Postcards from Berlin

By Jeff Allers

What it's like to live and game as an American in Berlin. Jeff sends BGN a new postcard the first of each month.

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Postcards From Berlin #42: Middle Ages

By Jeff Allers
March 7, 2010

German Word of the Month: Lebensabschnitt (phase of life)

Mention the “Middle Ages” while selecting themes for an upcoming game night, and it might give me pause these days. This is not at all due to the fact that it is a much over-used backstory for European board games. Rather, it’s because I had my 40th birthday a few months ago.

I’ve always been a staunch member of the “age is just a number” camp, claiming that the round numbers were no different than any other year, and in theory, this still makes sense to me. But cultural stigma has finally trumped logic this time around, and I’ve found myself in the midst of a mild midlife crisis (which in the German language is, conveniently, called a “midlife crisis").

The moment has spurred an above-average amount of self-reflection that, naturally, does not exclude the gaming hobby and my participation in it. In fact, it seems that the majority of the gamers I know are middle-aged, too, even in a country where strategy games are successfully mass-marketed to families. The teens and younger attendees to my game nights usually have parents who are much more serious about the hobby than they are, and I’m left to conclude that an obsession with boardgames may very well be a result of entering midlife. It’s sobering to think that a 40-year-old placing a large order with a local online boardgame retailer might generate more eye rolls from friends and spouses than buying a Harley Davidson.

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Postcards From Berlin #41: An After-Essen Mint

By Jeff Allers
November 26, 2009

German Word of the Month: Nachspeise (dessert)

“If you can’t make it to Essen, then make Essen come to you.” That has been my motto and motivation the past three years for the “After-Essen Party” in Berlin, and Michael of the Spielwiese has gladly hosted the event, as it always falls on the “birthday” of his café, which he opened the Tuesday after Essen four years ago. Every year, we invite gamers – both local and visiting – as well as Berlin designers to bring and teach their new releases. For the inaugural event, we even had Boardgame News editor Eric Martin and his wife Linda as special guests; this time we were treated to Boardgame News writers Brad Keen, Fraser McHarg and Melissa Rogerson. Fraser and Melissa even brought along their “gamer” daughters.

Spielwiese owner Michael Schmitt and Jeff Allers – ready to party


Berlin designers in attendance included Peer Sylvester, Günter Cornett (who released Peer’s Filipino Fruit Market), young designer Tizian Blumenthal (whose Tokugawa was published by Cornett in 2008), Andrea Meyer (with the self-published Climate Poker), Hartmut Kommerell (of Finito fame), Mario Coopmann (developer for Schmidt Spiele and designer of Robotics), and Bernd Eisenstein, enjoying the successful launch of Irongames through its first release, Peloponnes.

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Postcards From Berlin #40: Self-Publishing

By Jeff Allers
October 11, 2009

German Word of the Month: Eigenverlagsgründung (founding your own publishing company)

In the film industry, they are the writer/directors; in music, the singer/songwriters. They are like architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who always maintained artistic control over his entire work. In the board game industry, we call them self-publishers. And every October in Essen, more of them gather together in one place than anywhere else in the world at any time of year. In spite of the large number of established game publishers in Germany, many designers here still choose to publish their own creations. In fact, half of all the Berlin designers I’ve met have tried self-publishing at least once. Andrea Meyer, Günter Cornett, and Richard Stubenvoll have all experienced enough success through their first efforts to produce follow-up games. This Essen, there will be a new kid on the block from Berlin called “Irongames,” a formidable brand name and a clever play on designer Bernd Eisenstein’s name.

Bernd and I have been friends ever since he moved to Berlin and joined our game group, and I’ve enjoyed testing many of his prototypes, as well as working on a few projects together. At the time we met, he had already won the Hippodice game design competition with one of his first designs ever, Herrscher der Anden, and the game had been published by Abacus under the name Maya. Most of the prototypes Bernd brought to the group were deeper and more complex, however, as those were the types of games he enjoyed playing. Bernd said that he never considered self-publishing at that time, though, and his prototypes were sent in a steady flow out to the established German companies. None of them were picked up, but a simpler, more family-oriented game finally was, and Zack und Pack put Bernd’s name back on a board game box for the first time in five years. Shortly thereafter came our first published game together, Alea Iacta Est.

