News and events of years (or days) past.

Old announcements and information surrounding games and puzzles.

Also check out the All in the Game newsletter for 2003 and newsletter for 2004.

Goodbye Lover

Film critic Roger Ebert described the recent film “Goodbye Lover” as “not so much a story as some kind of a board game, with too many pieces and not enough rules.”

THE 1ST ANNUAL TOY AND GAME
PROFESSIONAL INVENTOR SUMMIT

at CHICAGO’S NAVY PIER IN CONJUNCTION WITH
THE TAGIE AWARDS & CHICAGO TOY AND GAME FAIR

NOVEMBER 18 – 20, 2011

The Summit is only for professional inventors. The cost is only $500, $250 of which covers your ticket to the Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Awards, the TAGIEs, on the 18th. 

Our lineup for the Inventor Workshop Sessions alone is worth signing up for the Summit (the included presentations and meetings with company inventor relations execs and the TAGIE Awards make it not-to-be-missed)!

INVENTOR SUMMIT WORKSHOPS
10:00 AM TBA  3-D Modeling Printer
11:00 AM Pat Mattews - Tracking Prototypes and Royalties
1:00 PM Sal DiSanto - Auditing Companies
2:00 PM Bob Ruganis - Electronic Prototyping
3:00 PM Howard Fine - Contracts and Clauses

11:00 am Tracking Prototypes and Royalties – Patrick Matthews
A subscription-based web site that enables inventors and publishers to track their submissions. From the playtesting phase through published product, the system helps inventors manage their products, communicate with publishers, and track and project royalties. For publishers, effective communication with inventors can be accomplished with a mouse click. Simply changing the status of a submission not only tracks the submission for your own records, but also keeps the inventor updated.
Before starting Live Oak Games, Patrick Matthews spent over twenty years in the software business. As the Director of Software Development for Brentmark Software, he developed a line of award winning Windows applications. These days, in addition to being a game designer and writer, he works as a web developer, developing and managing sites both big and small – from the hugely popular www.Smithmag.net to the fairly tiny www.DaddyTales.com. Now he’s combining his experience as a web developer and game designer to produce an Invention Tracking web site for inventors and publishers of all levels.

1:00 pm Royality Audits – Sal Di Santo
Licensee Compliance Audits are both a necessary and vital part of maintaining the delicate licensor/licensee  relationship. The primary goal is to identify early on in the contractual term if both parties are not only meeting their respective obligations, but more importantly to identify where opportunities are being missed to maximize both profits and the strength of the brand image being licensed. The information obtained during a royalty / licensing audit should provide a report card as the performance of the license and valuable information for both licensor and licensee. To simply focus on royalty calculation errors takes a myopic view which may result in short term monies but may erode the relationship over the long term. We make every effort to perform a comprehensive license review with the utmost sensitivity towards maintaining the business relationship.
Sal Di Santo is the founder of Licensing Compliance Associates, LLC.  Sal has 25 years of experience in both royalty and licensing accounting and intellectual property management.  His career includes the development and implementation of licensing management and royalty accounting processes for Hasbro, Inc. an international toy and game company with revenues of several billion dollars.  He has an in-depth knowledge of intellectual property reporting and contractual compliance requirements of many licensing industry leaders including Walt Disney, Co., Marvel Characters, Inc., DreamWorks Animation, Lucas Licensing, LTD., and Paramount Pictures, Inc.

2:00 pm Electronic Prototyping Workshop – Bob Ruginis
The Electronic Prototyping Workshop will discuss some of the:
• technologies that have been made specifically for the toy and game industry;
• mistakes made by inventors when they build prototypes for concept presentations;
• prices for technologies used in toys and games.
The presentation will also include a demonstration of some of the development tools used in the toy industry.
Bob Ruginis, has been involved with electronic toys, games, and consumer electronics concept and product development since 1980 when he joined the Milton Bradley Advance R& D group in Springfield Massachusetts. Bob was the Director of the Hasbro Toy electronic engineering group for 13 years. He has been doing consulting work for the last 7 years for many toy, game, consumer electronic companies and inventors. Please check out his profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobruginiswhere you will be able to link with him and view a slideshow of some of the products with which he has been involved.

3:00 pm Tough Issues in Toy Licensing Contracts – Howard Fine
This seminar will focus on the terms and conditions in inventor licensing agreements that are typically the most contentious for – and often the most important to – toy inventors in today’s licensing environment.  Specific topics will include the scope of rights being licensed and other important business terms, as well as indemnifications, liability limitations and termination rights.
Howard R. Fine is a toy-industry attorney based in Chicago.  Prior to establishing his own practice in 2003, Howard served for 10 years as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Tiger Electronics, an independent manufacturer of toys and games and later a Hasbro subsidiary.  Howard regularly represents toy and game inventors in licensing arrangements with companies of all sizes.  His practice is focused on transactions and counseling relating to licensing, trademarks, copyrights, marketing, software and technology, and product creation and exploitation.

