The Spiel des Jahres is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award was one of the major drivers of the quality of games coming out of Germany, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. A Spiel des Jahres nomination can increase the typical sales of a game from 500–3,000 copies to around 10,000, and the winner can usually expect to sell as many as 500,000 copies.
Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer.
Days of Wonder is a board game publisher founded in 2002 and owned by Asmodee Group since 2014. Days of Wonder distributes its games to 25 countries. It specializes in German-style board games and has branched out to include some online games. Days of Wonder has published games in several languages including English, Dutch, French, German, Russian, and Greek. Days of Wonder was co-founded by Eric Hautemont, Mark Kaufmann and Yann Corno.
Ticket to Ride is a railway-themed German-style board game designed by Alan R. Moon. It was illustrated by Julien Delval and Cyrille Daujean and published in 2004 by Days of Wonder. The game is also known as Zug um Zug (German), Les Aventuriers du Rail (French), Aventureros al Tren (Spanish), Wsiąść do pociągu (Polish), and Menolippu (Finnish).
Queen Games is a German publisher of tabletop games, based in Troisdorf and founded in 1992 by head Rajive Gupta, which specialises primarily in German-style, family-level games but has also published smaller numbers of both simpler, children's games and more complex, gamers' games.
Zooloretto is a board game designed by Michael Schacht, published in 2007 by Abacus Spiele and in English by Rio Grande Games. The premise of the game is that each player is the owner of a zoo, and must collect animals in order to attract visitors to their zoo. Having full, or nearly full, animal enclosures scores more points. However, if a player has too many animals such that they must be stored in their "barn", this causes them to lose points. Vending stalls also offer a means for players to score points with enclosures that are not full.
Walther M. Gerdts, known as Mac Gerdts, is the designer of German-style board games such as Imperial, Imperial 2030, Antike and Hamburgum. His games introduced the concept of a rondel rather than dice as a mechanism for play. This is designed to prevent players from repeatedly taking the same action in quick succession without paying a cost.
Agricola is a Euro-style board game created by Uwe Rosenberg. It is a worker placement game with a focus on resource management. In Agricola, players are farmers who sow, plow the fields, collect wood, build stables, buy animals, expand their farms and feed their families. After 14 rounds players calculate their score based on the size and prosperity of the household.
Bézier Games, Inc. is a privately owned American tabletop game publisher, known by hobby gamers for Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Suburbia, and known to casual gamers for the One Night Ultimate Werewolf series, Werewords, the Silver series, and Ultimate Werewolf. It was founded in San Jose, California in 2006 by Ted Alspach upon publication of Start Player. In 2013, the company was renamed Bézier Games, Inc. when it incorporated. The company moved to Louisville, Tennessee in 2016 run by Ted & Toni Alspach.
Vladimír Chvátil, often known professionally as Vlaada Chvátil, is a Czech board game and video game designer. He became a recognizable name in the board game community following the publication of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization in 2006 and thereafter his designs frequently made the top 100 list on BoardGameGeek. In 2016, he won the coveted "Spiel des Jahres" award for Codenames. In 2019, he entered the Origins Award Hall of Fame.
Istanbul is a Euro-style board game designed by Rüdiger Dorn and illustrated by Andreas Resch and Hans-Georg Schneider, published in 2014 by Pegasus Spiele.
Splendor is a multiplayer card-based board game, designed by Marc André and illustrated by Pascal Quidault. It was published in 2014 by Space Cowboys, Asmodee. Players are gem merchants of the Renaissance, developing gem mines, transportation, and shops to accumulate prestige points. Splendor received positive reviews and received numerous awards, including winner of Golden Geek Best Family Board Game, and nominated for the Spiel des Jahres Game of the Year in 2014. The game also received a mobile application and an expansion released in 2017.
Jaipur is a card game for two players. It was created by Sébastien Pauchon in 2009 and published by Asmodee. Players assume the roles of powerful merchants in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. The aim is to receive two "seals of excellence" and be invited to the court of the Maharaja. The game focuses on buying, exchanging, and selling at better prices, all while keeping an eye on both your camel herds.
Blue Orange is a French board game company based in Pont-à-Mousson, France. Often called Blue Orange international or Blue Orange Europe and mistaken for Blue Orange Games.
Colt Express is a railway-themed family board game designed by Christophe Raimbault, Illustrated by Ian Parovel and Jordi Valbuena, published in 2014 by Ludonaute and distributed by Asmodee.
Love Letter is a card game introduced in May 2012 and designed by Seiji Kanai. Its first English-language edition was produced in the United States by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) until 2018, when Love Letter was acquired by Z-Man Games.
Ian Parovel, is a French art director, film director, game designer, screenwriter, and designer living in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Werewords is a board game for 4 to 10 players designed by Ted Alspach and published by Bézier Games in 2017. Players guess a secret word by asking questions. There are different roles randomly assigned at the start of play. Villagers try to find out the magic word before the time is up while the werewolves are trying to mislead them.
Spyfall is a 2014 card game for 3–8 players designed by Alexandr Ushan and published by Hobby World. A sequel, Spyfall 2, was published in 2017. A superhero themed variant, DC Spyfall, was published in 2018.
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and tabletop role-playing games published in 2019. For video games, see 2019 in video gaming.
