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| 19. December 2000 | : | Qin Cancelled |
| 18. December 2000 | : | The Return of Games Games Games |
| 16. December 2000 | : | Reference Chart for Carcasonne Tile Distribution |
| 8. December 2000 | : | Trouble with Toyspotting |
| 21. November 2000 | : | Buy a Game and get Free Beer! |
| 18. November 2000 | : | Smidt Spiele quits GIPF project. |
| 17. November 2000 | : | Best card Game 2000 |
| 12. October 2000 | : | New Member of Jury Spiel des Jahres |
| 10. October 2000 | : | Photo Gallery for Gamers |
| 25. September 2000 | : | Euromasters 2000 |
| 14. September 2000 | : | Car Free City = Time to Play |
| 30. August 2000 | : | Why was The Industrial Age abandoned? |
| 9. August 2000 | : | Free English Game from Michael Schacht |
| 8. August 2000 | : | New organisation for private publishers |
| 2. August 2000 | : | Cancellations at SPIEL 2000 |
| 7. July 2000 | : | The Café has become a Journal |
| 6. July 2000 | : | The Games Café has served it final customer |
| 5. July 2000 | : | Ludothekar |
| 4. July 2000 | : | Exit FX |
 Qin Cancelled
Queen Games has announced that the game Qin, which was sceduled for release in their 2000 program, has been cancelled. Qin was a Reiner Knizia design in which the players would build the Great Wall of China. | |
| 19. December 2000: Queen Games |  |
| The Return of Games Games Games
It has been a long wait for those of us who have gotten used to the regular monthly input of game reviews. Just as thought that SFC Press had settled in nice and comfortably in their new home, came... nothing! Issue 149 reveals that the new editor Jane Mitton sadly went down with some nasty illness that forced them to skip an issue (thus proving that an editor isn't just a fancy title). Subscriptions have been extended by one issue. | |
| 18. December 2000 | |
| Reference Chart for Carcasonne Tile Distribution
Russ Williams has created a very handy reference chart for the tile distribution in Carcasonne (Hans im Glück/Rio Grande). | |
| 16. December: rec.games.board | |
| Trouble with Toyspotting
According to the statement on their website www.toyspotting.de has spielbox-online "suddenly and without reason" told them to stop linking to their reviews. But when reading the latest editorial on spielbox-online.de you realise that they had good reason: it turns out that Toyspotting has asked permission to link to spielbox, but what KMW thought would be ordinary link turned out to be a complete link-collection of all 400 reviews on spielbox-online!
Also the Austrian website www.spielwiese.at has learned to know the bad side of the "Toyspotters": it is reported that news from 6 of 8 Newsletters mailed exclusively to their subscribers has been used without prior concent. | ||
| 8. December 2000: spielbox-online + Spiel-Wiese | | |
 Buy a Game and get Free Beer!
I have always enjoyed the lovely Weissbier (wheat beer) when playing games in Essen, and now has one of Germany's best breweries designed a gift box which comes 8 bottles of their strong doppelbock beer Aventinus, 8 original weissbier glasses plus the new board game called Age of Aventinus. You can read more about the game in my Games database | |
| 21. November 2000 | |
| Smidt Spiele quits GIPF project
The designer of the Gipf series, Chris Burm, has announced on his website www.gipf.com/news.htm that the German publisher Schmidt Spiele has decided to stop their participation in the project. | |
| 18. November 2000: spielbox-online | |
| Best Card Game 2000
Bruno Faidutti's game Ohne Furcht und Adel (Hans im Glück) has been voted Best Card Game of the Year by the Fairplay magazine. See the list at á la carte awards. | |
| 17. November 2000: spielbox-online | |
| New Member of Jury Spiel des Jahres
The Austrian Journalist Thomas Felber (Neue Züricher Zeitung) has taken the empty seat left by Helmuth Wreznik | |
| 12. October 2000: Die Pöppel-Revue | |
| Photo Gallery for Gamers
Markus Barnick has created a website with photos of game designers and other gaming personalities at Foto-Galerie für Spieleautoren und andere Mitspieler. | |
| 10. October 2000: spielbox-online | |
| Euromasters 2000
The European Championship Boardgames for Teams, the successor to the Intergame Tournament, took place for the first time during Gen Con Benelux this weekend. Playing four games: La Cittá, The Princes of Florence, The Merchants of Amsterdam and Carolus Magnus each team of four gamers should individually play as well as possible, and the winner was - for the third time in a row - a British team.
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| 25. September: Ronald Hoekstra | |
| Car Free City = Time to Play
EU - the European Union has declared September 22nd for International Car Free day. For obvious reasons is this not taken too literally in most cities, but in Norderstedt near Hamburg, Germany have they decided to take it seriously and make it fun at the same time: Inspired by the new Ravensburger game Scotland Yard will they organise a live game called "The Hunt for Mr. X" in which groups of people seach the city area using free busses and trains. | |
| 14. September 2000: spielbox-online | |
| Why was The Industrial Age abandoned?