To date, we have inventors are coming from all over the US, but also the U.K., Belgium, China and Israel – be a part of the global inventing community’s gathering to hear wish lists, participate in professional development workshops, celebrate your own at the Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Awards, the TAGIEs, and enjoy private meetings with domestic and overseas companies all in one convenient place.

The elegant and whimsical TAGIEs are sponsored by Hasbro, Mattel, Spin Master, Disney, Leapfrog, Zobmondo, Hassenfeld Family Initiatives, Joyce John Designs, Patch Products, The Marketing Store, The Playmakers, Kunoichi, Oxford Games and Winning Moves UK. Over 400 guests are registered to date.

Some have said it sounds too good to be true – it isn’t. We worked hard to pull this together for you. For more details, visit http://www.tandgcon.com/_tagieconf/summit.htm

Hope to see you there!
Mary Couzin, Mike Hirtle and Tanya Thompson, Event Co-Chairs
Peggy Brown, Robert Fuhrer, Richard Gill, Richard Gottlieb, Mike Gray, Kim Vandenbroucke and Tim Walsh. Committee Members

Computer Games Museum

Centipede (the board game based on the arcade game), by Bruce Whitehill, played at the Computer Games Museum Gaming Lounge

September 26, 2011

Exhibit in Louisiana

See You in Essen!

By Bruce & Sybille Whitehill
November 2009

OK, so you missed it again. Mark your calendar for next year! The place to be between October 21 and 24 (2010) is Essen, Germany, home of the world’s largest international games fair. It’s not a toy fair like the International Toy Show in Nuremberg every February or the one in New York a week later, both aimed at the producers and retailers of games. The Essen fair is something special: the “Spiel” (which translates as both “game” and “play”), as the International Games Fair in Essen is simply called, is open to everybody, particularly players, and includes, of course, the inventors who willingly – and proudly – present their new releases.

We have a popular greeting here in Germany, particularly in the weeks before the upcoming fair: we say, “See you in Essen…” The fair is always a great opportunity to see more friends from the game-playing scene than you could possibly gather together anywhere else, and offers a chance to make new friends.

This year’s (2009) Essen fair was, again, crowded! The organizers proclaimed a new visitors record: 152,000 people came to play; when the halls officially opened in the morning at 10:00 AM, Thursday to Sunday, the masses filled them within seconds – we were reminded of the running of the bulls in Pamplona. People were running as if they were getting something for free – and sometimes you did actually get something, such as giveaways associated with the hottest games; or you could buy a soon-to-be sought-after extra card or playing piece for a specific game that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. Or get hold of a brand new game you had heard about in the pre-fair days and that would be produced only in a small initial print run, guaranteed to be sold out by noon the first fair day.

The mix of visitors is amazing – adults, families, children, women pushing baby strollers, geeks, businesspersons, young adults in costume (one hall is devoted to fantasy gamers and role-playing games, hence the masks and makeup, helmets, swords, vampire teeth, and out-of-world body suits). Lovers of tactical strategy games, family board games, traditional games, and card games filled the halls, playing on everything from the tables provided in the company booths to the floor spaces in between, and on the steps and counters everywhere. The fair caters to everybody, from the “hardcore gamer” to the occasional player to the “newbie”, the first-timer adding to the ever increasing ranks of annual attendees.

As you move down the corridors, look quickly, not only because the crowd might push you along, but also because of the overwhelming amount of what there is to see. If you took your time, you wouldn’t get through even half the booths during the four-day event. There were 763 exhibitors from 31 nations. 600 new games, just released!

You could stick to the well-known brands, “biggies” like Ravensburger or Kosmos, but you could also explore and discover games from small companies, new companies, and companies from other countries. Have you ever had a look at games from Korea or Taiwan? At the Essen fair you could! Not only look, but even play or buy.

The only games you couldn’t buy were the ones still in prototype stage, or the ones on exhibition. The Europäische Spielesammler Gilde or ESG (European Society of Game-Collectors) put on an exhibition of games under the theme “Dragons, Witches and Fables”, with games dating back to the 1800s. (See http://www.e-s-g.eu/.) And a group from China, FunBox 365, gave a talk and slide-show presentation, along with some actual samples, of how well known games were knocked off and pirated for sale to a Chinese market hungry for European play.

Other events at the “Spiel” include the awarding of the “Deutscher Spiele Preis” (German Game Prize), which went this year to Dominion, also the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award winner, and the “Europemasters” European Boardgame Championships. The 2009 championships went to the Finnish team, Los Cabelleros, which had the highest overall point score for the four games that made up the event. (See http://www.europemasters.org.)