“After that, I wanted more,” Bernd said to me recently. “My more complex ideas were rejected by publishers, and those were the games that I loved the most. So in 2008, when Peloponnes was rejected the second time, I made the decision to self-publish because I was especially excited about this game and feel that it is my best to date.”

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Postcards From Berlin #39: Celebrity

By Jeff Allers
August 18, 2009

German Word of the Month: Prominenten (celebrities)

Many years ago I was invited to attend the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in Des Moines, Iowa. As a young high school newspaper editor, I was ecstatic to finally cover a different beat – one that extended far beyond the classrooms and gym lockers, and included issues more important than the student council’s never-ending battle to place soda machines in the cafeteria. I was excited to see renowned politicians in person, verbally competing for the chance to run for the most prestigious office in the land.

What I hadn’t prepared myself for, however, was the number of other celebrities who would be in attendance. As it turned out, I had a seat behind writer and Saturday Night Live comedian (and future politician – who would’ve known?) Al Franken, and NBC news anchorman Tom Brokaw sat two rows in front of him. I still regret not attempting to speak with either of them, but I was so intimidated that I probably would not have known what to say, had I mustered up the courage. Seeing a television personality up close for the first time often makes one tongue-tied.

I run into celebrities more often now in Berlin, sometimes quite literally. Early this summer, in fact, my minivan’s mirror was clipped by a young German film star’s car as he was passing by on the narrow street. He actually lives right around the corner from us and was happy to drop by our place to pay for the damage, once I had the mirror repaired. Even though I admire his films, I tried to act as if he was just another neighbor, never verbalizing any of the questions I had about what it was like for him to be a film star. (I must admit, however, that I was not too shy to entertain bribes for his mobile phone number from our young lady friends.)

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Postcards From Berlin #38: Teaching German Game Design to Germans…in English

By Jeff Allers
July 12, 2009

German Word of the Month: Arbeitsgemeinschaft (working group or workshop)

Although it has become a profession, game design does not necessarily have to be limited to adults. In fact, most professional games designers probably invented their first games when they were still in school, just for the fun of it. I still have the first game I designed, a war game that included a map of the world and myriad units drawn on cardboard chits, with complex movement rules and attack tables for the combat dice rolls. It was a game I only ever played by myself, as it was much too complicated to explain. But it was interesting for me to see how the pieces and rules would influence the decisions I could make during the game.

It is not uncommon for the children of published German game designers to also create their own games, and some have even made it to publishers. I was always intrigued by the number of children at the Göttingen Game Designers’ Meeting and the ideas they brought with them to show publishers, sitting side-by-side with some of the most successful adult designers in the business. It was there that I met Tizian Blumenthal and Victor Gilhaus for the first time, a pair of junior high-aged siblings who had created a game called Tokugawa that was developed by Günter Cornett and later published by his Bambus Spielverlag. The two-player game has some very nice ideas, and I wondered how many other young talents were out there, just waiting to be discovered.

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Postcards From Berlin #37: The Naked Truth

By Jeff Allers
June 25, 2009

German Word of the Month: freier körper kultur (free body culture)

Despite the time of year, the weather in Berlin has remained as brisk and wet as it was in the long winter months. Sweaters and jackets are still in full rotation in my weekly wardrobe, and rare are the days for shorts or short sleeves, not to mention opportunities for shedding even more clothing. I can imagine, for some Germans at least, that must be very difficult.

Because, as many American teenage boys know, German beaches are places where even the skimpiest of swim suits are sometimes discarded in favor of bathing au naturale. It’s true that the naturist movement has been popular here for some time, but those of us who come from a more conservative background are still surprised to see the beach areas marked freier körper kultur, or FKK.

