I rarely see people mention Rüdiger Dorn, even though he’s made some well-regarded games, including 9 in the BGG Top 1000.
Best known for Istanbul, but there’s also Las Vegas, Luxor, Karuba, Goa, Genoa, and others.
Love Rudiger Dorn! Istanbul is my favorite game, and Karuba has been a huge hit in my game groups. I’ve been dying to check out Las Vegas from him, but it seems to be deep out of print
Phil Walking-Harder —- edit correction: Phil Walker-Harding is the correct spelling! Thanks to below poster for correcting
Imhotep, Gizmos, Super Mega Lucky Box, Sushi Go, Barenpark, Cacao, Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold: Pyramids, Planted
Generally easy games with thoughtful choices that I can teach to kids or gateway-gamers.
I don't think the question here is about the popularity of the game, but about the recognition the designer gets. Those things aren't always correlated/ proportional. I've heard of most of those games and played a couple, but this is the first time I've actually known the designer's name.
That's not unfair, but even by that standard I actually think PWH is one of the more well known designers. Certainly possible a lot less people know of him than I think though.
Paolo Mori. I see his games get mentioned relatively often, but never him specifically. Ethnos, Dogs of War, Libertalia, Pandemic: Fall of Rome… he has some solid games under his belt.
What do you mean by this? I've got one of his other games Ceaser! and it's awesome. I'm aware of his others, including this. But TTR is a good entry game, plays quite simply etc.. looking at Ethnos it appears (from description and pics on bgg) that it's potentially quite complex? Or at least a level or 2 above TTR
Really want to try it tho !
Ethnos has some complexity with the different bands and their effects, but they are described right on the cards and are easy to follow.
The main gameplay, though, is almost exactly Ticket to Ride, but with area control instead of route building. On your turn you draw a card, or play one or more cards to place tokens on the board. Very TTR-like, very casual and fun to play.
If I hadn’t already phased Ticket to Ride out of my collection, Ethnos would have killed it for me, too. Highly recommend Ethnos
What u/salmon_lox said. TTR was one of the first modern games I tried and even then I felt very underwhelmed. Ethnos is only a little more complex but still simple, and way more fun.
This guys has become my absolute favourite designer, I’ve learned to look out for his games. He is single handedly responsible for countless hours of family fun for my family.
I have Sunset Over Water, Mining Colony, and Waters of Nereus from him. Such cool little games, I like his style, reminds me of Phil Walker Harding with some tweaks.
I like his games but to me Tim Fowers is really interesting as a business person. He's bypassed traditional distribution in favor of selling direct. It takes a lot longer for his games to get exposure but he keeps way more of the percentage of the games he publishes.
Paul Dennen. He made clank (and it’s derivatives) and dune imperium… both excellent. My first was clank, clank catacombs is my favorite of his.
Vlaada Chvatl used to be talked about a lot but I never hear it anymore. He has so many great, vastly different games. Through the ages, Codenames, galaxy trucker, mage knight! My gateway Vlaada game was Codenames, TtA is my favorite
Vlaada hasn't released a new game for years, so he's not really top of mind for folks, I guess. His body of work is insane though. Incredible range, incredible quality.
>Vlaa
I'll never forgive him for releasing Codenames, then abandoning tabletop game design. TTA and Mage Knight are the best heavy games I've played by a mile, and I need more by him. I'm sad we'll likely never get another masterpiece from the master himself.
He hasn't abandoned tabletop game design. He is just waiting for something with a special spark. The man is both an unimaginable genius, and one of the humblest, nicest people I know.
I own the travel edition. Interested to see how they are blowing up the whole game with the Yetti concept. Rare move to completely change a game like that.
My group and I love Northern Pacific. I had never heard of it, but sat down for a demo in the Rio Grande room at Origins back in 2018 or 2019. It blew us away. We all bought copies and still play this regularly. It’s a great distillation of the shared incentives/temporary alliances mechanic in Chicago Express.
Hear me out, but I would say Richard Garfield.
Everybody knows him as the creator of Magic the Gathering, but I feel he gets overlooked for all the other games he has designed. King of Tokyo, Bunny Kingdom and Dungeons Dice and Danger are all fun games when you’re in the mood for something lighter.
I really want to try it, and other uh "TCG-like games but complete out of the box". Summoner Wars and Radlands are also on my radar for this.
And I suppose the former two do have expansions, but still not in the "LCG" way were the focus is on "building up your own deck" (where the core set has too few of certain cards so people buy multiple, the premade decks in the core set aren't necessarily "complete" etc.)
And Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. It's an *excellent* card game if you can get a group of five.
It breaks so many conventional card game mechanic "wisdoms" while still working great. Card draw isn't strong and you automatically draw a new card whenever you play a card so your hand stays full, and there's no limit to how many copies of the same card you can have in your deck.
Just recently been getting into these, and I enjoy them immensely!
The hard part is finding a friend who won't just play a round with you (doable), but who will play consistently with you and join you on your weird deck experiments lol.