Most of the major (and many of the smaller) European game companies come to Essen, along with an assortment of American companies. Rio Grande showed its latest “German-style” games (including Dominion). Out-of-the-Box, intent on introducing the more “serious” European market to the party games popular in the U.S. Though Hasbro didn’t make an official appearance, Hasbro acquisitions manager Mike Gray wandered the halls in search of new products and held meetings with inventors—such appointments being another major purpose of the fair. World famous inventors roamed the fair, demonstrating their latest prototypes to company reps, touting their newest games, accepting awards, and, yes, playing other people’s games; among the many were the prolific Reiner Knizia (Keltis), Klaus Teuber (Settlers of Catan), Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande), and David Parlett (Hare and Tortoise, which became “Hase und Igel”—hare and hedgehog—in Germany).

Popular game themes are represented throughout the fair, from historical subjects to detective mysteries to licensed character games. There was even a game without any rules, “Eine gegen Eine” (“One Against One”). You could find mass-market plastic stuff next to high-quality wooden artwork, all game-related. There were thousands of games on view, but what makes the “Spiel” special is that you can play all the games you see. (Well, it would take years to play them all, but you know what we mean.) All you had to do was be lucky enough to find an empty seat or an unoccupied spot on the ground.

And if you liked what you played, were hot for the latest fad, or came equipped with a “to-buy” list, you could purchase the very latest games and even find some older ones. Every day at the fair, the lines in front of the ATMs got longer as the day wore on, and the checkouts of the major sales booths became more crowded; more and more visitors became laden with heavy plastic bags to take precious stuff home: new fodder, games to play in the next days and weeks and months…until the next Essen fair comes, and you say, “See you in Essen”!

What’s New(s)?

January, 2008

A look at what’s ahead for 2008, and a look back at the year – or two – that just passed.

by Bruce Whitehill © 2008

I’m settling into a new year; lots happened before 2007 came to an end, and now I’m thinking about things to come. As such, I thought I’d share with you some personal and prospective goings-on—a roundup of news about what’s been and what’s about to be.

The big but not widely known event in 2007 was the acquisition by the Strong Museum of around 10,000 toy (and game) catalogs and 1000 early games from Connecticut collector Steve Olin. The Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum, which has re-created itself into the Strong National Museum of Play, home of the Toy Hall of Fame, houses what it says is the world’s most comprehensive collection of dolls, toys, games, and other play-related artifacts. Located in Rochester, New York, the museum will host an exhibition in 2008 of some of the special and exquisite games it acquired. The Strong also recently was given games research and reference material and ephemera held by the AGPC—the Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors—including books, magazines, catalogs and historical material on game and puzzle manufacturers; rules for about 2000 games; and original records of one of America’s premiere game inventors, the late Sid Sackson.

Steve Olin, an avid games researcher, over the past 30 years amassed one of the country’s top five collections of early American games. His interest in printing and graphics since childhood led him to seek out the best lithographed 19^th and early 20^th century games. Incidentally, Steve and his wife Diane have a website, Playthings Past, that focuses on classic toys and games “that you remember as a child.” Go to www.playthingspast.com and click on  “Games/Classic Games,” which contains a great repository of 85 games from the past ten to 50 years—from Aggravation, Battleship and Chinese Checkers to Tiddly Winks, Tripoley and Yahtzee—that have been redesigned and repackaged; these are the games that have lasted—mostly because they were, and still are, truly good.

The sale of the Olin collection to the Strong is probably the largest acquisition of games by an American museum. In mid 2006, Indiana University in Bloomington received a donation of over 30,000 mechanical puzzles from the world’s foremost authority on the subject, Jerry Slocum, who published his first puzzle article in 1955, a cover story for Science and Mechanics magazine. Since then, Jerry has written at least 10 books on the history of puzzles, and now, parts of his vast collection can be seen at the university’s Lilly Library through the exhibition, “A World of Puzzles.” Over time, more of this great puzzle collection will be added to the newly refurbished Slocum Puzzle Room. For details, go to http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/overview/puzzles.shtml.

The largest transfer of games from a private collection to a museum was the sale of the bulk of The Big Game Hunter collection to the Ludothèque de Boulogne-Billancourt in France. Around 6000 games and game artifacts from 1843 to the present were acquired by this French archive and games research facility that in 2008 becomes the “Centre National du Jeu” (National Center of Games). With a collection of over 12,000 games from around the world, the Ludothèque is poised to become one of the largest game research facilities on the planet. Exhibitions are being planned, as their collection continues to develop. Check out their growing website, in French, at http://www.ludotheque.com/.

