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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Headlines April 13, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #28: The Gaming Coach February 24, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #27: Nuremberg 2008, Day Three February 22, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #26: Nuremberg 2008, Day Two February 20, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #25: Nuremberg 2008, Day One February 1, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #24: A German’s Best Friend January 3, 2008 - Postcards From Berlin #23: A Belated Christmas Card December 1, 2007 - Postcards From Berlin #22: Home Sick November 6, 2007 - W. Eric Martin: Postcards from Berlin #21: The Unexpected Columnist October 1, 2007 - Postcards From Berlin #20: Innovators and Copycats September 1, 2007 - Postcards From Berlin #19: The Game Store August 1, 2007 - Jeff Allers: After-Essen Party in Berlin August 1, 2007 - Postcards From Berlin #18: The Gaming Café

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Articles

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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Postcards From Berlin #18: The Gaming Café

By Jeff Allers
August 1, 2007

German word of the month: Ludothek (game library)

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

As with my favorite German board games, I always have much more that I would like to do in Berlin than is possible with my allotted actions and resources. Because of the capitol’s divided history, there were duplicates of everything in the east and west, and even now the city has scores of museums, no fewer than three opera houses, numerous concert halls, and plenty of alternative venues showing the cabarets and political satires for which it is famous.  And though it’s changing, Berlin is still probably the most inexpensive capitol in the western world to experience all of these cultural events. If only I could find the time. I finally stopped buying “Tip,” one of the city’s best biweekly cultural magazines, which listed absolutely everything that was going on in Berlin each day, because it was simply too depressing to constantly read about all the things I was missing.

Tip has since tried to narrow the choices for its increasingly busy readership, however, by running a series called “The 14 best things to do in the next two weeks.” One of its recent recommendations was an unassuming board gaming café in the heart of East Berlin’s new alternative scene.

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Postcards From Berlin #17: Rules and Order

By Jeff Allers
July 5, 2007

German word of the month: Verboten (forbidden)

Everything was an adventure in those first months. Every step out the door of my new Berlin apartment was a voyage of discovery. Often, I would spontaneously leave the U-Bahn (subway) in the middle of my journey home from work so that I could walk the distance to the next station and explore a new part of Berlin.

This ritual was even more exciting after I finally found a job at a German architectural firm downtown. On my way to work, I climbed the stairs from the crowded U-Bahn station and walked briskly through the quieter side streets to my new office, filled with anticipation. As I came to the last pedestrian crossing, the red “don’t walk” sign was lit and an elderly gentlemen stood obediently at the corner. There wasn’t a car in sight nor was there the sound of an engine in earshot, so I crossed anyway—only to be verbally assaulted by the man at the corner for my blatant disregard of the rules. I wasn’t sure if I was shocked more by the way he spoke to me or by the simple fact that my “taking my life into my own hands” could actually matter to him. I might have simply considered him a “grumpy old man” had the experience not repeated itself in other situations with younger people after that.

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Postcards From Berlin #16: Return to Göttingen

By Jeff Allers
June 5, 2007

German word of the month: Spielerfindung (game design)

Ever since my first trip to the Game Designer’s Meeting last year, I have been looking forward to returning to Göttingen. I’m sure it’s exciting to see the stacks of new shrink-wrapped games at Essen, but lately I’ve actually been spending more time developing and testing prototypes in our Berlin group than trying out new releases. And for two days, the Stadthalle in this quaint university town becomes the ultimate games workshop.

I traveled alone this time, opting for the fast and smooth ICE (Inter City Express) train ride. Though I enjoyed the company last year when I drove with a few friends, reclining in the train was much more relaxing than navigating Autobahn traffic. I even scribbled down a new game idea as I watched the German countryside fly by. I arrived in two and one-half hours, sandwiched myself between two large backpacks—half full of prototypes—and began the trek to the apartment that fellow Berliner Günter Cornett had reserved for our group.

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Postcards From Berlin #15: The Gathering of Freunde

By Jeff Allers with Bernd Eisenstein
May 4, 2007

German Word of the Month:  Spielspaß (fun of playing)

While the best-known open gaming marathons in the US may be invite-only, there are many options for board game hobbyists in Germany.  I know of at least three that take place throughout the year (not including the Essen Spielmesse, which also includes space for open gaming).

One of my good friends, designer Bernd Eisenstein, has written the Spielwoche (gaming week) in Oberhof permanently into his yearly calendar.

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Postcards From Berlin #14: You’d Better Take This Sitting Down

By Jeff Allers
April 1, 2007

German Word of the Month: Stammtisch (reserved table for a particular group that meets regularly in a café, bar or restaurant)

Not long after I moved to Berlin, I met one of my new friends in a local café.  We ordered a pair of Milchkaffee, delicious lattes served in a large white bowl without handles, and we sat and talked.  We sat and talked until our bowls were empty, then we sat and talked some more.  Hours passed, the milk froth that was left over from our coffee had long since evaporated, and the sun had changed angles dramatically, yet the waitress did not interrupt our conversation once and even had to be flagged down to get the bill when we were finally ready to leave.