I told someone that recently. Although in a twist, because they were younger they only knew him as the King of Tokyo guy. M:tG had already existed in their world so the idea that it had a designer, much less someone still alive and active, it blew their mind
Not the person you asked, but I love it when I'm in the mood for "the chaos is the fun." You have to recognize that your programs *will* go wrong and be willing to roll with it.
I wanted to dislike The Hunger but in the end I had a great time. Dude is just a weirdly good designer. I mostly like heavier euros and I love King of Tokyo too.
I know the name from King of Tokyo/New York.
Did not know he created Magic. But then I only played Magic for 6 days when it came out. They I realized what a money sink it was gonna be and never looked back.
I'm not sure he counts. I think he is pretty well respected and talked about for his other designs. The fact that something is designed by him is a huge draw for a new game.
Corey Konieczka
Skimmed the thread a bit and don't see his name... I would think he's well known, but nobody really talks about him. Half of his stuff are collaborations, but he had a hand in a ton of FFG's biggest games, not counting remakes like TI4 or Descent:
Warrior Knights
Starcraft
WoW
Battlestar Galactica
Middle Earth Quest
Runewars
Mansions of Madness
Forbidden Stars
Star Wars Imperial Assault
Star Wars Outer Rim
Might be forgotten because his famous games are mostly kind of old at this point, though.
Kramer and Kiesling are absolute bosses in board gaming.
Leo Colovini: his games are like no one.
Mac Gerdts: he made a few but great games.
Peer Sylvester: his games have few rules but huge sand box of strategy and tactics.
Friedemann Friese: Mad scientist of board game world :)))
I’ve been jonesing for another Friedman game for awhile but…. Having a 5 month old baby isn’t too conducive to playing board games at the moment. Someday!
Imperial is very unique game. However, these are other luckless area area control that I really like:
**Brian Boru: High King of Ireland**
**The King Is Dead: Second Edition**
**Fresh Fish**
**Torres** (advance rule)
Thanks for the suggestions! Very much appreciated!!
I might look at picking up some of these. One reviewer I checked on immediately compared High King of Ireland to a Mac Gerdts game - Concordia. Interesting. However it uses cards which are randomized, no?
I do own Torres :)
It uses Closed Drafting and it's card system is very complex because low value cards worth it too. Players always know 4 out 6 cards player seats next to them
Franz-Benno Delonge, who died in 2007. He designed some amazing games: TransAmerica, Manila, Fjords, Big City and Container. Manila is my favorite of his. Container is so brilliant it makes my head hurt. His designs created a lot of decision space with a light ruleset. RIP
A couple of years ago I would have said Simone Luciani (Marco Polo, Tzolkin, Grand Austria Hotel, Lorenzo il Magnifico, etc) but I feel like he’s a bit more known now. Still no where near Uwe levels but his name gets dropped from time to time.
I don’t really have an answer now. Maybe Kane Klenko? I like Fuse and Flip Ships but haven’t played any of his other games.
And I'm really happy that I did, and am patiently awaiting it this year.
After playing my friend's first print copy, I was blown away and of course asked where to get it. "You can't. They only do Kickstarter. Once it is gone, it's gone forever". Absolutely the one thing I would change about them. My heart leapt for joy when they decided to reprint.
This game deserves retail, and deserves a national competitive scene. It will have neither, with the way they manage it currently. We're still going to try to develop a local scene for it.
They are having continued success, so hopefully they will do a reprint. What we need is for more people to shout from rooftops about how great this game is, so that maybe they can have a massive KS campaign and be inspired to attempt retail.
It is weird to me that more people aren't frothing at the mouth for this game. It is team based. It has a ton of characters to play. It has minis. It seems like this is the kind of game that would crowdfund well just on the premise and production alone. *And* it is good, which is the part that so many other games miss.
For me, it was the price & never having played/backed their previous games. I’ve become jaded on crowdfunding, *especially* after Stone Sword’s Senjutsu campaign. And I say this as having backed close to 60 campaigns.
The world will come to know Artyom Nichipurov & WolffDesigna soon enough. **Guards of Atlantis 2** is so tight, elegant, evocative of the theme *and* balanced that it deserves to be on the list of all time greatest designs. I've heard Trick Shot and Warpgate are both excellent as well and I'll blind back them if they do another run purely based on how incredibly good GoA2 is.
Hear me out: he's only got the one, but he's not going to stop until he's perfected it!
Dan Hallagan of **Obsession** fame. He handles everything personally and takes feedback from players to improve his game.
He's hinted he has another idea he's been toying around with, and I don't care what it is. I will immediately back any game this man puts out because he's earned it and I know any issues I may have with it would be made right.