Also in France was the 2008 Festival des Jeux, held in Cannes, showcasing new releases of games, RPGs (role-playing games), CCGs (collectible card games) and video games. Visitors could participate in tournaments of classic games, such as the standards plus skat, Go, Rummikub, Othello, and Scrabble. Each year, the d’Or award—the French game of the year—is presented; previous winners have included Magic: the Gathering, Abalone, Blokus, Kahuna, Alhambra, and Time’s Up !.

The festival, running since 1986, brings in the best international champions but is aimed at amateur players and the general public as well. For nearly a week, there are demonstrations, competitions, tournaments, talks and other activities. The website, in French, is http://www.festivaldesjeux-cannes.com/1.aspx; or visit www.igougo.com/ attractions-reviews-b27787-Cannes-Festival_International_des_Jeux.html.

Another very big event (for me, anyway)—though not as well publicized or attended as these other affairs—took place in the final days of 2007. The Big Game Hunter—yours truly—got married; my bride, Sybille, is a veteran games player and researcher, and we now live in a small village in northern Germany in an apartment overlooking expansive pastureland. A good place to live, write, and play.

Speaking of playing, two special games are back. Eric Solomon’s excellent 1977 two-player game Black Box has returned as Black Box+, with a two-sided board allowing for different games, plus a solitaire puzzle book with 36 logic puzzles. The game is marketed in Germany by franjos. David Parlett’s Hare and Tortoise, on my top-ten list, has been around since the first version in 1974, and is on the market again 34 years later (sold by Ravensburger as Hase und Igel) with some slight changes in the rules. David had to run the changes of this first Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) winner past the jury before they allowed Ravensburger to reproduce the Spiel des Jahres logo, in view of the fact that alterations had been made since the original award.

The release of Hase und Igel was officially announced in February, a big month in the toy (that includes “game”) business: the International Toy Fair takes place in New York and the Nuremberg Toy Show is held in Germany. Both events are closed to the general public but are significant to consumers in that it is through these two shows that the major retailers decide what games—and how many of each—they are going to stock in their stores. Much of what we see and play during the year is based on the likes and dislikes of the game store or chain store buyers who make their decisions long before the players and published critics share their views. By the way, another important personal event was the release of my first European game, “Change Horses,” at this year’s Nuremberg show. Those of you who don’t play games often because you don’t win often may be happy to learn that this is a game where the horse that comes in last wins.

On April 4-6, the Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors will be holding its annual convention, this time in Charleston, South Carolina. The AGPC is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the collection, preservation and history of games, jigsaw puzzles and mechanical puzzles, and the people and companies that invented, made and sold them. The Big Game Hunter is honored to be this year’s recipient of the Bradley-Parker Award, a recognition of lifetime achievement. For information about the members-only program, go to www.agpc.org. The website has data on over 17,000 games from over 3300 publishers, detailed resource information, sample copies of the newsletter, and, of course, facts about membership.

A fascinating games research event scheduled for April is the International Society for Board Game Studies colloquium, taking place this year in Lisbon, Portugal. The BGS conference, from April 23^rd – 26^th, features speakers from all over the world on academic topics ranging from indigenous games of Portugal to board games in medieval China and in the Indian Ocean, backgammon problems in medieval manuscripts, the use of pit and pebble games in education, and the world of abstract games. The presenters include scholars from Harvard, Leiden, and Fribourg Universities, the Universities of London and Lisbon, the Musée du Jeu (Swiss Museum of Games), and other institutions, as well as independent researchers. The aforementioned David Parlett will be speaking on “Some thoughts on skill and chance in games,” and I will be presenting “Toward a classification of non-electronic table games.” Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum, will deliver the address, ““Lights and wires or flesh and blood; or, why computer games will DIE!” And that’s just for starters.

The conference, open to all who pre-register, will also feature the official opening of the exhibition “Mathematical Games Throughout the Ages.”

Game conventions abound in Europe. Two notable ones are in Oberhof/Thüringen, Germany, March 24-30, and the “Spielewahnsinn” Herne/NorthRhine-Westphalia, May 9-11.

Finally, though I intended to limit this news to a few things occurring before the end of spring, I want to mention the event of the year—make that the event of two years—that takes place in September, in Marostica, Italy; you need to make your plans now. “Live Chess,” a re-enactment of medieval chess games played with men on horseback and real people as playing pieces, occurs only one weekend every two years. The tradition started in the 15^th century when two noblemen decided to fight for a maiden’s hand not by the customary duel but with a game of chess. The pageantry is phenomenal. The medieval walled city of Marostica in northern Italy is in itself worth a visit. Google “marostica live chess” and take your pick of informational websites. And if you plan to go, let me know—I’ll be there on my honeymoon!

