SPIEL Essen 2025: JELLY JELLY GAMES Summary
Guten Tag! This is Gen from JELLY JELLY GAMES!
From October 22nd to 26th, 2025, we exhibited at SPIEL Essen!
It’s the world’s largest analog board game fair, held every year in a huge exhibition hall where designers and publishers from all over the world gather.
Let's dive into our SPIEL report 2025.
October 20-21: Off to Germany!
We flew from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Düsseldorf via a layover in Istanbul - a total of 17 hours in the air!
October 21: Sightseeing in Germany!
To allow for possible flight delays or other issues, we arrived in Germany two days before the event. After leaving our suitcases at the hotel, we spent a day sightseeing.
We visited Duisburg, a city famous for its inland port formed at the junction of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers.
At the family-run board game store Roskothen, we were amazed by the 4,000 board games packed tightly into the small space.
We walked around a church, strolled along the river, and relaxed at a café.
The café’s restroom was completely blue! Apparently, this is a common European measure to prevent drug use.
It was a wonderful, leisurely day enjoying the sights and atmosphere of the city.
October 22: Booth Setup
The next day, we took the subway to the venue.
MESSE ESSEN is enormous, with two nearby stations: MESSE OST (near Hall 7)...
...and MESSE WEST (near Hall 3).
We entered from Hall 3, passing by several well-known company booths before reaching the JELLY JELLY GAMES booth.
Setup time! We did everything ourselves.
Our main title this year was “The Slasher,” a two-player cooperative trick-taking game where players gather items to escape a campsite terrorized by a killer.
Using four suits, the trick-taking mechanics feature:
- A suit that represents danger and a suit that mitigates it
- A suit that increases the number of items you can choose from (this can be good or bad depending on the context)
- A wild suits that changes depending on your current health
Because of these differences, the suits both you and your partner collect are vital! Each round also adds unique restrictions (based on the area of the campground you're in) to keep gameplay exciting.
Before we knew it, our booth was complete!
The large box illustration and tent facing the aisle really stood out.
October 23-26: Event Days
The excitement was unbelievable - lines stretched from the entrance gate all the way to the station!
Long lines!
Day 1: A roaring start!
Day 2: The tent at our booth was a huge hit.
Day 3: “YUBIBO” also made a strong showing!
Day 4: “The Slasher” completely sold out!
Japanese Exhibitors
Many Japanese publishers also participated, cheering each other on throughout the event.
Everyone looked satisfied and accomplished by the end!
Some of the other Japanese publishers included:
Arclight Games
Engames
Oink Games
itten, Saashi & Saashi
Sugorokuya
Korokoro Dou
SzpiLAB
Taipa Shijoushugi Series
Japon Brand
Nekomado
October 27-28: Farewell to Germany
The days after the event, we strolled around Düsseldorf until our flight. We found a super convenient luggage storage spot right next to the airport, explored the city, and and enjoyed some great food!
The Düsseldorf cityscape.
A Filet-O-Fish from the specialty restaurant “NORD SEE” (North Sea)
A gigantic pizza larger than four adult male hands combined!
The mix of old European buildings and modern architecture made Düsseldorf an endlessly fascinating city—one day wasn’t nearly enough! Reluctantly, we headed to the airport, endured another 17-hour flight, and arrived safely back in Japan.
Summary
We were thrilled to hear people say things like:
“I loved your game from last year, so I came again!”
“Will these games be available in Europe too?”
It really made us feel that JELLY JELLY GAMES is steadily gaining recognition among overseas board gamers.
We're also working hard to bring some of the amazing games we discovered this year to Japan. Please look forward to what’s next from JELLY JELLY GAMES!
That's all for our SPIEL 2025 report; thank you so much for reading!
Bis nächstes Jahr! (See you next year!)
Original article by Gen, JELLY JELLY GAMES
Translation by Matthew Moller, JELLY JELLY INTL