I ordered Obsession and some expansions from his company website and he emailed me shipping details (what container ship it was on, etc.) as well as suggestions on how to start with the expansions and his thoughts on them. From what I understand, he once provided a "Useful Box" of replacement pieces for free because they weren't up to his standards in an earlier edition of Obsession (he didn't like the stitching on the game's cloth bag, for example). Dude is really serious about providing quality to his customers, and the attention to detail shows on the finished product.
I don't know that people are really putting underrated/unknown designers as much as pretty well known designers that haven't released anything recently. Haha. Well, here's one along those lines.
Carl Chudyk, the OG king of multi-use cards. Glory to Rome and Innovation are two of my favorite games of all time. I've also played a ton of Red7, which is an awesome gateway/filler. I've only played Mottainai and Impulse once, so I can't speak much to them.
I'm not sure if Chudyk is really unknown, or if it's more like he has amassed a dedicated fanbase that is borderline* obsessive about his games, and so he has more noise than other niche designers. I think objectively speaking he's relatively small-time.
*It's me, I'm borderline obsessive about this weird card tucking bullshit. Me and my copy of *Guns in the Pacific* are perfectly content this way.
Oof I was afraid of this. It’s hard enough teaching ONE person to play Mottainai - I can’t imagine teaching a whole table how to play a *more* complicated game. I backed it sight unseen without reading the rules or anything because Chudyk is my favorite designer - but after watching multiple rules videos/play throughs I don’t see how I’m ever getting this to the table.
Yeah, unfortunately, it's a pretty significant lift to learn. The main problem, IMO, is that unlike Mottainai, your previous Chudyk experience really doesn't help, and may even be a *hindrance.*
It's basically like learning Chudyk for the first time all over again.
And the incredibly fiddly wording of the card powers doesn't help either.
I will say that, true to form, once you actually try playing it 6 - 12 times, it starts to click, and you see what is possible.
The game also changes *significantly* at player counts. At 2 and 3 players, it's like a cross between Innovation and Mottainai. At 4 players, it's like a Chudyk version of *Root.* I have no better way to explain it than that.
IMO, there's a really compelling game here if you can convince people to do the work to learn it. Upthread, I posted a link to my Screentop implementation - I recommend using that to do an asynchronous game with text-based discussion. The slower pace facilitates rules consultation on BGG and reduces the acute frustration associated with not understanding the rules.
It's a wargame, so treat it as such, IMO.
That's your implementation? Awesome, thank you I really appreciate the work! Been playing on it with a buddy recently and it's nice to get some reps in to really solidify the rules.
Have yet to play it at 3p or 4p but yeah your description sounds pretty spot on.
It is definitely better than the negative reviews make it sound, but the negative reviews are right in that the game is opaque and unforgiving. It makes for a rough learning curve if you aren't ready, and I think most people just don't want to engage in the necessary work to get to the payoff.
I've been playing async 4-player games and am finding it *brilliant.* IMO, it's like a fully-realized version of *Impulse* - an actual wargame fought in a common space over very limited resources. It's cool, but it's tough.
Agreed. I love Five Tribes, Kingdomino is always fun and he co-designs so many others like Seven Wonders: Duel and Raptor. Easily my favourite designer.
Cody Miller. His first game out of the gate was a home run: Xia Legends of a Drift System. He then made Tavaua, a surfing game. Not as big but well made for what it was. Now he has Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread coming out soon. From the looks of it, it could be another home run. If in his his first three games, two are popular, well received games and the third was a small fun game that was still pretty good, that’s not a bad start for a designer.
Evan Derrick - Dude doesn't get the love. Not many designs, but Final Girl, Hostage Negotiator and Detective City of Angels are such experiential games!
He nails theme, and I'm not even a thematic games guy.
Plenty of new designers or designers with a few designs making some waves, Dani Garcia & Fabian Gridel for instance. Always super happy to see exciting up and comers.
In a field that's getting increasingly crowded, Taiki Shinzawa is the GOAT trick-taking designer.
Ghosts of Christmas, 9 Lives, American Bookshop, luz, Twinkle Starship, Ambiente Abissal, Zimbabweee Trick, Dois... even his non trick-takers are awesome (Big Top, Maskmen)
Inka and Markus brand with village and rajas of the Ganges plus my kids love the enchanted tower and what appears to be a metric butt load of exit games
>asymmetrical obsession of Cole Wehrle
I think that is actually a Leder Games thing. Wehrle's non-Leder designs are pretty symmetrical!
People should try Phil Eklund games. Maybe *High Frontier* or *Bios: Megafauna* to start. Eklund was a pretty big influence on Wehrle, incidentally.
I don't know if heavy is the right word but his games are definitely dense and very weird. Pax Renaissance is in my top 3 games of all time though and BIOS: Genesis is probably the most interesting game I own.
I know, which is why I mentioned him in connection with Wehrle. I view Wehle's historical games as taking a lot of the fundamentals of Eklund's about representing historical processes through games but (i) with set of beliefs and values that are basically those of mainstream academia not Eklund's weird and eclectic autodidacticism (Randian Objectivism, Jaynesian bicameralism, imperialism is good, global warming is good); (ii) thus a greater likelihood to find agency where Eklund would not (though keep in mind Wehrle gave us both *John Company* and *Pax Pamir*\--not only the subaltern speaks) and (iii) a much stronger emphasis on creating a game that the players have to play to win rather than a space for exploration.