I find its popularity in this country quite ironic, considering the guardedness of most Germans and their high value on privacy, as they will often only offer their last name on a first meeting. And to tell you the truth, a stroll on one of those beaches will quickly dispatch any teenage fantasies, as you are confronted with the reality of who actually uses them. Just imagine a picnic with your extended family dressed “as God intended,” and you might get the picture – not exactly the Garden of Eden.

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Postcards From Berlin #36: Brandenburg Gate-ways

By Jeff Allers
May 19, 2009

German Word of the Month: Gelegenheitsspieler (casual gamer)

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, when East Germans were finally allowed to pass through Brandenburg Gate. There are many special events planned this year to commemorate that moment in history, and much of it, I’m sure, will take place beneath Berlin’s most famous tourist attraction.

I was thinking recently of the idea of the open gate – and all it represents – in relation to so many of the English-language gaming articles that use the term “gateway game.” Easy accessibility is implied, of course, meaning the rules are simple enough for anyone to grasp, the playing time is short enough for the modern family schedule, and the games are tight enough to keep just about anyone aged 8 and up interested until the end. Then there is also the underlying hope that this will be a game that awakens the interest of a gaming agnostic to the wider world of more complex board games – to cross over the wall, so to speak.

The funny thing is that I rarely hear this kind of terminology used in Germany. Perhaps it’s because the very nature of most German board games is to appeal to families, and German families on a whole seem to be much more open to playing board games, even those games of moderate complexity. A majority seem to be Gelegenheitsspieler, and many others have shelves full of good-sized game collections mixed in with their personal libraries. Many pack up the kids and take them to Spiel, the Essen gaming convention, every year or shuttle them to the week-long Oberhof “gathering” for Easter vacation. And of course, there is the much talked-about Spiel des Jahres award, which specifically looks for innovative games that are still playable by a wide range of age groups. Gateway games seem to be the norm for the industry here.

Michael prepares to recommend one of 800+ “gateway games” at his board game café

Even so, there are still Germans who haven’t passed through the gate or even been introduced to the possibility. As I’ve now had the opportunity to organize several game groups, it has been interesting for me to see what kinds of games will entice someone to the table.

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Postcards From Berlin #35: A Good Fit

By Jeff Allers
April 16, 2009

German Word of the Month: Zusammenpassen (to fit together)

I know it has been awhile since my last postcard. To be honest, I’m surprised I was able to keep up such regular correspondence over the past several years. Call it inspiration or creative release – whatever it was, I just didn’t feel it the past several months, and sometimes, when I am forced to move around quite a bit, the only way to maintain a sense of stability is to focus only on the people who are right in front of me.

And although I’ve enjoyed an increasingly closer connection to the world-wide gaming community, I have been quite content this year with the more personal times, namely face-to-face across the game tables of my favorite café and my new workplace, a community center where I have started a new gaming meeting.

Prenzlauer Berg

Of course, there are many other reasons why I have not been able to slip another Berlin postcard in the mail. I’ve started a new job and moved my family to another part of the city, and I am still putting in lighting fixtures and hanging curtains in the new apartment. Games are still in boxes, forming grand mountain ranges through our bedroom that are perfect for two-year-old climbers. The games that are unpacked hold colorful wooden bits that are much too tempting for little hands to examine, even when they are safely sealed in little plastic baggies. I’ve already amassed a collection of yellow-boxed Haba releases for the boys, but they’ve made it clear to their father that they prefer the “games for adults.”

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Postcards From Berlin #34: Gaming and the Third Reich

By Jeff Allers
December 9, 2008

German Word of the Month: Gedächtnis (Remembrance)

Christmas decorations are coming out earlier every year, it seems, though my German friends still do not understand why we decorate our Tannenbaum weeks before Christmas Eve. Still, with the major shopping areas glowing from strings of lights, and little wooden stands on market squares already displaying nutcrackers and gingerbread, there is one thing the season – and Germany – cannot seem to escape: its past.

Last month, the 9th of November marked the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht or “night of broken glass”, the first of the Nazi’s pogroms when Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed, and tens of thousands of Jews were deported or sent off to concentration camps. It made front page news. Again.

