’ve built up with the partnership between the two companies.

2. Great Lighting: It’s really amazing what good lighting does to make a space feel friendly and welcoming. I’ve personally experienced this in the difference between retail stores as well but at Essen we add quite a bit of extra lightning to our booth and it makes the space quite literally shine as a standout beacon next to the booths around it.

3. Quick Pitch Tables: This year we added a row of “pitch tables” at the front of the booth, with demo tables to do full playthroughs in the space behind it. This is similar to the tables at the Gen Con booth. It’s really cool to be able to have different ways to share our games depending on the different needs of the people coming by. We also had lots of people coming up to the game shelves, picking up the boxes and reading the backs. I was really glad for the sheet on Origin Story for this and it was fun to see people pick up Vantage and realize just how heavy that box is!

All three of these are about trying to serve customers. If you’re buying products from two companies at the same booth, it’s more effective for your time to check out once instead of twice. Great lighting is crucial for inviting people into a booth and encouraging them to hang out for a while. And not everyone wants to sit down for an extended demo–they might prefer just to briefly look at a game.

If you’ve attended a convention recently, what have you seen (or implemented) that makes the experience welcoming and memorable?

Also read:

• A Secret Experiment at Essen 2024
• 5 Hours at Gen Con for the First Time Since 2018

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.

You say „board game fair“, I say “SPIEL” at Essen. It’s the Mecca for the tabletop gaming faithful. Four days of playing, trying, and buying. 200,000+ visitors. I’ve been there a few times over the last years for two days each and found it an intensive board game experience. I’m looking forward to going again this year!

As always, this is not meant as a „must buy“ list or whatever other consumptionist term some people use. It is likely that I will buy only one or two of these games. Why? Because I have quite some good games already, and I like to make them count before I plunge into new adventures. Generally, there are no musts in buying. And there are no musts in attending board game fairs or conventions – obviously those can come as pretty big expenses for travel and accommodation. Bottom line: No musts. You do you.

One note beforehand: Board gaming is getting ever more international, and this list shows it: The six designers come from six different countries, and, for the first time in the nine years I’ve been making this list, none of them is from Germany or the United States.

Without further ado, on to the games! They are sorted by location on the fairgrounds.

Hall 2, booth E121: Limit (Alexandre Poyé, Ludonaute)

1-6 players, 60-150 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 50.00 €

Many games have great nations compete on the global stage. Yet Limit is different. Few games of this kind have a robust section of domestic affairs beyond the usual political-economic-military competition. Fewer dare to zoom out so much that the game spans not years, but generations over two centuries. And barely any are based on a model that neither promises eternal improvement for everyone nor zero-sum competition between the powers, but rather the limits of industrial development. If you think you have heard of the latter before: Yes, this game is based on the World3 model of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth. All of these uncommon features combine into a game which I expect to feel unique.

Designer Alexandre Poyé will be at the booth to teach the game (not all around the clock, but you have a reasonable chance to meet him there).

Hall 2, booth E450: Marajoara (Daniel de Lucca, Giant Roc)

1-4 players, 60 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 40.00 €

Archaeology is a popular setting for board games, and I’m here for it. While I love the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean as much as the next person, I’m happy to see games shedding light on less-known cultures – like the Marajoara from the Amazonian island of Marajó (in modern-day Brazil), famous for their distinctive style of pottery. You will excavate, restore, and display vases while maintaining the finances of your museum. Mechanically, the game combines inspiration from (peg) solitaire with dice movement. I would have loved the game to lean a bit harder on the unique visual style of the Marajoara pottery (mostly limited to the cover art and the large vases), but I’ll take what I can get!

Hall 3, booth A400: Habemus Papam (Pako Gradaille, Salt & Pepper Games)

3-6 players, 45-60 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 35.00 €

If your main takeaway from watching Conclave was how exciting it would be to elect a pope, Pako Gradaille has you covered. Habemus Papam puts you in the Roman curia at the time of a papal election which you aim to influence according to your public (an old pope! An innovator! Someone from the New World!) and private (finish the election early! Have a pope who is exactly like yourself!) goals. You will expend your curial influence to advance the cause of candidates whom you like (or hamper those you don’t), but conserving influence is also valuable in its own right. Whoever balances their competing interests best takes the victory. Sacramental wine and vapes are not included in the box.

Hall 3, booth K120-M120: Bohemians (Jasper de Lange, Pegasus)

1-4 players, 45-60 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 35.00 €

We turn from the wealth and austerity of the Catholic Church to the poverty and indulgence of fin de siècle Parisian artists! You chase the inspiration for artistic achievements by living life to the fullest, crafting exquisite days by skillfully combining activities as varied as wandering aimlessly through the city, discussing philosophy, meeting a muse, or losing yourself in your work. Speaking of work: You’ll have to do some of that, too – mean labor to support yourself lest you avoid the hardships which come with the life of a free spirit (which range from poor hygiene over abject poverty to syphilis). Bohemians is a mechanically light, but thematically rich deck-builder, and, as befits a game about artists, is strictly gorgeous.

Hall 3, booth L500: 1920: Nest of Eagles (Jarosław Flis, Phalanx Games)

2 players, 90-150 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 69.00 €

In 1920, the old world of European empires had been shattered. What the new world would look like was still up for contention, as in this struggle of two nascent states: On the one hand, new nation-states came into being – like the (Second) Polish Republic, the first independent and united Polish state in over a century. On the other hand, ideology transcended nations, and the Soviet Republics (of which the Soviet Union would spring soon after) were emboldened by their success in the Russian Civil War against the old monarchist forces. As Poland reached for the east, the World Revolution got ready to spring to the industrial centers of western Europe. The two sides were to clash in one of the most mobile conflicts in history.

1920: Nest of Eagles is a re-implementation of Rok 1920 (published in 1995 by Encore) which has received the typical Phalanx treatment of pairing wargame mechanics with euro production quality.

Hall 5, booth A725: Faust vs Mephisto (Geonil, Mandoo Games)

2 players, 10-25 minutes, for sale, MSRP: 20.00 €

I’m a sucker for a Faustian bargain… literarily speaking, I mean. My soul is still mine. Why would you even ask me that? – Anyway, Faust vs Mephisto takes the man and his devil and puts them on even ground (maybe like in the Study II scene of Goethe’s Faust): Mephisto tries to dominate by winning all tricks in a given round – or tempt Faust by winning none of them. Anything in between is a success for Faust. If Mephisto manages to pull it off twice in four rounds, he wins, otherwise Faust has proven that “A good man, through obscurest aspirations // Has still an instinct of the one true way.” Faust vs Mephisto seems like a snappy little card game to play before or after a more involved game – or whenever you have a little bit of spare time with a fellow gamer.

What are the games you are anticipating most eagerly? Let me know in the comments!