Gaming for about 34 years of my 46. Interested in enjoying myself with friends rather than winning. I like German Games, grand sweeping narratives, historical themes, miniatures, cards, sportsgames and The Endless Stream of New Stuff And Resulting Disappointments. My main derived pleasure is narrative atmosphere and innovative mechanisms. I will pretty much play anything, but I am truly hopeless at abstracts and don't really enjoy them.
My gaming ambitions are to design a Good German Game, learn to play go without fainting, and to live long enough to experience a decent Cheapass title. I am not holding my breath.
Most of my time is currently spent working on a historical narrative generator and a slightly overdue cycling game. I also design, develop and test games for several companies and offer a games development service. In the gaps, I design my own games and have about ten on the go at the moment.
I am currently boardgames columnist at Funagain (
www.funagain.com). I published Sumo magazine (
www.ludeme.com) from 1989 to 1998, attending Essen every year, and have written for most of the major gaming magazines and websites. I wrote for Games International, The Game Cabinet (
www.gamecabinet.com), served on the editorial board of Games & Puzzles and G3 magazines, on the Daily Telegraph Game of the Year panel and I am a founding member of the International Gamers Awards committee (
www.internationalgamersawards.net). I was at the first Gathering of Friends and was Guest of Honour at the 2006 Gathering.
Back in the early days, I also ran The Rules Bank which was needed because almost all German games had no English translations at all (let alone provided in the box). I stored up all the translations and card texts I could get my hands on, and gamers all over the world requested rules from me so that they could play these great new games.
My claim to fame is that Euphrat & Tigris was designed partly as a result of my challenging Reiner Knizia to design a true gamer's game.
My sworn aim is to remove all traces of 'Agonising' or 'Agonizing' from game reviewing. By force if necessary.
I am a cheese based life form. Half man, half truckle.
I have never camped.
My Top 10 is a snapshot as at today, 1st Oct 2005 - it could be very different next month. My Hot 10 represents the games I am looking forward to buying, playing and enjoying.
I was Geek of the Week in February 2006:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/99115I was interviewed by Tom Vasel, optimistically, here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/56432Quote of the month:
"If I had my life all over again, I would do everything exactly the same except that I probably wouldn't bother with Robo Rally."