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Postcards From Berlin #32: After Essen

By Jeff Allers
November 5, 2008

German Word of the Month: Feier (celebration)

After many sad good-byes and a maddening week of packing that resembled one of those popular home-organizing television shows ("…this goes, this stays, this gets sent to my parents to bring with them on their next visit…"), we boarded the airplane in the sunny southeast of the U.S., landing eventually in Berlin. One of our two-year-old twins remained awake almost the entire flight, finally closing his eyes as we landed for the last time. Exhausted, we were greeted by friends who helped carry our luggage and children to our car, and we made our way down the dark, cold and very wet streets of the city. It did not bother me one bit. It is good to be home again.

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Postcards From Berlin #32: The Name Game

By Jeff Allers
October 1, 2008

German Word of the Month: Wortspiel (play on words)

What’s in a name? The answer is probably deeper and more complex than Shakespeare’s smitten Juliet could ever naively fathom. It’s no wonder, then, that people agonize over naming just about anything, whether it be their children and pets, their companies and clubs, their cities and streets – or their games.

Names are all around us, telling us a story, whether we realize it or not. Place names in America point to the European immigrants who founded towns and colonies (New Hampshire, New Orleans), or to the Native American tribes who once lived and hunted there (Omaha, Sioux City). Sometimes, in fact, names are all that remain of the past.

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Postcards From Berlin #31: Refusing to Grow Up

By Jeff Allers
August 1, 2008

German Word of the Month: Spielmacher (playmaker)

When most people hear about my enjoyment of a hobby they think is best reserved for young children, they often shake their heads with a smile and call me a “child at heart.”

I’m sure the same thing happens regularly for Tim Walsh, but the 17-year veteran of the toy and game industry doesn’t shy away from that label. Born on Christmas Day, 1964 – the ultimate toy-giving holiday – he has proudly worn the badge “kid at heart” well into adulthood.

I met Tim a few years ago when he visited our youth ministry in Berlin as part of a small church group. Tall and athletic with an endearing smile, he wasn’t afraid to jump right in and participate with the German teens in the various activities. He even borrowed some shorts and shoes to practice with my basketball team.

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Postcards From Berlin #30: Culture Shock

By Jeff Allers
July 11, 2008

German Word of the Month: Heimkehr (homecoming)

For most of the past 14 years, Berlin has been home to me. It is the first move I made after college, the first place I was truly on my own. I am never homesick when I am there, yet I miss it terribly when I must leave for any lengthy period of time. JFK preached during the Cold War that all people of the free world could claim citizenship here – or at least, solidarity with its people – yet he really didn’t know the city or its people the way I’ve been privileged to know them.

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Postcards From Berlin #29: Saying Goodbye

German Word of the Month: Oma (Grandma)

It was a stark contrast – from the European metropolis to the Midwestern small town; from the urban life I now live to the roots I left behind, deep in the black Iowa soil. And now I found myself returning home, flying alone, my seat locked in an upright position as I gazed out onto the perfectly square fields below, a view that could easily have been a gameboard.

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Postcards From Berlin #28: The Gaming Coach

By Jeff Allers
April 13, 2008

German Word of the Month: Lernspiel (learning game)

It had been a tough season with very few wins to be excited about, but there we were, down to the wire with one of the better basketball teams in our league, a German version of March Madness. Behind by one point but ready to inbound the ball with enough seconds to get off a good shot, I took our final timeout and hurriedly diagrammed the screens and passes that could give me my “Jimmy V.” moment. As the team took the floor, my mind replayed scenes from “Hoosiers,” and I called out once more in my best Gene Hackman voice. The referee handed over the ball, blew the whistle, and one of my players passed the ball to our best shooter, who launched a shot at the buzzer that seemingly hung in the air for hours until…

…it clanged off the rim and fell to the ground, without the sweet sound of contact with the net. We’d lost the game. Again.

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Postcards From Berlin #27: Nuremberg 2008, Day Three

By Jeff Allers
February 24, 2008

German Word of the Month: Türsteher (bouncer)

Editor’s note: This article is part three of Jeff’s Nuremberg coverage. Part 1 and Part 2 are also on BGN; Part 2 has had additional images added since its publication.

