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.
Can't Stop is a board game designed by Sid Sackson originally published by Parker Brothers in 1980; however, that edition has been long out of print in the United States. It was reprinted by Face 2 Face Games in 2007. An iOS version was developed by Playdek and released in 2012. The goal of the game is to "claim" three of the columns before any of the other players can. But the more that the player risks rolling the dice during a turn, the greater the risk of losing the advances made during that turn.
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.
TwixT is a two-player strategy board game, an early entrant in the 1960s 3M bookshelf game series. It became one of the most popular and enduring games in the series. It is a connection game where players alternate turns placing pegs and links on a pegboard in an attempt to link their opposite sides. While TwixT itself is simple, the game also requires strategy, so young children can play it, but it also appeals to adults. The game has been discontinued except in Germany and Japan.
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 praised for its area-control mechanism, and was awarded the Spiel des Jahres prize and the Deutscher Spiele Preis in 1996. Following its release, several expansions and an alternative version were published.
Railway Rivals is a railroad-themed board game that was originally published by Rostherne Games in 1973. A German language edition was released by Bütehorn in 1979, and a mass-market edition in the UK by Games Workshop in 1985. The game involves railway building and operations.
Wolfgang Kramer is a German board game designer.
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.
Orient Express is a crime fiction board game published by Jumbo and Just Games. The game is based on the 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. The game was designed by Jeff Smets and released in 1985. The game contains 10 different murder cases, each of which can be played only once. Five new plots were released in 1987.
Diamant is a multiplayer card game designed by Alan R. Moon and Bruno Faidutti, published in 2005 in Germany by Schmidt Spiele, with illustrations provided by Jörg Asselborn, Christof Tisch, and Claus Stephan.
Marrakech is a board game designed by Dominique Ehrhard in which players are competing carpet traders in the city of Marrakech. It was first published in 2007. Its German edition has been renamed Suleika.
Michael Schacht is a German game designer, graphician and owner of the small publishing company Spiele aus Timbuktu.
Um Reifenbreite is a bicycle racing themed board game for two to four players. It was invented by Rob Bontenbal.
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.
Schoko & Co. is a board game published in 1987 by Schmidt Spiele that simulates life in a chocolate factory.
Hexagames was a German game publisher in Dreieich, which existed from 1982 to 1992. It was one of the most famous German game publishers of the 1980s, notable for publishing games such as Lines of Action (1988) and Cosmic Encounter (1992).
Uisge, also known as Skorpion, is a strategy board game created by Roland Siegers and published in 1984 by Hexagames in which two players attempt to be the first to flip all their playing stones on a rectangular grid.
Abilene is a western board game designed by Roland Siegers. It was published in 1984 by Hexagames and re-published in 1993 by Schmidt Spiele. It is set in the city of Abilene during 1870, which at the time was considered the main transshipment point for the herds of the Texan cattle barons. In the game, each player plays as a rancher who, with the help of their cowboys, drives their herds to Abilene, trying to capture parts of their opponents' herds along the way.
