Events & Conventions

SPIEL 2025

PrinzJuliano

31 Oct 2025 — 7 min read

Having visited the world's biggest board game convention is quite the experience. Having visited twice, you get to be prepared for an even better experience.

Last year I visited once alone and once with a friend of mine on Saturday and Sunday. I enjoyed playing games with total strangers I will never see again. So much so I visited again this year. I had three friends with me and a few tricks and tips from last time and friends who already went.

Use the app. The convention has an official app that allows you to filter the games by hall, publisher, and all sorts of characteristics. It also features by-foot navigation assistance to allow you to get from one booth to the game you want to see next. Before going to the convention, I checked all the halls (7 in total) for 3 to 5 games I would like to look at and added them to a list, which can be prioritized.

Thusly I wanted to look at a couple of games:

Cascadia Junior (too busy)
Pergola (too busy)
Für die Krone (not available)
Map Masters
Abroad (too complicated)
Moustache
Orapa (not interesting enough to wait)
My Park (not interesting enough to wait)
Coffee Rush: Grab & Go (only available in Korean)
Flow
Boss Hunters (no more time left)
SETI
Flossenschlag (no more time left)
Knitting Circle (no more time left)
Cat and the Tower

Going around, we ended up looking at these as well.

Brick like this!
Happy Mochi
Happy Salmon
Mustache
Ziege an Board (row your goat)

We all enjoyed the atmosphere and had a blast playing the games.

I highly recommend visiting if you can.

The Games

Cat and the Tower

By far the most engaging game we played was Cat and the Tower, seen here:

TL;DR: Draw a card with building options. Either place a colorful cat or build the tower. The catch? Not all tower pieces are the same height.

Map Masters

Map Masters is a create your own dungeon game where you try to build the biggest path possible. Ultimately we decided that it is not engaging enough over the two rounds we played.

Moustache

Moustache is basically Skat (card game) but with per round additional bonuses, like orange cards count double, or the team with the most blue cards loses five points, or cards with a 1 on them count as three points, etc.

We played several rounds and all enjoyed it. After all, the game it is based on is already a great classic.

Flow

Flow is based on the movie. An animated movie that follows the struggle of a cat trying to survive a massive flooding. In the game you are trying to save all animals by placing connecting tiles to get to the center where a boat is. The catch? Every minute you roll two dice and remove the tiles on the board accordingly as the rows and columns are numbered. There are more challenges that were not part of the demo.

This high-stakes strategy game is easy enough to explain and allows for some frantic action between your loved ones or pals.

SETI

You have to check out the winner of the German Game Prize. Most of the games on my list were family games. Games you can explain in a couple of minutes and play for 10-20 minutes up to multiple hours.

SETI is not that. This is an expert game. You play as a space agency trying to find aliens. You do this by sending probes, scanning the galaxy, landing on planets, and doing research.

You play five rounds. However, a round is only done once all players have exhausted their possible moves, mostly limited by their energy and currency tokens.

All in all, a fun game to play. Once you understand all the moves you can make, you get in the flow.

My friend group does not meet regularly enough to play board games to allow for such a game to be part of the roster. But if you play like every week, this might be the space game for you.

PS: The actual game came out in 2024. New in 2025: An expansion, adding special abilities to players. (Which was not part of the demo)

Brick Like This!

Brick Like This! is a game by Asmodee and Lego. You pick a card and explain to your partner how to assemble the pictured sculpture. While you do this, the other team(s) do the same. The first one to finish gets the points and starts a timer in which the other team(s) have to finish as well to get points. The harder the sculpture, the more points you get.

This game trains you to communicate well and deduce which features of which block are required to get the message across. Given that the game is not that expensive, it is a recommendation for people who enjoy playing with building blocks.

Happy Mochi

Happy Mochi is a card game where you assemble numbers to satisfy the rules present. You get seven cards that you cannot change the order of. Adjacent cards can be played. You have to either play a number that is above the current one or below, based on the direction card or you can always play two similar numbers.

Since the convention, I have played happy mochi the most as you can play it for one or two rounds and continue some other day.

Definite recommendation for everyone.

Ziege an Board

Ziege an Board (or Row your goat) is like tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses) in that you play in a three-by-three grid and match three in a row, column, or diagonal. The Catch? Both the colors and the goat on the card can match. Additionally, you only get to pick the spot to place the card. Which card you play is hidden until you have played it. Once you see a match, you have to hit a lifesaver. But there is always one too few. The last person to not get a lifesaver has to pick up all cards in the matched row, column, or diagonal. Once every spot is filled, you place cards on top of each other. The goal of the game is to discard all your cards before anyone else does.

Since you don't know what card you have played until you have played it, the stakes are always high, and you need to stay sharp.

Happy Salmon

The very last game we played was Happy Salmon. This game is actually not new. It was released in 2016. But now it is available in German.

One round is over in about 2 Minutes. You have four action cards:

High 5
Pound It
Switcheroo
Happy Salmon

Everyone gets a stack of cards, and you have to find another person who has the same card on top as you. When you do, you perform the action on the card and discard it. The first to lose all their cards wins. Chaos ensues as everyone screams what card they have and rushes to be the one to do the action and discard their card. A very fun party game.