Alex Randolph

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Alex Randolph (right) plays Twixt at the 1998 Göttingen game designer meeting

Alex Randolph (born May 4, 1922 in Bohemia , near Brno , † April 27, 2004 in Venice ) was the inventor of well over a hundred board games ( game designer ).

With games like Twixt , Sagaland , Incognito , Hol's der Geier , Frenzy Robots , Tempo, Little Snail and many other ideas, some of which have won awards, Randolph inspired generations of small and large players.

Because his games were in high demand, he was able to get the producers to have his name on the packaging as the game designer . His example subsequently prevailed many times over. "The grand seigneur of gaming culture was seen as a guru of the industry, especially in Germany," said Spiegel .

Life

Randolph's mother, who was born in Bohemia in 1922, was an American from Colorado , and his father was Russian. After a few years of youth in Venice , at the age of ten he was sent to a boarding school in Champéry , where he also learned French, Spanish and Italian. In 1938 he returned to his mother's home with the family.

During the Second World War , Randolph was an agent of the US intelligence service, for whom he deciphered enemy codes. He then wrote novels and copywriting in Boston. Randolph invented games early on; but he did not think that these could also be sold. Around 1959, one of his customers became aware of one of his self-developed games hanging on the wall. After Pan-Kai - a game made with pentomino stones - was published by Phillips in 1961 , he concentrated entirely on his hobby, inventing games. Randolph then lived in Vienna and developed the game Twixt in Café Hawelka in 1961 , which was published in 1962 and became a bestseller.

From the money he had earned through Twixt , he financed a study trip to Japan to learn Shogi , a variant of chess . He loved classic thinking games and was an enthusiastic game of chess and go. Many of his games released at the time are tactical games for two. Randolph lived in Japan for seven years before moving to Venice in the mid-1970s.

Randolph developed more family games, such as: B. 1981 Sagaland , 1985 Tempo, Little Snail , 1988 Get the Vulture and Incognito , 1989 Good Friends . Sagaland was named Game of the Year 1982 and the Inkognito game, developed with Leo Colovini , received the special prize “Beautiful Game” in 1988 and Gute Freunde the special prize “Children's Game” from the jury for Game of the Year.

Randolph received the special price for his 70th birthday in 1992 and for his life's work as a game designer at the German Games Prize .

In 1995 he founded the US game publisher Winning Moves together with Tom Kremer, Phil E. Orbanes and Mike Meyers . In the same year Randolph founded the Italian publisher Venice Connection with Leo Colovini and Dario de Toffoli .

In 1996 and 1997 Randolph received Venice Connection and Cast Off for the games ! the special prize “Nice game” and the special prize “Children's game” from the jury for the game of the year. In 1999 the successful game Frenzy Robots appeared .

Randolph died in Venice, his adopted home, at the age of almost 82; until the end he worked on new game ideas.

The Alex media prize , which has been awarded by the SAZ game designers' guild since 2005, is named after him.

Awards

literature

  • Alex Randolph et al. Phillipe Evrard: The sunny side. Fragments from the life of a game inventor. Manuscript translated from French by Kathi Kappler, Willy Dumaz u. Michel Matschoss. Preface by Herbert Feuerstein . Publishing house Drei Hasen in der Abendsonne, Uehlfeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-941345-09-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Father of all game designers , August 25, 2012
  2. DIED Alex Randolph . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 2004, pp. 186 ( online ).
  3. Alex Randolph in conversation with Knut-Michael Wolf about his first game
  4. a b Obituary for Alex Randolph ( memento from October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at Spielbox
  5. Alex Randolph at Franjos
  6. Pan-Kai in the BoardGameGeek game database (English) Pan-Kai in the BoardGameGeek game database (English)
  7. Jump up for three days in the world's largest "Spielothek" ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) November 28, 2008
  8. Amanshauser's World: 19 Italy
  9. Interview with Leo Colovini at hall9000.de