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Postcards From Berlin #13: The Weight of Smoke

By Jeff Allers
March 1, 2007

German Word of the Month: Gesundheitsminister (Minister of Health)

Sir Walter Raleigh once made a famous bet with Queen Elizabeth, who was not too fond of people smoking in her court.  He wagered he could measure the weight of smoke—an odd thought, “like measuring a man’s soul” as William Hurt’s character from the film “Smoke” put it—but Raleigh cleverly went about his proof scientifically, calling for a scale and, after filling his pipe with colonial tobacco, had it weighed.  Then he smoked his pipe and weighed it again, together with the leftover ash.  The difference, he declared, was the weight of the smoke (from “Towards a Theology of Pipe Smoking” by Arthur D. Yunker).

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Postcards From Berlin #12: Germany’s Romance with the Wild West

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Indianer (Native American)

I have yet to meet a German who has not romanticized being in the American West, driving down Route 66 in a Ford Mustang convertible, seeing the places where cowboys and Indians once lived (and in German, Native Americans are still referred to as “Indianer,” distinguishable from “Inder,” someone who comes from India).  This is in large part because most Germans grew up reading books about an Apache named Winnetou and his German cowboy blood-brother Old Shatterhand.  The author was Karl May, a man from Saxony who wrote so convincingly that his books have had a strong influence on German perceptions of the Wild West—and America—ever since.  There was only one problem: May had never been there himself.

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Postcards From Berlin #11: The Game DJ

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Silvester (New Year’s Eve)

Celebrating the coming of the new year in Germany is like being transported to an entirely different country.  Berlin residents eat Swiss-style with Fondue or Raclette, their eyes are glued to the TV to watch repeated showings of a British black-and-white short comedy film called “Dinner for One,�? and the normally ordered way of life erupts into pure chaos as everyone over the age of four sets off their own personal firework collections on the city streets and sidewalks.  The usually green-conscious Germans, who recycle household waste into five different bins located in every apartment courtyard, abandon their environmental friendliness for this one night each year.  Days later, the streets are still covered with exploded cardboard missiles and launch pads.

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Postcards From Berlin #10: Christmas in Berlin

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Weihnachtsgeschenk (Christmas present)

“Stille Nacht (Silent Night)�? will most likely not describe my Christmas Eve.  I’ve actually already had my Christmas in August, and my Weihnachtsgeschenke, babies Sam and Ben, will not be giving St. Nick much of a window of opportunity at our place, as they are still taking turns waking up in the middle of the night.  Long nights have also meant shorter game sessions, but as the weather changes and the sun disappears for the winter, Berliners do have more opportunities for indoor activities.

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Postcards From Berlin #9:  The Disappearing German Language

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Denglisch (a mix of Deutsch and English)

Another Essen Spielmesse has come and gone.  Those in attendance from the English-speaking world have long since returned after experiencing the three S’s of the convention:  Spiele, Schnitzel, and Spaetzi (and possibly Schmerzen in their backs and/or stomachs from heavy luggage and equally heavy food).

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Postcards From Berlin #8:  The Flea Market

By Jeff Allers

Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted on the Gamewire feature of the Gamefest website on September 30, 2005.  The author requested it that it be reposted here for this month’s article.

German Word of the Month: Troedelmarkt (flea market)

I will probably not be able to go to Essen this year. Again. Yes, it is tragic for a gamer who has lived most of his last 12 years only a few hours drive from his hobby’s biggest event. But the timing has always coincided with work or family visits. Maybe next year, I say again with a sigh.

Then again, perhaps I should not be so down. After all, most of the Essen games will be at our gaming group soon enough and some already have been in prototype form. Rick and Co. seem to capture all the excitement, and I don’t have to fight the crowds.
And as for the used games, the hard-to-find gems that many gamers cross an ocean to finally get their hands on—well, I’ve amassed a collection of those for a fraction of what they’ll be selling for at Essen—at Troedelmarkts.

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Postcards From Berlin #7:  The Gamer’s Home

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month:  Wohngemeinschaft (shared apartment)

A home is a person’s castle, or so the saying goes, and this is most definitely true for a gamer.  I’m not implying that gamers don’t get out much, mind you, but we certainly do enjoy hosting social events around a nice table in a comfortable room (with the exception being a game of Railroad Tycoon where several tables and a banquet hall are required). All it takes for an evening of fun with friends is a sheet of printed cardboard with a few bits of colored wood and assorted cards, and good food and drink nearby (but not necessarily on the same table—see Postcards from Berlin #2: Confessions of a Gaming Clutz or How I Acquired my Copy of Dolmengoetter for the explanation, in all its gory details).

Aside from that, a gamer needs space for his or her collection of games. Ikea shelves seem to be the international storage facility of choice, but the boxes can often be scattered among several different closets, coffee tables, bookcases and chests throughout the home.