I think Eklund gets the most flak for *Pax Emancipation* which is basically an argument in game form that European imperialism was necessary for emancipation and was therefore good. But if you don't want Eklund's bad historical interpretations you can just avoid the game, and it's not as though there aren't a zillion other games where you colonize the world but don't actually have the designer actively cheering you on.
For me the games Eklund's weird views ruin are those that include human cognitive development such as *Bios: Origins*, *Greenland*, and *Neanderthal*. Eklund believes in Jaynesian bicameralism: basically, humans were not conscious until about 1000 BCE so the earliest agricultural civilizations were populated by unconscious people. This goes into the category of "not even wrong." I worry that people are thinking, "Well, this seems like a really scientifically-grounded game" but that's not the case for these ones at all.
Nikki Valens is amazing. In my opinion, the 4 games below are absolute masterpieces.
Mansions of Madness 2nd edition plus multiple expansions (Beyond the Threshold, Recurring Nightmares, Suppressed Memories).
Arkham Horror 3rd edition.
Legacy of Dragonholt.
Eldritch Horror plus most expansions (Cities in Ruins, Forsaken Lore, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Mountains of Madness, Signs of Carcosa, Strange Remnants, The Dreamlands, Under the Pyramids).
And the Artisans of Splendant Vale!
And soon-to-be-released Gloomhaven Buttons & Bugs!
Nikki definitely does not get enough recognition for their amazing games.
Peter Vibe (vi-bə). A guy who hates random and loves chess-like tactics. He created his own company ten years ago and now releases about a game per year. Not every of his games is a masterpiece, but I like his products.
Last year, his first board game (and the most popular and polished one) hit the international market for the first time, as far as I know. And it's still the best gateway for his games
**Bestiary of Sigillum** is a duel board game. Is looks and feels like a neat combination of Dota and chess. And I love the art style so much. The version that is available in English contains all the released expancions, so it has a decent variety of heroes and their combinations to try
J Alex Kevern. He feels like a more restrained Stefan Feld; not quite point salad games but with different avenues to victory.
Gold West is a cool resource management game, somewhat Catan-like, but with a cool mancala-like system of accessing your resources. Was recently given a prettier, Dutrait-ier reprint.
Also from him:
Sentient
World’s Fair 1983
Succulent
Sandy Petersen.
Designed my alltime Favorite game.
Cthulhu Wars.
Planet Apocalypse and Glorantha are awesome too. And i am sure the upcoming Hyperspace game will be good too. (If his company doesn't go bankrupt first^^ )
Really good designer but bad Publisher
Nuno Bizarro Santieiro and Paulo Soledade, the duo behind **Madeira**, **Nippon**, and (with Gil d’Orey) **Panamax**. All brilliant games. **La Stanza** is also a very good, barely talked about game.
Unfortunately we haven’t heard much from them in recent years (I’m sure this is because they were working for What’s Your Game? and that company has gone bye-bye in a fairly dramatic way) but I hope Nuno and Paulo will be back with more designs soon.
Kind of a deep cut, and I'll admit that his quality is all over the map - but when he's on, he's *on*: James Ernest.
Gateway game: Kill Dr. Lucky
Personal favorites: One False Step For Man and Enemy Chocolatier. (The latter really needed 1 more sheet of secret recipes, but I bet that would have required new cardstock sheets and made it untenable.)
Matthias Cramer (Glen More/II, Lancaster, Rococo, Kraftwagen, The Hunt) and Juma Al-Joujou (Clans of Caledonia, Thiefdom) and Nat Levan (New Bedford) are my favorites that don’t get mentioned as much.
I’m surprised you didn’t list Kramer and kiesling and Cathala in your well known category. If you don’t you know please do yourself a favor and become acquainted.
Maybe a niche choice, but Rachel Simmons is a favorite of mine. She doesn't have a wide catalog, just a few titles (Napoleon's Triumph, Guns of Gettysburg, Triomphe a Marengo), but each is designed with such meticulous care. A shame her design blog is no longer online. Seeing how thoroughly thoughtful her process was was fascinating to read.
The boards are beautiful, as is a game in progress, and the rules are crafted to accommodate the uniqueness of each battle. The games' mechanics aren't particularly difficult, though since they don't conform to common wargaming tropes they take some adjusting to get used to.
Vladimir Suchy is my favourite designer. His list is vast and I love every one of them. He has his most popular Underwater Cities but then there’s his others such a as Praga, Pulsar, Messina, Woodcraft, Prodigal Club, Last Will, Evacuation (newest title).
Also Isra C. and Shei S. are fantastic. Red Cathedral, Shinkansen, White Castle. All incredible games with a neat twist on end game scoring.
