Elizabeth Hargrave | |
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | LBJ School of Public Affairs Brown University |
| Occupation | Game designer |
| Years active | 2014 - Present |
| Known for | 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres for Wingspan |
| Notable work | Wingspan |
Elizabeth Hargrave is an American game designer. She has designed several games, including Wingspan , which won the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres for best connoisseur game of the year, Tussie-Mussie and Mariposas. [1]
Hargrave grew up in Florida. Her father was a biochemist. Growing up, she played games with her family, particularly Scrabble and hearts, and played gin rummy in high school. [2] In 1994, she graduated from Brown University, [3] and she went on to earn her Master's in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. [4] Following this, Hargrave worked for many years in Washington, DC, first at the Department of Health and Human Services [5] and later as a public policy analyst at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. Her policy research included prescription drug policy, and work on a report to the U.S. Congress by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. [6] Hargrave was featured in a US News Money article discussing the U.S. 2012 Medicare Part D Plan. [7] She travelled to Belize in 2019 to volunteer her time supporting research scientists who track shark and stingray populations. She assisted with the catching, tagging and measurement of stingrays and sharks. [8]
Meeting regularly with others from the Washington, DC area to play board games, [6] Hargrave got the idea to start designing games based on themes from nature in 2014 at one such event, according to Audubon : [9] To another interviewer, Hargrave explained she felt "there were too many games about castles and space, and not enough games about things I’m interested in. So I decided to make a game about something I cared about." [10] Hargrave designed Wingspan using online data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and from the National Audubon Society. [6] She describes the game as "a card-based engine-building game about bringing birds into a nature preserve." [8] Hargrave pitched the game (then called "Bring in the Birds") [11] to three different publishers at Gen Con in 2016; it was bought by Stonemaier Games. [8] Published in 2019, the game sold 44,000 copies worldwide over three printings in its first two months of release, [6] with the publisher issuing a public apology for not having more copies available. [12] Wingspan received critical acclaim for its theme, component quality, accessibility, and gameplay. [13] [14] [15] [16] It also won the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres for best connoisseur game of the year. [17]
Hargrave created the game Tussie Mussie in 2018 during the month leading up to the 2018 Game Design contest of Gen Can't. [8] Each game card shows a different flower, together with text describing its secret meaning in the Victorian "language of flowers." After winning the Gen Can't contest, the game was published in 2019 by Button Shy Games, funded by a Kickstarter campaign with a $1000 goal that instead brought in more than $80,000. [18]
Hargrave had begun work on Mariposas (Spanish for "butterflies"), a game about migrating monarch butterflies in 2018, and she sold it to game publisher Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG), who had put out a call for women game designers, in 2019. [19] Hargrave told an interviewer the project was inspired partly by visiting a Mexican butterfly sanctuary in 2003 and partly by reading Barbara Kingsolver's 2012 novel Flight Behavior . [19] It was published in 2020 and was described as family-friendly game aimed at a broader audience than Wingspan. [20] [21] [22] [23] The game's components and its environmental message also earned praise. [24] [25]
Hargrave published a game about fox domestication, The Fox Experiment, in 2023. In November 2023 she published Undergrove, a game about mushrooms. [26]
Hargrave was described by the New York Times as "a spreadsheet geek". She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband, landscape designer Matt Cohen. [6]
A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, is a class of tabletop games that generally has complex rules, indirect player interaction, and multiple ways to score points. Eurogames are sometimes contrasted with American-style board games, which generally involve more luck, conflict, and drama. They are usually less abstract than chess or Go, but more abstract than wargames. Likewise, they generally require more thought and planning than party games such as Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit.
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.
The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world. There are completely independent Audubon Societies in the United States, which were founded several years earlier such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Indiana Audubon Society, and Connecticut Audubon Society. The societies are named for 19th century naturalist John James Audubon.
Kotaro Oshio is an acoustic guitarist from Japan. Born in Suita, Osaka, on February 1, 1968, he is best known for his work on the steel string guitar. Oshio is a part of Sony Music Japan's SME Records division. Oshio was voted the second greatest Japanese guitarist in a 2019 poll held by goo.
Rüdiger Dorn is a German-style board game designer who is married and has three children. He lives in Pfofeld near Nuremberg.