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Postcards From Berlin #6: The European Vacation

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Sehenswurdigkeiten = sites worth seeing

It really is a small world.  Growing up in Iowa, I had no idea.  It took days of driving to get to the nearest ocean, mountain or foreign country.  Maybe I could have made it to Canada in a day, but is that really so foreign?.  And driving through the American Midwestern prairie makes days seem like years, with interstate highways so straight you barely need to touch the steering wheel, and land so flat and unchanging that fellow Iowan Bill Bryson once wrote you could get a view by standing on two telephone books. 

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Postcards From Berlin #5:  Where Designs Are Discovered

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month:  Schleichweg = shortcut

October is a magic month for those in the board game scene.  The Spielmesse has become such a big event for designers and publishers—as well as a sort of pilgrimage for gamers—that the Mecca of board gaming conventions is referred to simply by its location, “Essen.�?  But there is another meeting in Germany that does not receive as much coverage outside the Fatherland.  It’s the Essen before Essen—the annual Game Authors’ Meeting that shows a glimpse into the future of German board gaming.  And like Essen, it has become so big that it, too, is referred to only by the name of the city hosting the event:  Goettingen.

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Postcards From Berlin #4: Gaming in East Germany

By Jeff Allers

German word of the month: Ostalgie = Nostalgia for the former East Germany

Charlie has always seemed to me to be an odd name for a place that holds so much historical drama.  Brandenburg Gate, on the other hand, was always the grand entrance into Berlin when it was the capitol of an empire.  But for almost 30 years it was blocked off by the East German government, encircled by a barricade of concrete and barbed wire referred to simply as the Berlin Wall.  Instead, a tiny checkpoint called “Charlie” became the main gateway for foreigners into East Berlin, the capitol of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Now that the downtown has been built up again, and chunks of the wall have been auctioned off to museums around the world, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum is all that remains there.  Inside are exhibits detailing the now-legendary escapes of easterners who jumped through windows over the wall or tunneled under it. Some of the most daring took place at the checkpoint itself, as some westerners were able to smuggle their eastern friends out in secret compartments carved out of relatively tiny automobiles.

In the other direction, coveted western goods were smuggled into the east by friends and family members taking the 1-day-only pass to pay a visit.  They brought with them western chocolates, coffee, books, and, of course, board games.

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Postcards From Berlin #3: The Game Architect

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: baustelle = construction site

In that pre-game time of sorting wooden bits and shuffling cards, I often ask new players around the table standard icebreaker questions, in order to get to know them a little before play begins. When I first joined my Berlin gaming group, I was particularly interested in learning more about the people there, and I remember asking a woman what she did for a living.

She returned a very short, typically German reply, “Author.”
“What kind of author?” I asked, intrigued.  “Novels, children’s books?”
“Game author” she answered with a wink.
From then on, I often asked new acquaintances in the group if they, too, were authors.  “Aren’t we all?” one of them replied.

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Postcards From Berlin #2: Confessions of a Gaming Clutz or How I Acquired my Copy of Dolmengoetter

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: tolpatschig = clumsy

It’s time for me to get this off my chest.  Hi, my name is Jeff, and I’m a clumsy gamer.  First, the disclaimer:  if you invite me to game with you, I must warn you that I am fully capable of tipping my drink onto your beautiful Franz Vohwinkel board.  It’s happened before, and it will probably happen again.  It’s inevitable, like Newton’s law of toast and pizza, always landing with the messy side down.  When I’m at the game table, meeples will fly, cards will scatter, and chits will at some point litter the ground.

Believe me, I’ve tried to change.  I’ve learned to recognize when I am most vulnerable:  when I’m tired or stressed or on the verge of passing the leader on the victory point track.  Cramped quarters certainly don’t help, and the room in the Berlin café in which I usually play squeezes us together even closer than the compact cars on the cobblestone street outside.  But it’s difficult to use that as an excuse.  After all, the others are playing under the same conditions.

Even when I first started to play German board games regularly, I knew it was only a matter of time before I would embarrass myself.  Having half a dozen tall German beer glasses—each holding one-half liters—around a game board is asking for trouble.  But I knew, from previous experiences, that even if all precautions were taken, I would find a way. 

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Postcards From Berlin #1: The Gaming Group

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Zusammengehoerigkeitsgefuehl = feeling of belonging to a community

My heart pounded as I slowly cruised the cobblestone street in downtown Berlin, searching for a gap large enough to squeeze my car into.  As I drove past the Danish café, I could already see people through the window, sitting around tables with tall beers and stacks of cardboard boxes.  This would be the last step in my inauguration to become a true gamer:  the weekly gaming group.

The months before had become a blur.  German friends of ours had pulled out a copy of Carcassonne after dinner, and my wife and I were playing our own copy of the game within a week. `Soon, we were visiting a local game store, trying out new releases at their open game nights.  I started to gain an interest in going to flea markets with my wife after discovering that used board games were as easy to find there as her precious antiques.  Then, through an internet flea market, I was able to contact a woman selling used games in Berlin.  As I left her house with a garbage bag full of German classics slung over my shoulder, she invited me to her regular gaming group at the Old World Cafe.

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