Klaus Teuber

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Klaus Teuber in Essen, 2017

Klaus Teuber (born June 25, 1952 in Rai-Breitenbach , Odenwaldkreis ) is the inventor of The Settlers of Catan and one of the most famous game designers in Germany. It won the Game of the Year award four times and the German Games Prize four times .

He lives in Roßdorf near Darmstadt .

Life

Teuber is a trained master dental technician and has been a full-time game designer since 1999. His first work Barbarossa was game of the year in 1988 . In 1990 and 1991 his games were committed to Adel and Drunter & Drüber was also named Game of the Year.

Teuber was having trouble finding a publisher for his next game. Pleitegeier  - the later vernissage , a board game that was above average complex for the time - would have been included in the series of bestselling author's games by a large publisher , but only on the condition that Teuber transfer the right to change the game to this publisher would have. He did not agree with that. For this reason, he and his partners founded their own publishing company, TM-Spiele . The TM debut vernissage was not taken note of by the Game of the Year jury. In 1993, however, it was enough for third place at the German Games Prize.

TM-Spiele, which initially had four and later five shareholders, was facing bankruptcy after just two years. In this situation, an offer came from the toy company Simba Toys , who wanted to set up a line of games to complement the program, but had no experience in this area. TM was commissioned with the development of initially four games under the name Goldsieber . The Goldsieber program was received with enthusiasm in the gaming scene. Line 1 and Galopp Royal made it onto the game of the year selection list in 1995, line 1 and starry sky made it to place 2 and 3 of the German Games Prize. Since the negotiations between Simba Toys and TM dragged on for a long time, Teuber decided that his game The Settlers of Catan should appear in 1995 in the Franckh Games Gallery of the games company Kosmos Spiele . Two houses had already rejected the game or were demanding significant thematic changes.

For Teuber - who at that time was still working as a self-employed master dental technician - it became more and more difficult to run Goldsieber and Kosmos in parallel. It therefore made sense for him to bundle all TM activities at Kosmos and to conclude an exclusive contract with this publisher for his writing activities in mid-1997, which was a first in the industry. In 1999 he sold the dental laboratory he had taken over from his father and became a full-time game inventor.

The Settlers of Catan became the most famous board game of recent times. Several other titles appeared within the Catan family, both expansions and stand-alone games. The Prof. Easy game introductions, which appeared both as small brochures and later as Internet animations, were a novelty . Teuber made it much easier to get started with his games with these rules he had devised.

In 2002 Klaus Teuber founded Catan GmbH together with his son Guido Teuber and transferred the license rights to his games to them. This company is responsible for the contacts to the worldwide license partners of its board games and the computer implementation. His son Benjamin also works in the family business.

In 2010 Klaus Teuber received the As d'Or for his life's work.

method

According to Teuber, at the beginning of a game idea there is always a story. In his first published game, Barbarossa and the Riddlers , he wanted to take up the atmosphere of Patricia A. McKillip's fantasy trilogy Erdzauber . An important motive for him is discovery: “You don't know exactly where to go, you have a wish, a vague idea, you see a castle appear in the fog - and you want to go there.” With this thought he tries out ideas . “Actually, I still prefer to work intuitively, from the gut. There is nothing prefabricated, no template, but a lot of tension. "

Games

Board and card games

Klaus Teuber explains the two-person game Starship Catan (2001)

From 2015 together with his son Benjamin :

Computer games

  • 1999 Catan - The first island
  • 2000 The Star Riders from Catan
  • 2001 Catan - The Card Game
  • 2002 Catan Online World (as a premium service at T-Online)
  • 2003 lion heart
  • 2003 Starship Catan
  • 2003 Cities & Knights (only online in the Catan Online World)
  • 2003 Nobility obligated (only online in the Catan Online World)
  • 2005 Elasund (only online in the Catan Online World)
  • 2007 Catan Online World new beginning (on own servers)
  • 2007 Multicatan (as a special online world version)
  • 2007 Catan for XBox Live Arcade
  • 2008 Catan - The First Island - Mobile (for cell phones)
  • 2008 Catan - Cities and Knights for the PC and Mac
  • 2013 Catan - Creator's Edition for PC and Mac

literature

Web links

Commons : Klaus Teuber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Time: The Creator of Catan , March 10, 2008
  2. ↑ a b Frankfurter Rundschau: This is what settlers look like , June 22, 2012
  3. ↑ Klaus Teuber is honored for his life's work in Cannes
  4. ↑ Baden-Württemberg Catan
  5. ^ Vienna Catan
  6. ↑ The Settlers of Catan ( Memento of the original dated December 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Xbox.com, accessed August 22, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.xbox.com
personal data
SURNAME Teuber, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German game designer
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Rai-Breitenbach