Pure Knizia

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Reiner Knizia at the award ceremony of the German Games Prize 2008 in Essen

Reiner Walter Knizia (born November 16, 1957 in Illertissen ) is a German game designer . Of his over 600 published games, more than 20 million have been sold to date.

Many of his games have won multiple awards, including the German Game Prize four times and the main prize at the Austrian Game of Games three times . In 2008 he received both Game of the Year and Children's Game of the Year awards .

Life

Knizia studied physics and later mathematics at the University of Ulm , graduated there and obtained a Master of Science from Syracuse University in the USA. He obtained his doctorate for his work on “Characterization of multi-dimensional platform integrals” again in Ulm, for which he received a doctorate award in 1987.

Knizia was project manager and group leader for software development, finally deputy department director for information technology in the international business of a major German bank and department director for corporate planning at a major German bank. He was also general manager and on the board of a UK mortgage company. This was followed by teaching positions for project management and management techniques at several universities and institutes.

Game designer

Knizia while signing

Knizia developed his first own games when he was about eight years old. However, he only became more serious about games from the mid / late 1980s. One of the first games developed by Reiner Knizia was postal games for his zine Postspillion, founded in 1985 . Seven different postal games started between 1985 and 1987. The Postal Spillion was released by 2005, and its game Bretton Woods , which started in 1987, ran until April 2007.

In 1990 he published Digging at Hexagames and Goldrausch at Hans im Glück , which reached 5th place at the German Games Prize . In the same year his book New Tactic Games with Dice and Cards was published by Hugendubel .

He has been a full-time game designer since 1997, but had already published around 80 games by then. Between 1999 and 2001 Knizia was also chairman of the SAZ game designers' guild. In 2004, the total number of his published games was estimated at more than 200. Today his ludography includes more than 400 different games.

Knizia's games have received numerous awards. In 1993, 1998, 2000 and 2003 he received the German Games Prize for Modern Art , Euphrat & Tigris , Tadsch Mahal and Amun-Re, respectively , in 2003, 2004 and 2006 he received the main prize at the Austrian for King Arthur , Einfach Genial and Tal der Abenteuer Game of games . In 2008 he received for Keltis the award game of the year and for Who was it? the Children's Game of the Year award . In the Internet Top 100 Games List there are 16 Knizia games, six of them in the top 20 (as of 2004).

criticism

Reiner Knizia's games are said to be occasionally too dry and too mathematically perfect. But there are also counterexamples, such as King Arthur , an electronic board game published at the end of 2003 , or Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck , a simple dice game that was published in 2005 , which are entertaining and easy to understand. The claim that one can divide Knizia's games into two categories, the more complex and strategic "Knizia games" and the relaxed and more fortunate "Reiner games", does not apply, according to Knizia. He himself “does not want to put himself in these two boxes, namely 'Knizia games' and 'Reiner games'”, as one of his claims is to “do very diverse things”, e.g. B. also in the children's, puzzle and even electronics area.

Books

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Games - Reiner Knizia. In: Reiner Knizia. Retrieved December 25, 2015 (American English).
  2. ^ Reiner Knizia »Reiner Knizia. Retrieved December 13, 2017 (American English).
  3. ↑ Overview of the German PBM zines
  4. ↑ http://www.postspillion.de/bw/
  5. ↑ http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/Top100/list.txt
  6. ↑ http://www.hall9000.de/frames/rezi.html?/rubriken/spiele/rezensions/kritiken/ra.htm
  7. ↑ http://gamesweplay.de/razzia_amigo.html
  8. ↑ SWR2 Impulse: How do you invent games? Ellinor Krogmann in conversation with game designer Reiner Knizia (podcast) . SWR2.de. Retrieved August 28, 2009.

Web links

Commons : Reiner Knizia  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Reiner Knizia  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Knizia, Reiner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knizia, Reiner Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German game designer
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Illertissen , Germany