Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer. He was born in West Germany in 1957 and earned a doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Ulm before designing games full time. He is frequently included on lists of the greatest game designers of all time. Many of his hundreds of designs are considered modern classics, and many have won or been nominated for significant gaming awards, including the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis. His notable designs include Amun-Re, Blue Moon City, Ingenious, Keltis, Lord of the Rings, Medici, Modern Art, Ra, Taj Mahal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert. Many of his designs incorporate mathematical principles, such as his repeated use of auction mechanics.
Fortress America is a strategic board wargame designed by Michael Gray and published in 1986 by Milton Bradley. The game depicts a 21st Century United States being invaded on three sides by three world powers. Fortress America was the fourth of five games in the Gamemaster series.
Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.
GMT Games is a California-based wargaming publisher founded in 1990. The company has become well known for graphically attractive games that range from "monster games", of many maps and counters, to quite simple games suitable for introducing new players to wargaming. They also produce card games and family games. The current management and creative team includes Tony Curtis, Rodger MacGowan, Mark Simonitch, and Andy Lewis.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards is an annual award for excellence in manual, tabletop games, with a focus on "conflict simulations", which includes simulations of non-military as well as military conflicts, as well as simulations of related historical topics. From its founding in 1975 through 2021, the award was almost exclusively focused on historical wargaming, changing to a broader "conflict simulations" in award year 2022.
Rummikub is a tile-based game for 2 to 4 players, combining elements of the card game rummy and mahjong. There are 106 tiles in the game, including 104 numbered tiles and two jokers. Players have 14 tiles initially and take turns putting down tiles from their racks into sets of at least three, drawing a tile if they cannot play. Players have a one- or two-minute time limit for their turn. In the Sabra version, the first player to use all their tiles scores a positive score based on the total of the other players' hands, while the losers get negative scores. Variations of the game contain four jokers. An important feature of the game is that players can move and reuse the tiles that have already been placed on the table. The game can also be played with 2 decks of playing cards with suit being different colors and number as follows : Ace = 1, Number 2-10 = their number, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13 and with Jokers.
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition to the game database, the site allows users to rate games on a 1–10 scale and publishes a ranked list of board games.
Tikal is a German-style board game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling and published in 1999 by Ravensburger in German and by Rio Grande Games in English. Set in a Central American jungle, in Tikal players aim to discover artifacts, excavate, and maintain temple control to gain victory points.
Richard Harvey Berg was a prolific American wargame designer. He was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame in 1987.
Ephraim Hertzano was a Romanian-born Israeli board game designer. He is the inventor of the board game Rummikub.
James M. Day is an American game designer best known for military based board games, computer games, card games, and miniature rules. He is also an accomplished historian and military weaponry subject matter expert.
Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945–1989 is a board game for two players, published by GMT Games in 2005. Players are the United States and Soviet Union contesting each other's influence on the world map by using cards that correspond to historical events. The first game designed by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews, they intended it to be a quick-playing alternative to more complex card-driven wargames.
Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published by Z-Man Games in the United States in 2008. Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game accommodates two to four players, each playing one of seven possible roles: dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher, operations expert, contingency planner, or quarantine specialist. Through the combined effort of all the players, the goal is to discover all four cures before any of several game-losing conditions are reached.
Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd is an Irish games company that creates and publishes tabletop games. Best known for its Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings games, Cubicle 7 offers titles covering a range of licensed and self-developed properties.
Washington's War is a card-driven board wargame from GMT Games designed by Mark Herman. The game is set in during the American Revolutionary War and the map depicts the east coast of the United States. One player controls the American forces and the other player the British. The game is designed for two players and takes between ninety minutes and two hours to play.
Freedom: The Underground Railroad is a 2013 co-operative board game designed by Brian Mayer and published by Academy Games, their first game in the Freedom Series. The game has drawn positive attention for its approach and handling of the topic.
Plaid Hat Games is a United States–based board game studio. Plaid Hat Games was founded in 2009. Board game designer Colby Dauch formed the board game publishing company in order to release the company's first game, Summoner Wars.
Craig Besinque is a wargame designer from British Columbia, Canada, who grew up in Arcadia, California. Most of his games are block wargames which have World War II as a theme. In 1991, his game East Front, co-designed with Tom Dalgliesh, won the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best World War Two Game, a James F. Dunnigan Award for playability and design, and the Origins Award for best Modern-era wargame. His game Triumph & Tragedy was the runner-up for the best 2015 Golden Geek Wargame. His other popular games have included Rommel in the Desert and Hellenes: Campaigns of the Peloponnesian War.
Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001–? is a board game for one or two players, published by GMT Games in 2010.
