Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer.
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used alongside other traditional, often older, standard packs with different suit systems such as those with German-, Italian-, Spanish- or Swiss suits. The most common pattern of French-suited cards worldwide and the only one commonly available in Britain and the United States is the English pattern pack. The second most common is the Belgian-Genoese pattern, designed in France, but whose use spread to Spain, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and much of North Africa and the Middle East. In addition to those, there are other major international and regional patterns.
El Grande is a German-style board game for 2-5 players, designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich, and published in 1995 by Hans im Glück in German, by Rio Grande Games in English, and by 999 Games in Dutch. The game board represents renaissance-era Spain where the nobility fight for control of the nine regions. El Grande was awarded the Spiel des Jahres prize and the Deutscher Spiele Preis in 1996.
Ravensburger AG is a German game and toy company, publishing house and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market.
Labyrinth is a board game for two to four players, published by Ravensburger in 1986.
Hare and Tortoise is a Eurogame designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games. In 1978 it was released by Ravensburger in Germany, and received generally positive reviews critically and won the 1979 Spiel des Jahres. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages. The current editions are published by Gibsons Games in the UK, Ravensburger in Germany and Rio Grande Games in the United States.
Alan R. Moon is an author of board games, born in Southampton, England. He is generally considered to be one of the foremost designers of German-style board games. Many of his games can be seen as board game variations on the travelling salesman problem.
Hoity Toity is a board game created by Klaus Teuber in 1990.
Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, commonly referred to as Piatnik, is an Austrian playing card and board game manufacturing company based in Vienna.
Auf Achse is a logistics-themed board game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and published in 1987 by FX Schmid. The game won the Spiel des Jahres award. In 1992, a junior edition was released; and in 1994 a rummy-like card game spinoff was released. In 2007 a revised edition was published by Schmidt Spiele.
Cego is a Tarot game for three or four players played with eponymous German Tarot cards. The game was probably derived from Dreierles after soldiers returned from Spain during the Napoleonic Wars who introduced its distinctive feature: the large talon called the Blinde. Cego has been called the national game of Baden and described as a "family classic".
Enchanted Forest is a board game designed by Alex Randolph and Michel Matschoss that requires players to remember the locations of fairytale treasures. The first edition of the game was published by Ravensburger in Germany in 1981 under the original name Sagaland.
Réunion, Reunion or Vereinigungsspiel is an historical German point-trick game for three players which, despite its French name, appears to have originated in the Rhineland. It is a 10-card game of the Ace-Ten family and uses a 32-card French-suited piquet pack or 32-card Skat pack. Players who cannot follow suit must trump. Otherwise the game can be described as a simplified version of Skat, but is also reminiscent of Euchre with its two permanent top trumps, the Right and Left Bowers.
German-suited playing cards are a very common style of traditional playing card used in many parts of Central Europe characterised by 32- or 36-card packs with the suits of Acorns, Leaves, Hearts and Bells. The German suit system is one of the oldest, becoming standard around 1450 and, a few decades later, influencing the design of the now international French suit system of Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds. Today German-suited playing cards are common in south and east Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, Liechtenstein, north Italy, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, northern Serbia and central and western Romania.
Las Vegas is a board game designed by Rüdiger Dorn and published by Ravensburger in 2012. It is named after the city of Las Vegas in Nevada, United States and has a gambling theme. The game was also nominated for the Spiel des Jahres prize in 2012.
Brandeln is an historical card game for four players in which three play against a soloist. It is one of the earliest games to use the terms Bettel – a contract to lose every trick – and Mord - a contract to win every trick. One of several card games mastered by Mozart, Brandeln is still current in Austria and Germany today. It has been described as having a "civilized, refined and ingenious character" and "one of the most pleasant card games".
ASS Altenburger is since 2003 the trademark of the German playing card manufacturer Spielkartenfabrik Altenburg, based in the town of Altenburg. The firm is owned by Cartamundi, of Turnhout, Belgium. ASS claims to be the market leader in Germany for playing cards. Every year almost 40 million packs of cards of many different types are manufactured in Altenburg.
The tabletop game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing, and monetization of games that fall within the scope of tabletop games, which includes dice and card games. According to Statista, the tabletop game industry had an estimated market of approximately 7.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and is expected to increase by 4.8 billion U.S. dollars within the next 6 years.
Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag (NSV) is a German playing card manufacturer and board game publisher based in Nuremberg. It was founded in 1989 after outsourcing from the publishing house of F.X. Schmid and builds on the "Heinrich Schwarz Playing Card Factory, Nuremberg" founded in 1948. The company produces playing cards and dice games s and, especially in recent years, increasingly proprietary games from various game authors.
Breakaway Rider is a board game published in 1963 by F.X. Schmid.