According to Bernd Brunnhofer, managing director and owner of Hans im Glück, the events concerning the publication of The Industrial Age were: During Essen Spiel ´99 Tom Lehmann gave HiG a prototype copy (cards and rules) of a card game with the working title "Fertile Cresent". HiG intended to publish this unchanged at Spiel ´00, but tests showed that the game wasn't suitable for non-hardcore gamers. Lehmann accepted that the game was developed into a boardgame instead. A prototype of this was completed but Lehmann failed to return a signed contract in time to reach a production date before Essen. When HiG received the signed contract after the deadline had expired thay informed Lehmann that the game could be published at the Nürnberg Fair 2001 (a delay of 3 months). The designer rejected the offer without explanation. Although HiG has spent lots of time and effort on the development, and although they do have the contractual rights to publish the game, Hans im Glück has no wish to continue against the will of the designer, which is why the game will not be published by them. Bernd Brunnhofer finally state: "We assume that Mr. Lehmann would like to publish the original card game version. The idea of a board game version came from HiG. We have spent much time, trouble and creativity on the design - samples of the wooden components and the board were already made and a graphics artist had been hired. Naturally we consider this work to be our mental property which may not be published without our consent." | |
| 30. August 2000: Hans im Glück | |
 Free English Game from Michael Schacht The German designer Michael Schacht has made an English version of his game Die Tafelrunde freely available to download from his website at homepages.go.com/~spause/timbuktu.html. Read a description of the game in my Games database. | |
| 9. August 2000 | |
| New organisation for private publishers
Spieleregal [gameshelf] is a new German organisation created to aid the promotion of small private publishers. They all sell their own gamedesigns in the little spare time they have from regular jobs, and Spieleregal will function as a distributor/retailer with a full printed catalogue as well as a website at www.spieleregal.de Among the first 20 publishers that have become members can you find: AZA, Bambus, Cwali, Glücksritter, Moskito, Regenbogen and Splotter. There are no immediate plans of making the site or the catalogue available in English, although Web-spokesman Günter Cornett realises the growing potential of international buyers. | |
| 8. August 2000: Günter Cornett | |
| Cancellations at SPIEL 2000
Hans im Glück has cancelled the production of "The Industrial Age". The designer Tom Lehmann, president of Prism Games, commented: "I feel sad that after revising this game three times to meet Hans im Glueck's needs, after agreeing to do the game for Essen 2000, and after signing a contract, that Hans im Glueck would cancel this project. However, I feel confident that this game, probably under a different name and theme, will be co-produced with another publisher." Piatnik has cancelled their 5-player expansion for Anno 1452. | |
| 2. August 2000: spielbox-online | |
| The Café has become a Journal
Greg Aleknevicus and Frank Branham has decided to continue the work begun by Burt Hochburg. The new cafe is called The Games Journal and can be found at http://www.thegamesjournal.com/ where all the articles of the old site has been republished. Even though the new site will be uncommercial it promises to keep the high quality of the former. | |
| 7. July 2000: The Games Journal | |
| The Games Café has served it final customer
Burt Hochberg has unfortunatly been forced to close down his website due to a lack of funds. Despite the fact that the site has been an intellectual succes with contributions from many serious gamers it has been as succesful commercially, and the owners have decided to pull the plug. | |
| 6. July 2000: The Games Café | |
| Ludothekar
One of the reasons as to why they have such a thriving games industry in the German speaking countries may be because they take games seriously. Latest proof comes from a new education created by a German Youth and Social organisation in Berlin and the Austrian Institute for Educational Toys in Graz. "Ludothekar" is a compound of "ludo" (latin = play) and "bibliothekar" (german = librarian), and it will qualify for work as Educational Advisor working with families, schools or old people. | |
| 5. July 2000: KMW's Spielplatz | |
| Exit FX
Only two years after they changed the format of this label has Ravensburger decided to withdraw it completely from the market. Founded by Franz Xavier Smid the company published traditional games for many years under the logo F.X.Schmid. Under the Game Editors Christian Beiersdorf and later Stefan Brück did the company win the SdJ award three times with the games Auf Achse (1987), Adel Verplichtet (1990) and Bluff (1993). In 1997 was the company taken over by Ravensburger, who changed the label to FX with a target group of "family games for grown-ups". Their latest game Torres is one of the 3 games nominated for this years SdJ-award, so we might be in the ironic situation where a label is closed down after winning the Game of the Year... | |
| 4. July 2000: KMW's Spielpl@tz | |
| © Mik Svellov 1997-2004 | editor@brettboard.dk | 12. maj 2003 |