Paper Games

By Bruce Whitehill
May 2006

If you’re a game collector, anytime you hear about a paper show, you should check into it. People tend to forget that most games are paper—cardboard covered with a printed (lithographed) paper sheet. That makes antique paper and ephemera shows one of the best places to find interesting games. One of the other best places is at a toy show, since some toy dealers often carry games. (Many dealers consider games a sub-classification of toys, even though they’re not!)

So, when I learned that there was an exhibition of paper toys in The Netherlands, I investigated further, figuring “paper” and “toys” meant I was sure to find something in games. What I discovered was a treasure trove of early card and board games, including many from Western Europe and the United States. Over all, there are so many paper items, in fact, that the exhibit is taking place in two museums, since neither was large enough to house the entire collection by itself.

It is the collection of John Landwehr, whose approximately 350 items date from 1740 to 1950. The two museums hosting the exhibition are the Scryption

Museum of Tilburg and The National Museum of Education (Nationaal

Onderwijsmuseum), in Rotterdam. The National Museum is located in the former municipal library that dates back to 1923—a monumental building in the heart of the city. An entry ticket to one museum is valid in the other as well.

John Landwehr is a long time, advanced collector of children’s books, penny prints and ephemera, and has written over fifteen books on the subject. This year he made a generous donation of over 300 children’s books to the National Library; most books were from the 17th and 18th centuries, and many are quite rare. He has always had an interest in paper toys, but it is only now, having passed the age of 80, that he has brought them all together in an exhibit.

The exhibition was inspired by the publication in April of a book on paper

toys, in Dutch, by P.J. Buijnsters and Leontine Buijnsters-Smets: “Papertoys, Speelprenten en papieren speelgoed in Nederland, 1640-1920″ (Waanders, Zwolle). Landwehr’s material does not appear in the book. The book raised interest in the Netherlands in paper toys, and several museums were looking for a summer exhibit that would show the diversity and the history of this field and provide children an opportunity to actually make their own paper toys.

According to the exhibit organizers, card games have been used in education from the early 17th century on, to teach such things as coats of arms, ruling monarchs, geography, history and fortifications. From around 1800, political cartoons were used on cards. Early American games, such as Conundrums and Authors are good examples of teaching aids published as card games.

One of the most popular card game styles was “Quartets”—games described as those in which players try to collect series of four cards by asking for them from other players. Originally played with a normal deck of playing cards, from 1860 on, special cards used animals, flowers, fairy tales and religion as subjects for quartets. Happy Families, in England, and Dr. Busby, in the United States, were the English language equivalents. Around 1886, Piet de Smeerpoets (see photo) became the first cartoon to be printed on a quartets game in the Netherlands. In 1938 the first movie stars were depicted on Dutch quartets, and throughout the 20th century, quartets have been used in advertising. Between 1960 and 1990 there was a revival of quartets in Western Europe; themes ranged from cars and spacecraft to television series and sports. The revival in the 1990s ended following the increased popularity of computer games.

Another popular series seen in the exhibition are the games of Black Peter (Schwarzer Peter). In the early 1800s, the game of Black Peter was played with a regular deck of cards, the jack of spades being Black Peter. The idea was to form pairs of cards, avoiding the solitary Black Peter; if you lost by getting Black Peter,  you would have your face blackened. By around the middle of the 1800s, Black Peter games were published showing Black Peter as the chimney sweep, the Moor or the African Negro, mostly depicted in caricature. In later years, politicians were portrayed as Black Peter, and a game exists with Hitler in that role. Companies in the United States, which freely used Black caricatures in games like Snap, produced the game of Old Maid instead of Black Peter.

“Lottery” games became abundant in the 18th century, known as Loto or Lotto, and later in the U.S. as Beano and then Bingo. Though played mostly with counters or beans, some used beautifully illustrated cards and ivory counters, and were quite exquisite. The Lotto game pictured here, with drawings of an elephant and a lion politician, most likely had some political meaning when it was published in France around 1870.

Bell and Hammer, a popular game throughout Europe, is considered by the exhibit organizers to be a lottery game with an auction element; in German and French, respectively, it is Glocke und Hammer and Marteau et Cloche. The Dutch version, called Boerenschroom (Diffident Farmer), introduced the saying “Sijmen pay!” (“Simon must pay”) as a Dutch expression.

The exhibit also has many early paper board games. Some of the games are just printed paper, not mounted on the cardboard as we see today. One such game is The Game of Goose, first seen in 16th century Italy, and popular throughout Europe; it has taken on many themes for more modern times. (See also Adrian Seville’s “The Royal Game of Goose: Images of America,” in the May issue of “Knucklebones.”) Flip en Flap (see photo) was a Goose variant that was also an advertising game (one of the themes in the exhibit). Drawn by popular artist Daan Hoeksema, the “Flip and Flap” game was available free to those who bought enough packages of Douwe Egberts tea or coffee.