Dominion is a card game created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games. Originally published in 2008, it was the first deck-building game, and inspired a genre of games building on its central mechanic. Each player begins with a small deck of cards, which they improve by purchasing cards from a common supply that varies from game to game. Each turn, players draw from their deck and use the cards drawn to purchase new cards or perform other actions. Once a player's draw pile is depleted, they reshuffle their discard pile back into their draw pile, thus allowing cards purchased on prior turns to be drawn and played on future turns. The player who has the most victory points by the end of the game wins.
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.
Blood Rage is a Viking themed board game designed by Eric Lang and published by CMON Limited in 2015. Each player controls a clan of mythological Vikings seeking glory as Ragnarok approaches. Played in three ages or rounds, Blood Rage features card drafting, battles and territory control via forces represented by sculpted plastic miniatures. All conflicts are resolved through playing cards, and cards are also used to improve and differentiate the different clans and the leaders, warriors, ships and monsters at their command.
Terraforming Mars is a board game for 1 to 5 players designed by Jacob Fryxelius and published by FryxGames in 2016, and thereafter by 12 others, including Stronghold Games. In Terraforming Mars, players take the role of corporations working together to terraform the planet Mars by raising the temperature, adding oxygen to the atmosphere, covering the planet's surface with water and creating plant and animal life. The game incorporates elements of resource management, engine building, and strategic planning. Players compete to earn the most victory points, which are measured by their contribution to terraforming and to human infrastructure. These goals are achieved by collecting income and resources which allow them to play various projects, represented by cards that increase their income or resources, build infrastructure, or directly contribute to terraforming the planet. The game was received positively by fans and critics, and received numerous awards.
Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game for one to four players designed by Isaac Childres and published by Cephalofair Games in 2017. It is a campaign-based dungeon crawl game including a narrative campaign, 95 unique playable scenarios, and 17 playable classes. Since its introduction the game has been acclaimed by reviewers, and has been described as one of the best board games ever made.
The Quacks of Quedlinburg, also known as Quacksalber, is a board game designed by Wolfgang Warsch and first published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018. After winning the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2018, an English version of the game was released by North Star Games.
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.
Wingspan is a board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It is a card-driven, engine-building board game in which players compete to attract birds to their wildlife reserves. During the game's development process, Hargrave constructed personal charts of birds observed in Maryland, with statistics sourced from various biological databases; the special powers of birds were also selected to resemble real-life characteristics. Upon its release, Wingspan received critical and commercial acclaim for its gameplay, accurate thematic elements, and artwork. The game also won numerous awards, including the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres. Several expansions and a digital edition have been subsequently published.
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is a board game for 3–5 players designed by Thomas Sing and released in 2019. In The Crew, a trick-taking cooperative card game with 50 missions, players aim to win tricks based on their task cards, but can only communicate limited information on their cards. Upon its release, The Crew received critical success and won numerous awards. A sequel, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, was released in 2021.
Dominant Species is a 2010 competitive, area control board game published by GMT Games, designed by Chad Jensen. The game is an evolution-themed game in which players take on the role of broad categories of life: mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, arachnids, and insects in a world heading for the Ice Age.
Rosemary Mosco is a cartoonist and writer working in science communication. She is best known for the science-and-nature comic Bird and Moon, and her graphic novels about nature. She also published a best-selling travel guide for children.
Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is a tile-laying board game designed by Alexander Pfister and Andreas Pelikan that was published in 2015. It uses the Isle of Skye as its setting, with players representing clan chieftains each vying to build a kingdom.
Cartographers is a roll and write board game designed by Jordy Adan and published in 2019 by Thunderworks Games. It is part of the Roll Player universe. In the game, players aim to draw terrains based on drawn cards that award points based on the relevant letter cards. The game received positive reviews, and was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres, but lost to The Crew. It was also runner-up to Parks for the Best Family Game of the 2019 Board Game Quests Awards. An app for solitary play was released in 2020.
Ark Nova is a strategic board game for up to four people. It was designed by game designer Mathias Wigge, and first published in 2021. In Ark Nova, players aim to score conservation and appeal points by building a zoo. Upon its release, Ark Nova received positive reviews and received several awards.
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