Southern German Board Game Expo - part 2

Upon entering Hall 6, It was a lot like I was expecting. I have been to quite a few trade shows over the years and the set up is pretty standard. Booths of various sizes, either from game publishers promoting their own products, or game resellers selling a wider range.

The first booth I visited was Asmodee games, a French company, but I linked to the US site in case anyone is interested. They were mainly featuring two new games; Formula D, a car racing game, and Ghost Stories, a ghost hunting game.

Formula D is a remake of the older Formula de, a game I was always interested in checking out. It is a roll and move game on a big racetrack, but with really beautiful parts. I say roll and move, but the mechanic is made interesting by using different dice to represent different gears.
The board has two sides, one for Formula 1 type racing and one for street racing. They are two huge fold out boards that join together into an enormous track. It looks awesome. here is the setup on the Formula 1 side, it is the real life Monaco track. I am sure they will release expansion boards of other famous tracks (the old Formula de did anyway...)
Here is an extreme close up of a (street racing) car and one of the special dice.
Each player also gets a little gear box which shows what gear you are in, and consequently which movement dice you should roll on your turn. It also shows "points" which represent damage to your car. If you have collisions or do some risky moves, it damages the car and hurts your ability to win.
I played a round of this in the "beginner" flavour and it was really fun. It was 35 euro though and I could not really justify spending that much money on a game I just tried the one time. It was also my first game of the show and I just logged it in my head as one to think about later. Here are some of my opponents in the demo.
The other game Asmodee was promoting was called Ghost Stories.
This one took the cake for most impressive display. They had a 3D super fancy version set up to show off some awsomeness. As much as I like displays like this, they kind of generate a misleading impression of the game. Compare the next two photos, the AWSOME next to what the game actually looks like.
The Game itself is a Co-operative one (you all work together against the game) in which the players try to banish evil spirits haunting a town in some eastern mythological land. Being a co-op game, you all win together or lose together.

I did not play this one, there were no groups starting up and it looked like it would take a little longer than I wanted to spend on that booth. I do say it had one of the most impressive displays around though.

That is it for my first booth. If you are interested in the game, go check out the publisher's site or boardgamegeek, both give good coverage.