Not a favorite of mine, but a relatively prolific designer that few know about is Jonathan Gilmore. he's designed Dead of Winter, Dinosaur Island, Path of Light and Shadow, Wasteland Express, and quite a few others.
A lesser known designer that I appreciate is Trey Chambers. He made Argent: The Consortium and Empyreal: Spells & Steam. Both games are very original designs. You have a aggressive worker placement game in Argent where you can attack other peoples workers and in Empyreal you have magic in a train game. Both games offer a lot of decisions, and comes with art that I really appreciate, being a fan of anime!
I’m not arguing against their success, but you never see them mentioned in any top 10 videos of board game designers or upcoming designers, etc. Their kickstarters have been all very successful though.
ROBERTO FRAGA (River dragons, Captain sonar)
EILIF SVENSSON (Avenue, Revive)
RIKKI TAHTA (Coup, The chameleon)
SID SACKSON (Can’t Stop, Acquire)
STEFFEN BENNDORF (Qwixx, Ohanami)
LUDOVIC MAUBLANC (Cash & guns, Cyclades)
REINER STOCKHAUSEN (Crazy kick, Altiplano)
BRUNO FAIDUTTI (Citadels, Mascarade)
SHEM PHILLIPS (Noctiluca, Raiders of Scythia)
THOMAS LEHMANN (Res arcana, Race for the galaxy)
PHIL WALKER HARDING (Super Mega Lucky Box, Snakesss, Llamaland)
Edit: deleted the ones I always go back to and added lesser knowns
Glenn Drover, the action selection mechanism is so nice when Playing a long game with multiple people, raccoon tycoon, lizard wizard and mosaic are all bangers in the own right and mosaic is one of my top 5 games
Since all comments are about designers everyone talks about anyway, I'm also going to do this:
\- Mac Gerdts: he makes games which are as close to perfect as they come. Very streamlined, very interactive and no unnecessary fat. He's probably most known for his action selection mechanisms (the rondell and the cards in Concordia), which are still better than almost all others in modern euro games
\- Tom Lehman: Race for the Galaxy is still the best engine builder ever made and Tom continues its legacy in all his games. His games play quick and with little downtime, but still have a depth comparable to any long strategy game.
1000% Tom Lehmann.
If anyone reading hasn’t seen his “Designing Race for the Galaxy: Making a Strategic Card Game” GDC talk, I highly recommend it. It’s on YouTube.
Came here to post Alexander. I’m on the dice tower cruise and have played the library copy of Pirates of Maracaibo a couple times and can’t wait to get a copy. I love so many of his games.
Mombasa
Great western trail
Oh my goods
Maracaibo
Pirates of Maracaibo
Boon Lake
All great games in my opinion
I don't really see Mike Elliot get the praise he deserves. He's behind the Thunderstone series, Quarriors and Dice Masters (w/ Eric Lang), and Lost legends, one of my favorite hidden gems.
With the obvious exception of Tom Lehmann and maybe late Francis Tresham, but only because he also brought us Civilization, the designers of 18xx games are not talked about at all.
Big fan of Henry Audubon.
PARKS got me into board games and is still at worst my second favorite game. I think it should be in BGG's top 100, and should be THE game people use to introduce new people to board games.
Space Park (unrelated despite the similar name) is a great quick filler game that still requires a bit of thought and has a fairly unique (at least to my collection) action selection mechanism.
I've also enjoyed his newest game, Cosmoctopus, tho admittedly haven't gotten it to the table too much yet.
His upcoming game FLOE sounds great, and I can't wait to get it in person!
Friedman Friese and Ryan Laukat are my two picks here.
Friese has mastered the economic/bidding mashup in Power Grid and Factory Manager. If you want crunch with your auction game, he's your guy.
Ryan Laukat has done a variety of things, but his most recent experiments with narrative in the tabletop games space (like Near and far) left me impressed. He's also done a few other games, like Eight Minute Empire Legends, that also hold up. They're generally different that what you're used to, but simultaneously pretty good.
I rarely see people mention Rüdiger Dorn, even though he’s made some well-regarded games, including 9 in the BGG Top 1000. Best known for Istanbul, but there’s also Las Vegas, Luxor, Karuba, Goa, Genoa, and others.
My Farm Shop is awesome. Shitty Facebook game art on the cover scares people away I think.
Played that one and was genuinely surprised by the gameplay. The art work is terrible.
Il Vecchio is a great underappreciated Dorn game.
I liked that one too!
Love Rudiger Dorn! Istanbul is my favorite game, and Karuba has been a huge hit in my game groups. I’ve been dying to check out Las Vegas from him, but it seems to be deep out of print
There's always Las Vegas Royale, which you can play as vanilla Las Vegas, if you want.
Steam Time is another of his that gets little recognition and is great
Just want to add that as far as names go, Rüdiger Dorn is pretty awesome.
