The Great Big Beautiful Podcast, Episode 73: Reiner Knizia
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This week, we get our game on with none other than Reiner Knizia. If you’re at all into tabletop board gaming beyond Scrabble and Monopoly, then you’ve likely heard his name if not played several of his award-winning titles. Knizia claims to have designed over 600 published games (taking into account regional variations and translations) – but no matter how that number is tallied, it’s still pretty darn impressive!
His most well-known games include Tigris & Euphrates, Modern Art, Ra, Taj Mahal, Through the Desert, Amun Re, Lord of the Rings, Samurai, Ingenious, and the seminal “gateaway game” Lost Cities. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds more… literally. And he’s recently branched out to the digital gaming sphere – not only presenting mobile versions of his classic board games but also introducing brand-new digital exclusive games.
In this episode, we chat about his games, the importance of awards (he was just nominated yet again for the children’s version of the Spiel des Jahres), the balance of theme vs mechanics, whether playing games is essential to human nature, and what he thinks epitomizes a Reiner Knizia game.
Connect:
- Reiner Knizia is on Twitter here.
- The show is on Twitter here and Facebook here.
- Jamie is on Twitter and Instagram as @theroarbots.
- Justin is on Twitter and Instagram as @140JustinC.
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