Perhaps the most popular of the early board games were those of travel to exotic places. Before the time of world travel for the masses, people took trips through books and games. Trains, boats, cars, and airplanes became popular themes, along with journeys of adventure to unusual places. Games in the exhibit let visitors travel around the Rhine, the Netherlands, Europe, far-away places—like America—and even into space. In Jan and Willem’s Travels through Africa (see photo), players even bet on who was going to complete the round trip first.

There are many wonderful board and card games shown in this extensive exhibition of paper toys, covering history, politics, education, humor, and cultures of the world. The exhibits run through September 10, 2006. A 24-page booklet and catalog has been prepared by Landwehr and historian Geert Bekkering, who translated much of the text into English—and provided the information and photographs for this article. The booklet contains photographic reprints of some of the items on display, and is available through the museum, along with a DVD. For more information (in Dutch), go to http://www.scryption.nl/html/frame.html or http://www.onderwijsmuseum.nl/start.htm , or send an email to info@scryption.nl or info@onderwijsmuseum.nl .

Game Days—Essen 2005

by Bruce Whitehill

October, 2005

If you’ve never been to a games fair, imagine rooms full of people demonstrating games, selling games, playing games, and watching people play games.  If you have been to a games fair, imagine something so much larger than what you’ve experienced that it’s, well, hard to imagine.  Visualize 144,000 people over four days, packed into nine huge halls.  Small tables are set up throughout the area, and there is not a seat to be had. Hundreds of people are playing games at the tables, and the mass spills over to whatever floor space one can claim.  Steps and stairways provide a three-dimensional theater for watching the players play.

Whose games are they playing?  With over 720 exhibitors from 30 countries, I would say just about everybody’s!  “One-game” companies are promoting the game the inventors have mortgaged their homes for, and the corporate giants are hawking everything from kids’ fare (Haba games still in the forefront) to high-level strategy games (think Alea).  Though the fair is a place to conduct “business,” this is no business conference.  The corporate CEOs are as likely to be in short-sleeved shirts as the visitors, and were it not for countless appointments with both established and aspiring game inventors, they would probably be playing games themselves.

I’m awed.  Then I side-step a stroller and bump into a huge thing in motion: it’s Gandalf, Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” character.  He was one of many role-players in costume, pushing their way through the crowd. Being in costume was certainly a way to get around more quickly, as the throngs turned into onlookers and endeavored to make way; but I couldn’t help thinking how warm it must be under some of those outfits.  I followed one character to get a glimpse of the other world that existed at this gathering, one of knights and creatures of the dark and evil; lots of black, many medieval weapons, plenty of tattoos.  Then past the booths of multi-sided dice and costumes and miniatures, and accoutrements designed to make these distinct players feel in character.

With so much else to see, I didn’t spend much time there.  Back to the lighter (or was it just better lit?) world of family and adult games.  Here, the corporate quartet of Ravensburger, Kosmos, Amigo and Schmidt were across the aisles from Alea, Queen, Zoch, Goldsieber, Hans im Glück, Days of Wonder, and Winning Moves Germany (publishers of one of my favorites, Clans, and Eiji Wakasugi’s Coda, which, by popular demand, is now Da Vinci Code). And so many other key players: Abacus, Studiogiochi, Venice Connection, Mosquitospiel, Phalanx, Clementoni, DaVinci Editrice, Fata Morgana, France’s Asmodee, and of course Jumbo (Dutch proprietors of one of the world’s classic games, Stratego).

Familiar faces from North America included Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games—still importing Europe’s best into the U.S.—with his new helper, Alfonzo Smith, author of “Win at Home!” in Knucklebones’ premiere issue; David Capon of Foxmind (whose MetaForms was a puzzle in the premiere issue); Dan Rowen from Playroom Entertainment (watch out for Killer Bunnies!); Larry Whalen of Face2Face (bringing back Sid Sackson’s games); Jim Koplow, the dice man; and Fundex from Indianopolis and Family Games from Montreal. American Dale Walton (inventor of Octiles) of Pin International presented new strategy games made in fine wood in his current homeland, Thailand.

Family companies Piatnik (making playing cards since 1824 and adding games in the 1960s), Franjos, Drei-Magier, and Kidult, an Italian company, all had products worth looking at closely.  By the way, I was told by Dutch inventor Niek Neuwahl who now lives in Italy that Italians don’t play games! Spartaco Albertarelli at Kidult said “There are more game authors in Italy than players.”  Which is a far cry from the first century when Decimus Junius Juvenal said, “Duas Tantum res anxius optat, Panum et circenses” (“The troubled [Roman People] long for two things only: bread and games”).  OK, so maybe he meant games of a different nature; anyway, game playing in Italy will be another research project some day.