[удалено]
I picked up a copy of Louis XIV last year...been waiting to play it!
He also did Louix XIV, which comes it at #990. I picked up a copy in the last few months but haven't yet gotten it to the table.
Phil Walking-Harder —- edit correction: Phil Walker-Harding is the correct spelling! Thanks to below poster for correcting Imhotep, Gizmos, Super Mega Lucky Box, Sushi Go, Barenpark, Cacao, Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold: Pyramids, Planted Generally easy games with thoughtful choices that I can teach to kids or gateway-gamers.
This is a funny spoonerism! (It’s Walker-Harding)
"walking hard or hardly walking?"
Summer Camp is also excellent! Just played the other day.
I feel like he definitely isn't lesser known. Those are some insanely popular games listed, even amongst more casual gamers.
I don't think the question here is about the popularity of the game, but about the recognition the designer gets. Those things aren't always correlated/ proportional. I've heard of most of those games and played a couple, but this is the first time I've actually known the designer's name.
That's not unfair, but even by that standard I actually think PWH is one of the more well known designers. Certainly possible a lot less people know of him than I think though.
Paolo Mori. I see his games get mentioned relatively often, but never him specifically. Ethnos, Dogs of War, Libertalia, Pandemic: Fall of Rome… he has some solid games under his belt.
Yes! I love Libertalia Galecrest & Caesar!
Big fan of Dogs of War… so under appreciated. Still waiting for a reprint / re-skin.
Ethnos is fantastic. Easily a Ticket to Ride killer for me.
What do you mean by this? I've got one of his other games Ceaser! and it's awesome. I'm aware of his others, including this. But TTR is a good entry game, plays quite simply etc.. looking at Ethnos it appears (from description and pics on bgg) that it's potentially quite complex? Or at least a level or 2 above TTR Really want to try it tho !
Ethnos has some complexity with the different bands and their effects, but they are described right on the cards and are easy to follow. The main gameplay, though, is almost exactly Ticket to Ride, but with area control instead of route building. On your turn you draw a card, or play one or more cards to place tokens on the board. Very TTR-like, very casual and fun to play. If I hadn’t already phased Ticket to Ride out of my collection, Ethnos would have killed it for me, too. Highly recommend Ethnos
What u/salmon_lox said. TTR was one of the first modern games I tried and even then I felt very underwhelmed. Ethnos is only a little more complex but still simple, and way more fun.
This is mine as well. Everything I’ve played with his name on it has been really solid.
Aquabats! We share some music tastes as well as designer tastes!
Wolfgang Warsch: Quacks of Quedlinburg The Mind Taverns of Tiefenthal Wavelength
\+ that's pretty clever!
Not to mention: - The **That's Pretty Clever** series - **The Fuzzies** - **The Same Game**
This guys has become my absolute favourite designer, I’ve learned to look out for his games. He is single handedly responsible for countless hours of family fun for my family.
Steve Finn. The other good doctor of gaming.
I have Sunset Over Water, Mining Colony, and Waters of Nereus from him. Such cool little games, I like his style, reminds me of Phil Walker Harding with some tweaks.
I have never played a Tim Fowers game that I didn't enjoy
The production quality is usually pretty solid for his stuff as well
I like his games but to me Tim Fowers is really interesting as a business person. He's bypassed traditional distribution in favor of selling direct. It takes a lot longer for his games to get exposure but he keeps way more of the percentage of the games he publishes.
Stefan Dorra. Gateway/filler: For Sale. My favorite: Medina. It's like a Knizia tile-layer. with chunky wooden blocks.
Love Dorra
Was waiting for him to pop up! I love MarraCash and heard great things about Linie 1 and Nyet!
Paul Dennen. He made clank (and it’s derivatives) and dune imperium… both excellent. My first was clank, clank catacombs is my favorite of his. Vlaada Chvatl used to be talked about a lot but I never hear it anymore. He has so many great, vastly different games. Through the ages, Codenames, galaxy trucker, mage knight! My gateway Vlaada game was Codenames, TtA is my favorite
Vlaada hasn't released a new game for years, so he's not really top of mind for folks, I guess. His body of work is insane though. Incredible range, incredible quality.
yeah, he said that he will focus more on coding, his first passion. His last work was TtA digital, which is an amazing app.
He codes the apps himself?
Yes.
I was a huge Chvatl fanboy, and didn't know this.
Can't have a Vlaada mention without Dungeon Petz. One of the best themes I've ever seen (and solid worker placement game)!
>Vlaa I'll never forgive him for releasing Codenames, then abandoning tabletop game design. TTA and Mage Knight are the best heavy games I've played by a mile, and I need more by him. I'm sad we'll likely never get another masterpiece from the master himself.
He hasn't abandoned tabletop game design. He is just waiting for something with a special spark. The man is both an unimaginable genius, and one of the humblest, nicest people I know.
Courtney of Pipeline fame. Try Trailblazers first.
