On my website www.spielbar.com I regulary interview designers and publishers from all over the World. Sometimes I post the original (english) interviews here on the Geek. Today I give you a short Interview with Anna Genovese from Ghenos Games!

1.) Please introduce yourself and your company to our readers!

Ghenos games is a young and brilliant Italian company. We started to publish boardgames in 2005 and we immediately decided to focus on the sports related games.

This was a choice based on two circumstances: first of all we are experts on any sports, and second we identified an empty space in this market’s niche.

Our mission is to become the leading publisher in the sports, travels and adventures board-games’ arena.

But our roadmap will carry us further on.

2.) Please tell us a bit about your games!

Bolide has been the first one, we created it basing the rules on a vectorial mechanism we used at the University. It is a known concept, but we put this in a racing game and the result was revolutionary! We think that Bolide is definitely a complete boardgame about
car races. Completely different than the others races games. The details about the race strategy are excellent. Probably it tends to be a bit longer. Another problem arises when you do not play with the advanced rules where you have different strategies and then uncertainty is assured till to the end.

Race the Wind is a sailing game really simulating the spirit of a match race. It is a fast pace game where you can understand sailing terms and situations watched on TV: you must perform the starting manoeuvres, the upwind and downwind courses and adopt the most efficient overlap and wind shadow tactics to win the sailing cup.

Rugby World is Rugby in a boardgame: the same vectorial concept than in Bolide is used to move the players. This assures a great simulation of the general movements of the two teams. 16 national teams are represented with carton figures inside the boxes, and every player has 3 different characteristics in terms of speed, strength and passage
capability. With Rugby World you can get closer and closer to a wonderful sport.

Camper Tour is a game about travelling: the rules are easier than the other games since it is dedicated to families and kids. The idea of the game is to make a journey with a camper but also to come back home using up all the tokens, being aware not to use them all up too soon or end up with some left.


Our last game is Leader 1, the legend of Cycling. Yet again a sports' simulation game: you manage a team of tree cyclists (leader, rouler and climber). Every cyclist has free moves according to his speciality and the route he is moving on, but also has the possibility to move faster, but consuming his energy.


3.) What have you planned for the future? More sport games?

We are now working on some prototypes, one of which is a sports game. Sorry, but I cannot say more at the moment.

4.) Will you accept outside submissions of games?

We do produce games of other authors. First of all, it must not be a game of the same sport of a game we already have produced. Second, it must be in line with our games, most of the choice must be made by the player.

5.) Can you tell us a bit about boardgaming in italy? Hows the scene there?

In Italy the scene is very different from the German one. There are many playing associations but they are a restricted group. Common people do not know the existence of games other than Monopoli, Risiko,...There is no play culture and shops only have the television shows' games.There are a few specialised shops that are making a hard work. The playing associations are doing a very hard work too: organising fairs and conventions not only for themselves, but trying to promote gaming. Thanks to them, more and more people are coming to know good games, their educational side, the joy of staying sitting together parents, children, friends around a board game.

Thanks for the interview!