Of course, the inventors were there—maybe too many to count, certainly too many to list. To name a few (with a sample of their better-known work—all of which you should own or have access to!): Marcel-André Casasola-Merkle (Attika, Verräter); the aforementioned Niek Neuwahl (Ta Yü, Toscana, 1 Stein + Co.); Karl-Heinz Schmiel, owner of Moskito-Spiele (Attila, Democrazy, Dodge City, Kunst Stücke, Die Macher); Klaus Teuber (Anno 1503, Barbarossa, Drunter und Drüber, Entdecker, Löwenherz, and the enitre Catan clan).

Jens-Peter Schliemann was there following his success last year with Piranha Pedro (one of my favorites); Fred Horn showed his new game, Citadella (Clemens Gerhards); Bruno Faidutti, prolific inventor, including such titles as Boomtown, Citadels, Dragon’s Gold, The Secret of the Abbey, and Queen’s Necklace, quietly slipped by to witness the success of his (and Alan Moon’s) latest hot seller, Diamant (Diamonds); Andrea Meyer, owner of BeWitched-Spiele and one of the few women to run their own company, had a booth there, as did Friedemann Friese (Funkenschlag), easy to spot across a crowded room (I forget whether his hair was orange or green that day); for those who don’t know, he owns 2-F, a company in which all the game titles are words beginning with the letter “F”.

The biggest problem with doing a report such as this is the crime of omission. With hundreds of companies, inventors and new games at Essen, it is impossible to cover even the best of the fair in anything less than a book.  So, with apologies to those I missed, here are some of the games people were talking about:

Schatten über Camelot (Shadows Over Camelot), by Serge Laget and Bruno Cathala, seemed to garner a lot of pre-fair chatter, but so far is living up to its hype; it is already in Board Game Geek’s top 100 ranking.  It’s published by Days of Wonder, the company that also unveiled an expansion of Das Geheimnis der Abtei (The Secret of the Abbey) that Laget did with Bruno Faidutti.  And Ystari Games, the company the produced last year’s immensely successful medieval bluffing game, Ys (by Cyril Demaegd), is looking for another win this year with William Attia’s Caylus.

Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, author of one of the most popular games in Europe, Carcassonne, has added Mesopotamien to his credits; it is sold by Phalanx Games.  And Emanuele Ornella, author of last year’s highly acclaimed Oltremare – Merchants of Venice, looks as though he will enjoy equal success with his new Il Principe, from Mind the Move. Finally, check out Guido Eckhof’s Big Kini, from Edition Play Me (Playme.de).

Die Nacht der Magier (The Night of the Magician/Wizard—there’s no exact English translation yet) by Kirsten Becker and Jens-Peter Schliemann (Drei Magier Spiele) is a dexterity game with a twist—it is played in the dark.  Some of the pieces have glow-in-the-dark parts; you can see your large “mover” and the three pieces you are trying to move in order to get one to reach the center spot.  On the crowded tabletop board, all pieces wind up moving when one is pushed, and your turn ends when you can hear a piece fall off the raised platform (or, in my case, when you could feel it hit your toe).  I think someone in America will see the light and send this game across the Atlantic.  It’s the kind of game made for kids and families that the adults will have a go at when the young ones have gone out.

Fiese Freunde Fette Feten, designed by Friedemann Friese along with Marcel-André Casasola Merkle, is being transformed into a U.S. edition, but because the game deals with what inventor Bruno Faidutti calls “all very realistic” points about teenage smoking, drinking, drug use and sex, the U.S. version is likely to be what we would call “cleaned up” a bit.  So American collectors and aficionados are buying the German version and getting the translation. Faidutti translates the title as “Mean Friends, Hot Parties,” but other translations have been a bit raunchier.  The politically correct version for the American market, Faidutti says “probably means a game with no sex, but where you can buy guns and shoot at your fellow players.”  Meanwhile, Friese is also offering a new expansion to his popular game, Funkenschlag.

I played Niek Neuwahl’s latest new game, Ultimus (RomBol), with Niek. I lost.  Many of Niek’s games have an interesting mathematical component, and, not surprisingly, he always wins the first game he teaches you.  By the time I see him again and am ready for a replay, he has invented a new game to try.  I’m keeping score, and one day I’ll get my rematch.  Oh, and I played a “new” game (I won’t mention any name) of polar bears catching fish that was a near copy of an early game of Niek’s, Arctic.

