Reiner Knizia

Reiner Knizia
Knizia at Essen 2008
Born	1957 (1957)
Nationality	German
Known for	Game designer

Reiner Knizia (German pronunciation: [ˈraɪnɚ ˈknɪtsiːə]) is a prolific German-style board game designer. Born in Germany, he developed his first game at the age of six. He has a PhD in mathematics, and has been a full-time game designer since 1997, when he quit his job from the board of a large international bank. Knizia has been living in England since 1993.

In addition to being quite prolific, with over 500 published games, he is highly acclaimed as a designer, having won the Deutscher Spiele Preis four times, a Spiel des Jahres (in addition to a Kinderspiel des Jahres and a special award) and numerous other national awards. At the Origins Game Fair in 2002 he was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. His games frequently make appearances on various "top games" lists: including the GAMES 100 list, the BoardGameGeek top 100, and the Internet Top 100 Games List. Several gaming conventions host "Kniziathons", which are tournaments dedicated to celebrating Knizia-designed games.

Reiner Knizia started developing games for his play-by-mail game zine Postspillion, founded in 1985. The zine still exists and the game Bretton Woods (also a Reiner Knizia design), which was started in 1987, is still going.

According to Knizia, his best selling game is Lord of the Rings, published in 17 languages with over one million copies sold.

A number of Knizia designs have been redeveloped for the electronic gaming & console markets. Ingenious (aka Einfach Genial) and Keltis have both appeared in versions for Windows PC; Lost Cities was adapted for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. An original game for the Nintendo DS, Dr. Reiner Knizia's Brainbenders was published in 2008.

Game characteristics

Knizia's games cover a huge range of characteristics: he has designed small two-player card games, children's games, simple games, sophisticated games, and even a live-action roleplaying game.

One element of modern game design that Reiner Knizia has pioneered is abstract theme. Older themed games like Monopoly have traditionally developed their themes by trying to model or emulate the environment or situation they are thematically tied to. So Monopoly has players buying and developing properties as a real developer might. Knizia's thematic game designs tend not to try to model a specific environment, but instead try to invoke the thought and decision-making processes that are key to the theme. For example, his game Medici has a fairly abstract game system of drawing and buying cards which does not try to model any particular environment, but in the game-world the players are always attempting to price risk, the key success factor in the investment banking business in which the Medicis made their fortune. This approach has allowed Knizia to develop games which are comparatively simple but require thoughtful game-play, while still retaining strongly thematic elements.

Using his understanding of principles in mathematics to full effect, pricing and evaluating risk are frequently recurring elements in Reiner Knizia games. Many of his most successful designs use auctions as a vehicle to price risk, as in Ra, Medici, and Modern Art.

Notable games

see also Category:Reiner Knizia games

• Amun-Re
  • Winner, Deutscher Spiele Preis 2003
• Auf Heller und Pfennig (released in English as Kingdoms)
  • Winner, Origins Award for Best Abstract Board Game of 2002
• Blue Moon
• Einfach Genial (released as Ingenious in the US and Mensa Connections in the UK)
  • Winner, Schweizer Spielepreis best strategy game 2004
• Keltis
  • Spiel des Jahres 2008
• Lord of the Rings
  • Winner, Spiel des Jahres 2001 special prize for best use of literature in a game
• Lost Cities
  • Winner, International Gamers Award 2000 for Best 2-player strategy game
• Medici
• Modern Art
  • Winner, Deutscher Spiele Preis 1993
  • Winner, Finnish Game of the Year 2008
• Ra
• Samurai
• Taj Mahal
  • Winner, Deutscher Spiele Preis 2000
  • Winner, Essen Feather 2000
• Through the Desert
• Tigris and Euphrates
  • Winner, Deutscher Spiele Preis 1998
• Tower of Babel
  • Winner, Schweizer Speilepreis best strategy game 2005
• Vampire
• Wer war's
  • Winner, Kinderspiel des Jahres 2008
  • Winner, Deutscher Kinderspiele Preis 2008

External links

• Knizia Games
• Knizia@Convivium Semi-official site with full Knizia ludography, downloads, articles & Kniziathon details
• Postspillion (German)
• Reiner Knizia at BoardGameGeek (includes complete list of games)
• Reiner Knizia by the Numbers, interview with Reiner Knizia, 12 April 2006