Eurogame

The genre developed as a more concentrated design movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Germany. The genre has spread to other European countries such as France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The Settlers of Catan, first published in 1995, paved the way for the genre outside Europe.[5] Though neither the first Eurogame nor the first such game to find an audience outside Germany, it became much more popular than any of its predecessors. It quickly sold millions of copies in Germany, and in the process brought money and attention to the genre as a whole.

Germany purchased more board games per capita than any other country as of 2009.[6] While many Eurogames are published and played in Anglophone markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, they occupy a niche status there.[6] Other games in the genre to achieve widespread popularity include Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride, and Alhambra.

A four-player game of Ticket to Ride near the end of the game

While many titles (especially the strategically heavier ones) are enthusiastically played by gamers as a hobby, Eurogames are, for the most part, well-suited to social play. In keeping with this social function, various characteristics of the games tend to support that aspect well, and these have become quite common across the genre. In contrast to games such as Risk or Monopoly, in which a close game can extend indefinitely, Eurogames usually have a mechanism to stop the game within its stated playing time. Common mechanisms include a pre-determined winning score, a set number of game turns, or depletion of limited game resources. Playing time varies from a half-hour to a few hours, with one to two hours being typical. Generally Eurogames do not have a fixed number of players like chess or bridge; although there is a sizeable body of German-style games that are designed for exactly two players, most games can accommodate anywhere from two to six players (with varying degrees of suitability). Six-player games are somewhat rare, with Power Grid and Caverna (the latter supporting seven player games) being two examples, or require expansions, as with The Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. Players usually play for themselves individually, rather than in a partnership or team.

A growing number of Eurogames support solo play with modified rulesets.[9] To win, the player either has to achieve specific single-player campaign goals or beat the score of a simulated opponent that takes actions according to special rules outlined in the scenario. Recent Eurogames suitable for solo play include Wingspan,[10] Terraforming Mars or Spirit Island.

Another prominent characteristic of these games is the lack of player elimination.[11] Eliminating players before the end of the game is seen as contrary to the social aspect of such games. Most of these games are designed to keep all players in the game as long as possible, so it is rare to be certain of victory or defeat until relatively late in the game. Related to no-player-elimination, Eurogame scoring systems are often designed so that hidden scoring or end-of-game bonuses can catapult a player who appears to be in a lagging position at end of play into the lead. A second-order consequence is that Eurogames tend to have multiple paths to victory (dependent on aiming at different end-of-game bonuses) and it is often not obvious to other players which strategic path a player is pursuing. Balancing mechanisms are often integrated into the rules, giving slight advantages to lagging players and slight hindrances to the leaders. This helps to keep the game competitive to the very end, an example of which is Power Grid, where the turn order is determined by number of cities (and biggest power plant as the tie-breaker), such that players further ahead are handicapped in their option of plays.

A wide variety of often innovative mechanisms or mechanics are used, and familiar mechanics such as rolling dice and moving, capture, or trick taking are avoided. If a game has a board, the board is usually irregular rather than uniform or symmetric (such as Risk rather than chess or Scrabble). The board is often random (as in The Settlers of Catan) or has random elements (such as Tikal). Some boards are merely mnemonic or organizational and contribute only to ease of play, such as a cribbage board; examples of this include Puerto Rico and Princes of Florence. Random elements are often present, but do not usually dominate the game. While rules are light to moderate, they allow depth of play, usually requiring thought, planning, and a shift of tactics through the game and often with a chess- or backgammon-like opening game, middle game, and end game.

Stewart Woods' Eurogames cites six examples of mechanics common to eurogames:[3]

• Tile Placement – spatial placement of game components on the playing board.
• Auctions – includes open and hidden auctions of both resources and actions from other players and the game system itself.
• Trading/Negotiation – not simply trading resources of equivalent values, but allowing players to set markets.
• Set Collection – collecting resources in specific groups that are then cashed in for points or other currency.
• Area Control – also known as area majority or influence, this involves controlling a game element or board space through allocation of resources.
• Worker Placement or Role Selection – players choose specific game actions in sequential order, with players disallowed from choosing a previously selected action.

Samurai is a game of tile placement, set collection, and area control

Eurogame designs tend to de-emphasize luck and random elements.[12] Often, the only random element of the game will be resource or terrain distribution in the initial setup, or (less frequently) the random order of a set of event or objective cards. The role played by deliberately random mechanics in other styles of game is instead fulfilled by the unpredictability of the behavior of other players.