Elasund (Kosmos), the second game in Klaus Teuber’s the Adventures of Catan (Abenteuer Catan) series that started with Candamir – Die ersten Siedler, made its official premiere at Essen.  What’s interesting is that Elasund is based on the Die Siedler von Catan novel written by Rebecca Gablé, which was, in turn, based on the original The Settlers of Catan game. In Elasund, players cooperate andcompete to build the city of Catan.

Besides stopping for the occasional wurst and pretzel, the only other chance I had to relax was when watching the Settlers of Catan world championships. (***Sarah, Photo 6883)  This is serious stuff, with playdowns around the world leading to Essen, to a confrontation among the final four.  This year’s winner, Jiri Buchta, was cheered on by a contingent from his home country of the Czech Republic. Runners up, in order of their point standing, were Frans de Bode (The Netherlands), Shane Cassells (Ireland), and Andreas Münziger (Finland).

Finally, if I were to have to sum up the Essen fair in one word, I couldn’t.  But if I had one more word to say, it would be “Sudoku”!  There were at least 11 (or was it 13?) Sudoku games at the fair, and no time to play them all.  Return with us same time next year and we’ll tell you which ones are left.

Spear Exhibit in Germany

German Press Release of the Nuremberg Toy Museum
translated by Geert Bekkering, edited by Bruce Whitehill
1998

GAMES WE PLAY: The History of J.W. Spear & Sons, will be an exhibition in the Nuremberg Toy Museum, November 22, 1997, to April 19, 1998.

“Spear” is one of the important names in the games history of the
industrialized era. Jacob Wolf Spear founded the company in 1879 in
Furth, Germany. In 1899 the company moved to Nuremberg and steadily
evolved into one of the most important companies for games in the
world. It produced quality products for decades: social/parlor
games, strategy games, dexterity games, occupational games, card games,
children’s books, boxed magic sets, outdoor games and much more.

From the start of the company, England was the most important export
country for Spear. In 1932 the family set up a factory in Enfield,
near London, for the production of its English games. From 1933
onwards, more and more family members had to emigrate to England
because of the Nazi discrimination against Jewish tradesmen and
manufacturers. In November, 1938, the Nuremberg factory was
“aryanized,” that is, forcefully removed from its owners and turned over
to a non-Jewish resident, Hanns Porst, the
owner of a Nuremberg photo mail business. Hermann Spear, the
dispossessed director of the Nuremberg factory, was jailed many times
by the national socialists. During this period, the factory produced
barbarous war games like “Bombing England,” still using the brand name
“Spear Spiel.” In July, 1943, Hermann Spear was murdered in
Auschwitz. In 1948, under the new restitution laws, the Spear family
got its property back. As the factory complex was almost completely
ruined by allied bomb raids, it had to be rebuilt.

A decisive point in the company history was the start of the
production of Scrabble in 1954. The immense success of Scrabble made
it possible for Spear to resume its pre-war position for
“Spier-Spiele” in Nuremberg as well as for “Spear’s Games” in England.
The years of dual production facilities ended with the closure of the
Nuremberg factory in 1984. The English company, a limited liability
company since 1966, was independent up to 1994, when Mattel took over.
One year later the Enfield factory was closed.

After 115 years of successful work, only the brand name Spear is left–the Spear family business is gone. Francis Spear, the longstanding managing director of the company, commissioned by the Spear’s Games Archive Trust, unlocked the company archives in June, 1996, opening them to the public amid much festivity. In the English “Spear’s Games Archives,” you will find, neatly arranged, over 2000 games, books and documents clearly showing the former importance of Spear.

The Nuremberg Toy Museum, in close cooperation with the Spear’s Trust, has mounted the special exhibition, which shows 100 years of German and English game history, through Spear’s games.

SPEAR EXHIBIT CATALOG

Spear’s history is documented through a richly illustrated, 216-page exhibit catalog: GAMES WE PLAY: The History of J.W. Spear & Sons, Nürnberg, 1997; by Helmut Schwarz/Marion Faber; Schriften des Spielzeugmuseum Nuremberg, Vol. II, published by W. Tummels, Nuremberg.

SPEAR’S GAMES ARCHIVES

Visits to The Spear’s Games Archive are possible only by prior arrangement. The address is:
The Spear’s Games Archive
c/o Francis Spear
Roughground House
Old Hall Green
Ware
Herts. SG11 1HB
United Kingdom

THE NUREMBERG SPIELZEUGMUSEUM
Karlstrasse 13-15, 90403 Nuremberg, Germany;
tel: +49 911 2313260, fax: +49 911 2315495;
e-mail: spielzeugmuseum@stadt.nuernberg.de
The Spielzeugmuseum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00-17:00, and Wed., 10:00-21:00.