So there I was, hitting the showroom floor at 09:11 o’clock. Boy was I excited! Roaming the halls with my buddy Alex.

First stop was Dreadnought from Grey Box Games. The introduction movie wasn’t anything new but the quick battle after was a lot of fun and despite of me our team won. Yeah! The Instagram-thingy didn’t really work but we got a cool T-Shirt.

Next up was the Microsoft ID@XBOX booth. Which was a bit difficult to find, but we managed. And there was a treat waiting. Oh boy! Terrible Toybox, Inc. (Better known as Ron Gilbert and his merry men) showed Thimbleweed Park and you could have a nice chat with Robert Megone. And so I did. Also we took a sneak peak at We Happy Few from Compulsion Games. I didn’t touch any of the two because I don’t want to spoil the fun for me but both looked stunning.

A big (really big) presentation was Blizzard. I mean it was massiv! But nothing really new. Sadly.

We then wandered a bit aimlessly through the halls until I saw a big sign for the new South Park game „Fractured but whole„. You’ve got to love the guys for their way with words. Looks as promising as „Stick of truth“ was. We shall see.

Onward! TO GLORY! We passed by the Dawn Of War III booth which had an enourmus line waiting at this rather „empty“ day and I don’t want to know how „bad“ this will get, when the public streams into the halls.

Nintendo was up next and it was crowded. Sadly the mini NES was just a mock-up. But it all felt very cosy.

I had still some unchecked boxes on my to-do list and one of them was Star Citizen. The waiting line was way to long for my taste (hey, I can play that game at home too ;)) but lucky me, right on the other side was Lawbreakers by Boss Key Productions. Usually not my type of game but Rohan Rivas was there and this was the first time to shake hands with someone who’s work I’ve been following for years now. (Remember gametrailers.com?) And so we did shake hands and had a nice chat. And a picture. But the camera ate the picture. No!!!

Time for yet another meeting with strangers. The very nice folks from PlayWood Project Aps (Michael Rud Jakobsen and Jens-Emil Kristensen) had some time to spare and talk about the future and visions of Wartile. (Go check out the demo right now!) It’s really awesome to meet creators in real life.

After all that blinking lights we too a break. And wandered the halls of fanservice. Fanshops! SHOPS!

But what we stumbled upon there was really a surprise. Smach Z, the handheld steam maschine had a booth and you could try the prototype. Sadly they had technical problems so we could hold it but not really use it. The prototype was rather big and heavy but that will change with the final version. Kickstarter will go live September 1st. I’m curious.

After that, we wandered a bit more, tried various games and finally (after close to 8 hours) settled for „we are tired, let’s head back“. It was big fun and next year I’ll be back.