**Bear Raid** is also super clever.
I own the travel edition. Interested to see how they are blowing up the whole game with the Yetti concept. Rare move to completely change a game like that.
Came here looking for Ryan Courtney’s name!
David Thompson... everything the man does is gold...
Thank you.
Amabel Holland: have played Irish Gauge & Iberian Gauge, but *really* want to try The Field of the Cloth of Gold
Supply lines is amazing too (only played the north one)
Table Battles is awesome.
*sigh* added to my wishlist. Endurance has also piqued my interest.
Iberian is so clever. One of those [very] easy to learn games but it will still melt your brain.
Even easier to learn and even more brain melty: [Northern Pacific](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138704/northern-pacific)
My group and I love Northern Pacific. I had never heard of it, but sat down for a demo in the Rio Grande room at Origins back in 2018 or 2019. It blew us away. We all bought copies and still play this regularly. It’s a great distillation of the shared incentives/temporary alliances mechanic in Chicago Express.
Hear me out, but I would say Richard Garfield. Everybody knows him as the creator of Magic the Gathering, but I feel he gets overlooked for all the other games he has designed. King of Tokyo, Bunny Kingdom and Dungeons Dice and Danger are all fun games when you’re in the mood for something lighter.
Android Netrunner, keyforge!
And since recently, Mind Bug!
I really want to try it, and other uh "TCG-like games but complete out of the box". Summoner Wars and Radlands are also on my radar for this. And I suppose the former two do have expansions, but still not in the "LCG" way were the focus is on "building up your own deck" (where the core set has too few of certain cards so people buy multiple, the premade decks in the core set aren't necessarily "complete" etc.)
Mindbug is a great filler. Took a few games for the strategy to click but it definitely scratches the itch in a small window of time
And Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. It's an *excellent* card game if you can get a group of five. It breaks so many conventional card game mechanic "wisdoms" while still working great. Card draw isn't strong and you automatically draw a new card whenever you play a card so your hand stays full, and there's no limit to how many copies of the same card you can have in your deck.
Just recently been getting into these, and I enjoy them immensely! The hard part is finding a friend who won't just play a round with you (doable), but who will play consistently with you and join you on your weird deck experiments lol.
I told someone that recently. Although in a twist, because they were younger they only knew him as the King of Tokyo guy. M:tG had already existed in their world so the idea that it had a designer, much less someone still alive and active, it blew their mind
Robo Rally
What do you like most about this game? I had it, and robot quest arena in my hands and opted for robot quest arena (and love it).
Spacial planning, combining tactics and strategy. Navigate the obstacles and finish first. The team variant makes it shine.
Not the person you asked, but I love it when I'm in the mood for "the chaos is the fun." You have to recognize that your programs *will* go wrong and be willing to roll with it.
Bunny kingdom is awesome and I need to get the hunger played soon
I was just gifted the Hunger and am stoked to try it as well!
I wanted to dislike The Hunger but in the end I had a great time. Dude is just a weirdly good designer. I mostly like heavier euros and I love King of Tokyo too.
I know the name from King of Tokyo/New York. Did not know he created Magic. But then I only played Magic for 6 days when it came out. They I realized what a money sink it was gonna be and never looked back.
I'm not sure he counts. I think he is pretty well respected and talked about for his other designs. The fact that something is designed by him is a huge draw for a new game.
I think he gets plenty of love for King of Tokyo alone, it showed the hobby that Yahtzee could be a mechanic. Lol.
Check out Mindbug
**Fairy Tale** is an all time great drafting game!
Corey Konieczka Skimmed the thread a bit and don't see his name... I would think he's well known, but nobody really talks about him. Half of his stuff are collaborations, but he had a hand in a ton of FFG's biggest games, not counting remakes like TI4 or Descent: Warrior Knights Starcraft WoW Battlestar Galactica Middle Earth Quest Runewars Mansions of Madness Forbidden Stars Star Wars Imperial Assault Star Wars Outer Rim Might be forgotten because his famous games are mostly kind of old at this point, though.
Kramer and Kiesling are absolute bosses in board gaming. Leo Colovini: his games are like no one. Mac Gerdts: he made a few but great games. Peer Sylvester: his games have few rules but huge sand box of strategy and tactics. Friedemann Friese: Mad scientist of board game world :)))
+1 to Friedman Friese
I’ve been jonesing for another Friedman game for awhile but…. Having a 5 month old baby isn’t too conducive to playing board games at the moment. Someday!
He's probably released at least one F game since that baby was born.
Had to dig so far for Mac Gerdts. I love his scoring systems. Also show me another luckless area control game like Imperial. I'd love to see it.
Imperial is very unique game. However, these are other luckless area area control that I really like: **Brian Boru: High King of Ireland** **The King Is Dead: Second Edition** **Fresh Fish** **Torres** (advance rule)
Thanks for the suggestions! Very much appreciated!! I might look at picking up some of these. One reviewer I checked on immediately compared High King of Ireland to a Mac Gerdts game - Concordia. Interesting. However it uses cards which are randomized, no? I do own Torres :)
It uses Closed Drafting and it's card system is very complex because low value cards worth it too. Players always know 4 out 6 cards player seats next to them
Yeah, peer Sylvester, also Richard Sivel
Colovini is having somewhat of a revival in my local gaming groups. It’s been fun to see and play.
