You've been in Essen, J? Cool.
I can only imagine the towers of worker placement games...
Last night I played some
Coup and
Avalon, which always go over well. I also played
Zombicide and
Munchkin. I gotta tell ya, I'm not too impressed by geek culture games anymore. You can usually tell what they are from the aggressive "promo" mini-expansions that outnumber a village, the derivative characters that range from uninspired to outright rip-off, and the tired movement rules that extend the play time well beyond its welcome.
Zombicide is certainly no exception, although it seems to be adopting a TV-season-like approach with its expansions. I'd rather play Pandemic: Legacy.
And
Munchkin. It's an almost-game. There is a mechanic, believe it or not. I haven't played
Fluxx, but I imagine it's not too different from this. The thing is, if everyone's playing to win, then the game will never end until the right combination of cards comes up. Before then, you're subjected to endless D&D jokes that weren't that funny the first time. We were playing the Axe Cop version, which, eh, at least highlighted how random everything is.