After resting in the youth hostel all day Thursday, my father felt well enough again to join me for our final day at the fair. My first appointment was with Fritz Gruber from TM-Spiele/Kosmos. The enormous booth had café-style seating filled with activity. I mentioned to Fritz that it seemed like a “convention within a convention.” After a brief chat, he hooked me up with someone to take the tour of new games. Michael Schmitt, owner of the Spielwiese game café in Berlin where my group meets, joined me at the first game, fresh from his five-hour drive on the Autobahn.

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Postcards From Berlin #26: Nuremberg 2008, Day Two

By Jeff Allers
February 22, 2008

German Word of the Month: Neuheiten (new releases)

Editor’s note: This is the second of Jeff’s Nuremberg 2008 columns; the third will run within the next few days.

After a late night, my father was feeling ill and stayed in the room to rest while I went on the convention center alone. My first appointment was with Claudia Wieczorek, designer for Selecta Spielzeug, another game publisher known for beautiful wooden bits and nice children’s game mechanisms.

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Postcards From Berlin #25: Nuremberg 2008, Day One

By Jeff Allers
February 20, 2008

German Word of the Month: Messe (convention)

Editor’s note: Jeff’s Nuremberg coverage will be in three parts, with the other two to follow soon.

I’m not one to obsess about statistics and I’ve never been interested in market analysis, but the information provided in the press package for the Nuremberg Toy Fair caught my attention. Production of games in Germany rose to 35 million Euros last year, it said. Furthermore, the country imported 1.1 billion Euros worth of games and exported another 1.2 billion Euros worth. Games and puzzles are the largest product group in the expansive toy industry in Germany, rising to 17.8 per cent of the market last year. This compares to only 10.4 per cent of France’s toy industry – or a mere 7.8 per cent of England’s. This means that, at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, games play a more prominent role than in any other convention of its type around the world.

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Postcards From Berlin #24: A German’s Best Friend

By Jeff Allers
February 1, 2008

German Word of the Month: Kauenspielzeug (chew toy)

“Dogs here are treated better than children,” a Berlin friend once remarked. That may be an exaggeration, but canines are certainly welcome in more areas of German society than in any other country I have visited. Every stretch of pavement in Berlin, from the inner city to the suburbs, is continually paced by a neighborhood dog owner making the rounds with his or her pet. Dogs of every size from Chihuahuas to Saint Bernards share meager three-room city flats with young couples and retirees alike. And when Germans go on vacation, why take your dogs to the kennel when many hotels allow them?

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Postcards From Berlin #23: A Belated Christmas Card

By Jeff Allers
January 3, 2007

German Word of the Month: Waffenstillstand (ceasefire)

World War I was entering its first winter, as soldiers from both sides huddled together in the muddy trenches that lined the western front through Belgium and France. The “No Man’s Land” between them was already filled with bodies of the fallen, soon to be frozen because it was too dangerous to retrieve them for a proper burial. But that Christmas, something quite unexpected happened: the soldiers who had been trained to kill each other suddenly laid down their weapons…and played games.

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Postcards From Berlin #22: Home Sick

By Jeff Allers
December 1, 2007

German word of the month: Krankgeschrieben (doctor’s excuse for being sick)

I apologize if this article sounds a bit nasal, but I’m home sick and, frankly, lucky to get in a complete sentence between sneezes. “Gesundheit!” you may say, as the Germans do without ever skipping a beat. The word actually means “health,” a subject my Berlin friends take quite seriously. In fact, most seem to have studied medicine, as they are never afraid to disagree with my doctor’s diagnosis and offer their own alternative treatment program.

I think that I’ve now received about all the health advice they can give me, as my 15-month-old twin sons have been sick for most of the past two months. My wife and I are averaging three trips to the doctor each week, in about every conceivable combination: Mom with Ben, Dad with Sam, Mom alone, Mom and Dad with Ben and Sam, etc. Our doctor is a wonderful person and all, but we wouldn’t mind seeing less of her.