Examples of themes are:

• Carcassonne – build a medieval landscape complete with walled cities, monasteries, roads, and fields.
• Puerto Rico – develop plantations on the island of Puerto Rico, set in the 18th century.
• Power Grid – expand a power company's network and buy better plants.
• Imperial – as an international investor, influence the politics of pre-World War I European empires.
• Bruxelles 1893 – take the role of an Art Nouveau architect during the late 19th century and try to become the most famous architect in Belgium.[13]

Although not relevant to actual play, the name of the game's designer is often prominently mentioned on the box, or at least in the rule book. Top designers enjoy considerable following among enthusiasts of Eurogames. For this reason, the name "designer games" is often offered as a description of the genre. Recently, there has also been a wave of games designed as spin-offs of popular novels, such as the games taking their style from the German bestsellers Der Schwarm and Tintenherz.

Reiner Knizia and Bernd Brunnhofer at the Deutscher Spielepreis awards at Spiel 2003 in Essen, Germany

Designers of Eurogames include:

• Antoine Bauza, a prolific French designer, creator of 7 Wonders, Tokaido, and Takenoko.[14]
• Bruno Cathala, a French-born game designer, creator of Kingdomino[15] and Five Tribes.[16]
• Vlaada Chvátil, a Czech designer of board games and video games, whose games include Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization, Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert, and Codenames. His rule books are often divided into several "learning scenarios" that gradually introduce players to the rules as they progress through the scenarios.
• Leo Colovini, designer of Cartagena and Carcassonne: The Discovery.
• Rüdiger Dorn, a German designer who created Istanbul, Karuba, Las Vegas, Luxor, and others.[14]
• Bruno Faidutti, French designer of Citadels.[17]
• Stefan Feld, designer particularly of games that make use of dice,[18] and that allow players to score points in a variety of ways.[19] He has designed games such as Castles of Burgundy[19] and Trajan, and three of his games (Strasbourg, Bruges, and Carpe Diem) have been nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres.
• Friedemann Friese, a German designer, creator of Power Grid,[20] as well as many others.
• Mac Gerdts, a German designer of games such as Antike, Imperial, Navegador, and Concordia.[21]
• Reiner Knizia, one of the most prolific German game designers,[22] having designed over 600 published games. Recurring mechanisms in his games include auctions (Ra and Modern Art), tile placement (Tigris and Euphrates[23] and Ingenious), and intricate scoring rules (Samurai). He has also designed many card games such as Lost Cities,[24] Schotten-Totten, and Blue Moon, and the cooperative board game The Lord of the Rings.
• Wolfgang Kramer, who often works with other game designers. His titles include El Grande, Tikal, Princes of Florence, and Torres. His games often have some sort of action point system, and include some geometric element.
• Alan R. Moon, a British-born designer with numerous games to his credit, often with a railway theme, including the Spiel des Jahres-winning Ticket to Ride[25] and Elfenland.
• Alex Randolph, who created over 125 games and is responsible for the placement of the author's name on the rules and box.
• Uwe Rosenberg, designer of games such as Agricola, Le Havre, Patchwork, and several others.[20]
• Sid Sackson was a prolific American game designer whose games, particularly Acquire, prefigured and strongly influenced the Eurogame genre.[3]
• Michael Schacht, German designer of Coloretto, Zooloretto, Aquaretto, Valdora, Africana, Web of power, China, Han, Hansa, Mondo, Mondo Sapiens, Spirits of the Forest, Coney Island.
• Andreas Seyfarth, who has designed the games Puerto Rico,[2] Manhattan, and, with Karen Seyfarth, Thurn and Taxis.
• Klaus Teuber, designer of Catan, which has sold more than 22 million copies.[26]
• Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, the German game designer of the Carcassonne board game series.[27] As of April 2023, Carcassonne has 11 expansions and 6 variant standalone games available[28] as well as numerous mini-expansions.

Players trade currencies and place tiles to build an Arabian palace in Alhambra in Deskohraní 2008

The Internationale Spieltage, also known as Essen Spiel, or the Essen Games Fair, is the largest non-digital game convention in the world,[3][29] and the place where the largest number of Eurogames are released each year. Founded in 1983 and held annually in Essen, Germany, the fair was founded with the objective of providing a venue for people to meet and play board games, and show gaming as an integral part of German culture.

A "World Boardgaming Championships" is held annually in July in Pennsylvania, USA. The event is nine days long and includes tournament tracks of over a hundred games; while traditional wargames are played there, all of the most popular tournaments are Eurogames and it is generally perceived as a Eurogame-centered event. Attendance is international, though players from the U.S. and Canada predominate.

The most prestigious German board game award is the Spiel des Jahres ("game of the year").[3][30] The award is very family-oriented. Shorter, more approachable, games such as Ticket to Ride and Elfenland are usually preferred by the committee that gives out the award.

In 2011, the jury responsible for the Spiel des Jahres created the Kennerspiel des Jahres, or connoisseur's game of the year, for more complex games.[3]

The Deutscher Spiele Preis ("German game prize") is also awarded to games that are more complex and strategic, such as Puerto Rico. However, there are a few games with broad enough appeal to win both awards: The Settlers of Catan (1995), Carcassonne (2001), Dominion (2009).