Best games released at SPIEL 1998 in Essen 2026

Players rely on strategies to manage numbered cards from 1 to 98, featuring green cards for positive points and red cards for negative points. In this game, players create sets of cards, but the fifth card played takes the entire set. Players take turns, playing one to three cards from their hand during their turn.

Catan: Seafarers is an expansion to the popular board game CATAN, adding new elements and strategies to the base game. This expansion focuses on exploration and building across water, introducing shipping lanes and various water-based scenarios.

Kahuna is a strategic two-player game set in the South Seas, where players take on the roles of Kahuna – powerful sorcerers of the Pacific. The game revolves around competing for dominance over an archipelago of twelve small islands.

Café International is a strategic board game that simulates the seating arrangements of guests from different nationalities in an international cafe. The game intricately combines tile placement and puzzle-solving elements, challenging players to thoughtfully arrange multi-national customers around tables to earn points while adhering to specific seating rules.

Players engage in a trick-taking game that combines elements of Frank's Zoo and Hattrick. There are four colors with values ranging from 1 to 10, where higher values beat lower ones, and specific cards like the network or joker have special rules. Winning a trick with a network or playing the last card leads to a new hand, while players can exchange a poor hand for a new one, continuing the strategic calculations throughout the game.

Players engage in an abstract two-player game that focuses on creating connections, similar to Hex. Each player uses pegs and links to build a continuous path across a 24x24 board, connecting their respective sides while preventing their opponent from doing the same. The game includes strategic elements, such as the ability to swap sides after the first move, which helps balance the advantage of going first.

Players engage in a conflict between two factions, the Rose and the Eagle, using power cards to sway the allegiance of districts. They choose roles such as Diplomat, Traitor, and Builder, each granting special abilities for the round. The Traitor's ability to shift loyalties at the start of the conflict can be particularly devastating, with points awarded for winning districts, taking on specific roles, and building counting houses.

As part of the Ravensburger Labyrinth game series, the labyrinth is transformed into a circular format and features a rock-paper-scissors combat system. Most reviewers find it disappointing compared to other games in the series. The first player to collect seven treasures or seven trolls (or steals them from another player) wins the game.

Players secure valuable markets through affordable trade routes between medieval cities while pushing opponents into less profitable markets. Cities have a variable number of spaces where players can develop businesses or establish new trade routes to distant towns. Generating income can risk dominance over a city, but establishing branches within a city can lower product value while increasing market influence. The player with the greatest influence at the end wins.