So then, Essen, why do you come?

Well, so I'm going to give you a very different answer this year from all other years.

This is a unique year for me.

I am not here professionally.

I'm here as a gamer just to reconnect with my friends.

I've been on a break for like five months.

I was really burned out.

Hang on, you turn around and you smile.

Yeah.

Uh, same with, uh, in ...

I've almost never, ever come up with a game mechanic that made me go, "I'm making a game around this." Um, I have pulled, uh, game mechanics out of a game to go, like, "I'm gonna use this in the future," and sometimes they've inspired a new game.

But even the new game they inspire, that, that mechanic usually gets thrown away [laughs] too.

So, like, uh, um, I get more inspired by, um, like I'll get inspired by a, a, a piece of art.

That's where Blood Rage came from.

Uh, I'll get inspired by, um, uh, a toy, uh, or by a, uh, a-Or sometimes, uh, uh, in some cases I was inspi- inspired by the Spiel des Jahres, the German Game of the Year Award, when I was reading Tom Felber's, um, uh, manifesto on what makes a good Spiel des Jahres.

Right.

the chakra of a modern classic?

I do.

Like, I believe it is.

I believe it is a little bit more noetic.

It's a little bit more artful.

And I do think like, it is like, I like the idea of games that feel like fountain games, right? So even though you're learning something new, your first thought is like, oh, this has always existed, kind of, right? Not that I already knew it.

There's a key and nuanced distinction there, right? Not that games that you already knew how to play, that's where mass market's going.

The actual mechanical innovation