The Mindclash Team’s SPIEL Essen 2026 Haul

From Essen our team returned home with completely full suitcases and bags. Even after spending four intense days talking about board games, we couldn’t resist sneaking away during breaks to do some treasure hunting. Here’s a look at the personal hauls, unique finds, signed keepsakes and souvenirs the Mindclash crew brought home from SPIEL.

Atesz

“This year I decided that I will do my “board game quest” on the first day of Essen. I looked into my schedule and saw a 2 hour free time at the end of day 1, perfect I thought. Our booth was in Hall 3 so I started there on the way until Hall 7. I made my list way before SPIEL started, so I was moving purposefully. 

I picked up both expansions packs, plus the token upgrade for A Wild Venture, because me and my wife love it. Next up I went to Uchibacoya booth to get Aqua Garden 2nd edition, because their games are hard to get at home, in Hungary. From there I picked up my preordered Night at the Zoo with all of its goodies in Hall 6. In this Hall I ended up gathering most of my haul: I picked up Solstis collectors edition from Kodama Games and got 4 little boxes from the Oink Games range: Pick ‘n’ Packers, Petiquette, Dro Polter and Rafter Five. 

After that I went to the Gate on Games booth where I wanted to get my missing pieces from their “furry animals” collection, which were: Biví and Toby 🙂 (I also saw some expansion decks for Foxy and Alpaca, where at this point I bought them too of course) so my collection is now full. We also love the series Disney Villainous, so I went to Hall 7 to Ravensburger booth to check whether they have some English version from some of their new expansions and I found one luckily: Success at Any Cost (Ernesto de la Cruz). 

And last but not least, I picked up Harmonies Crescendo, the expansion for my wife’s favourite board game.”

Villő 

“In the end, I only bought Biví on Atesz’s recommendation, plus I visited the artist section and got some prints from Maxine Metzger and Annemieke van Barlingen (Blue Fern). And I brought home my own copy of Courtroom, signed by Tünde and Robin.” 

Robin

“As an exhibitor in Essen, my game purchases aren’t so much driven by well-thought-out decisions as by my efforts to navigate based on quick impulses. Sometimes I have my eye on something in advance, but it doesn’t show up; other times, I hear good reviews about a game right there on the spot. 

This year, I ended up with a very diverse collection of games in my luggage. I’ve been keeping an eye on Ion Games’ historical games, and since they released a game themed around a witch hunt, I decided right there and then that I had to get my hands on Maleficium: Fall of the Witch Hunters. Similarly, my love for detective games led me to add Watson & Holmes: The Lost Diaries to my bag – an unexpected sequel to a game released ten years ago. One evening, Atesz showed me two of his latest purchases, the Tetris-style beaver dam game Biví and the scent-tracking cooperative game Toby. I liked both of them so much that I picked them up for myself the next day. 

And the strangest one is yet to come: Green Oaks, an RPG from Ares Games, in which players take on the roles of residents of a nursing home.”

Viktor

“I had surprisingly little time off the booth this year, so my “haul goals” weren’t too lofty: 1) get Kingdom Come – Deliverance and 2) get something I can play with my 7-year-old kid. KC:D was a no-brainer; with Through the Ages still being in my top 3 games of all time, how could I not get the new heavy game from Vlaada? Now, I just need to find some time to actually play it… 

As for #2, I only realized this Essen that Cascadia: Alpine Lakes completely fell off my radar, and since we play Cascadia all the time with my son these days, that was an easy pickup as well. The rest were just some cute little games that I might see play with my family at some point, and a very late pickup of Civolution, which I’m very much looking forward to playing again!”

Edina

“Although I can certainly make impulsive purchase decisions, I usually thoroughly think through every board game buy because of limited space. So the only thing I bought at SPIEL this year was a souvenir for my little boys: Pets on Mars from Haba. I’m really fond of the theme and the game is cooperative, which suits my 4- and 6-year-olds well (they are quite sore losers). I also think it helps develop a lot of different skills for young children like mine.”

Soma

“Every year, I arrive at Essen with the same noble intention: buy a few games, preferably none. By day two, that plan has usually left the building. This year was no exception, but I like to think I brought home some particularly special finds, or at least ones that are hard to get hold of. Top of my list was Labyrinth: Chronicles (I missed the crowdfunding campaign, so picking up a copy was my first order of business on Thursday). 

I also focused on publishers from East Asia whose games rarely make their way to Hungary: titles from Itten Games, Aqua Garden and Sweet Lands from Uchibacoya, and 1st Band and 1st CEO. Meanwhile, collecting Tomáš Holek’s games has become something of a religion for me. If you read last year’s recap, you’ll know that Tea Garden and SETI are huge favorites of ours, so naturally, Carpet Racers and Night at the Zoo came home with me too. (Kingdom Come: Deliverance arrived separately as a preorder from CGE. Even my enthusiasm has limits when it comes to sacrificing 7 kg of precious luggage allowance…) 

Plenty of other games found their way into my bags as well, so a few of them might make an appearance in my year-end recap. :)”

While we’re still waiting for the rest of the precious cargo to arrive in Budapest, the eternal struggle for shelf space and the agonizing question of what to play first have already begun.