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W. Eric Martin: Postcards from Berlin #21: The Unexpected Columnist

German word of the month: Geil (cool—see the bottom of this column for details)

Editor’s note: The Postcard from Berlin this month bears a secret American postmark. Postcard columnist Jeff Allers was kind enough to show my wife Linda and me around Berlin for a day, so I’m returning the favor by doing postcard duty—although I’m not sure how all this will fit on a 3x5.

Even most of my travel into, out of, and around Europe has been by airplane or automobile, I still think of trains as the archetypal European mode of transportation—and after driving five hours from the Spiel game convention in Essen to Munich in mid-October, I was looking forward to riding the train to Berlin on the Tuesday after Spiel. I could sleep, eat, read, goof around, and otherwise do things that are impossible to safely do while driving a car.

The book on the table is The Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall, which was recommended by a BGN reader after I expressed admiration for House of Leaves. So as not to spoil the plot for others, I’ll say only that the idea behind Raw Shark was enticing, but the execution failed for me as the last third of the book read just like a certain shark-based novel and movie from decades past with no literary extras to make it more interesting. The graphical tricks seemed largely wasted or overblown compared to what might have been used, and the promise of the book wasn’t met. I wish authors lifted ideas as freely as game designers do because I’d love to see someone else tackle the concepts in this book and reinterpret them.

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Postcards From Berlin #20: Innovators and Copycats

By Jeff Allers
October 1, 2007

German word of the month: Nachmachen (to copy)

Taking his cue from the band, the comedian walked out onto the soundstage to roaring applause. Although the show was being taped during the daytime, the mock cityscape behind him gave television viewers of this late-night show the illusion of being live. Dressed sharply in a suit and tie, he delivered a punchy monologue before retiring behind a large oak desk to interview his first guest. But this wasn’t “The Late Show with David Letterman”; it was German Harold Schmidt.

The first time I saw the program, I was amazed at the lengths Schmidt went to copy the look, and even the gestures, of Letterman himself. Fans here, however, didn’t seem to mind the lack of originality, as they were mostly unfamiliar with the real thing. And although most of the hit shows from the States are shown here in dubbed versions, it just wouldn’t be possible to translate the very American humor of “The Late Show” for a German audience—so Schmidt created a carbon copy instead.

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Postcards From Berlin #19: The Game Store

By Jeff Allers
September 1, 2007

German word of the month: Spieleladen (game store)

(Author’s note: This is the second article in a two-part series on Berlin’s “brick and mortar” alternatives to chain department stores and the Internet.)

I have always loved playing games, but it wasn’t until a couple of German friends taught me and my wife Carcassonne one evening that I started to explore the board game aisles of our neighborhood Toys ‘R’ Us (or, as another German friend called it, “Toys Rus"). Unlike the original chain stores in the U.S., the German counterpart is stocked full of games from Ravensburger, Queen and Hans im Glück, among others.

Of course, none of the store employees could really tell me anything about the games stacked neatly on their shelves, and I was at first too intimidated by all the game components to buy any of them, thinking that the rules were too complex. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why. Growing up in the U.S., there never seemed to be any offerings in that niche between light children’s games with their colorful plastic pieces and decisionless gameplay, and the war simulations packed with hundreds of cardboard counters and thick rulebooks. I assumed that the German games fell into the latter category, and even a Siedler von Catan game someone had given me as a gift sat on my bookshelf collecting dust for a year before I was finally taught the game.

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Jeff Allers: After-Essen Party in Berlin

Foreigners (i.e. non-Germans) visiting Germany for the Essen Game Fair are invited to come to Berlin afterwards for an “After Essen Party.”

After fighting the crowds for the latest releases, come to the Spielwiese Games Café (see Postcards From Berlin #18) on Tuesday night, October 23rd, to chat and play in a relaxed atmosphere with Berlin designers like Günter Cornett and Thorsten Gimmler, among others.

We will be more than happy to show you a few Berlin sites as well, and may even be able to arrange for inexpensive accommodations, depending on the number of people who are interested. Please contact me at jallersATccconsDOTde if you would like to attend.

Verspielte Gruesse (Gamingly Yours),

Jeff Allers

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