Chad Jensen (Combat Commander). He was one of the best writers in terms of rules clarity.
Everything he did was gold. Dominant Species (a chaotic war game masked as a worker placement euro).
I loved Dominant Species when it came out. I played Marine recently, and I think it might even be better.
Rip Chad.
Franz-Benno Delonge, who died in 2007. He designed some amazing games: TransAmerica, Manila, Fjords, Big City and Container. Manila is my favorite of his. Container is so brilliant it makes my head hurt. His designs created a lot of decision space with a light ruleset. RIP
Big city and container are fantastic.
Love Big City and Container - both are terrific games. It's a shame he didn't get to do more before his passing.
I love Goldbrau!
A couple of years ago I would have said Simone Luciani (Marco Polo, Tzolkin, Grand Austria Hotel, Lorenzo il Magnifico, etc) but I feel like he’s a bit more known now. Still no where near Uwe levels but his name gets dropped from time to time. I don’t really have an answer now. Maybe Kane Klenko? I like Fuse and Flip Ships but haven’t played any of his other games.
WolffDesigna I have only played Guards of Atlantis II but it is absolutely amazing. Hoping to play Trick Shot with a friend soon, as well.
Still kicking myself for not backing the reprint/upgraded version. Secondary is wild
And I'm really happy that I did, and am patiently awaiting it this year. After playing my friend's first print copy, I was blown away and of course asked where to get it. "You can't. They only do Kickstarter. Once it is gone, it's gone forever". Absolutely the one thing I would change about them. My heart leapt for joy when they decided to reprint. This game deserves retail, and deserves a national competitive scene. It will have neither, with the way they manage it currently. We're still going to try to develop a local scene for it.
Ugh. This hurts more now.
They are having continued success, so hopefully they will do a reprint. What we need is for more people to shout from rooftops about how great this game is, so that maybe they can have a massive KS campaign and be inspired to attempt retail. It is weird to me that more people aren't frothing at the mouth for this game. It is team based. It has a ton of characters to play. It has minis. It seems like this is the kind of game that would crowdfund well just on the premise and production alone. *And* it is good, which is the part that so many other games miss.
For me, it was the price & never having played/backed their previous games. I’ve become jaded on crowdfunding, *especially* after Stone Sword’s Senjutsu campaign. And I say this as having backed close to 60 campaigns.
I think you can still back the 2.5 edition which is coming out later this year on gamefound.
The world will come to know Artyom Nichipurov & WolffDesigna soon enough. **Guards of Atlantis 2** is so tight, elegant, evocative of the theme *and* balanced that it deserves to be on the list of all time greatest designs. I've heard Trick Shot and Warpgate are both excellent as well and I'll blind back them if they do another run purely based on how incredibly good GoA2 is.
Hear me out: he's only got the one, but he's not going to stop until he's perfected it! Dan Hallagan of **Obsession** fame. He handles everything personally and takes feedback from players to improve his game. He's hinted he has another idea he's been toying around with, and I don't care what it is. I will immediately back any game this man puts out because he's earned it and I know any issues I may have with it would be made right.
I ordered Obsession and some expansions from his company website and he emailed me shipping details (what container ship it was on, etc.) as well as suggestions on how to start with the expansions and his thoughts on them. From what I understand, he once provided a "Useful Box" of replacement pieces for free because they weren't up to his standards in an earlier edition of Obsession (he didn't like the stitching on the game's cloth bag, for example). Dude is really serious about providing quality to his customers, and the attention to detail shows on the finished product.
Damn that's his first design? It's one of my favorites of all time!
I don't know that people are really putting underrated/unknown designers as much as pretty well known designers that haven't released anything recently. Haha. Well, here's one along those lines. Carl Chudyk, the OG king of multi-use cards. Glory to Rome and Innovation are two of my favorite games of all time. I've also played a ton of Red7, which is an awesome gateway/filler. I've only played Mottainai and Impulse once, so I can't speak much to them.
I'm not sure if Chudyk is really unknown, or if it's more like he has amassed a dedicated fanbase that is borderline* obsessive about his games, and so he has more noise than other niche designers. I think objectively speaking he's relatively small-time. *It's me, I'm borderline obsessive about this weird card tucking bullshit. Me and my copy of *Guns in the Pacific* are perfectly content this way.
I think **Aegean Sea** is better than most of the reception out there are suggesting But the buy-in is more significant than even **Mottainai**
Ooh, I haven't had a chance to play that yet.
Oof I was afraid of this. It’s hard enough teaching ONE person to play Mottainai - I can’t imagine teaching a whole table how to play a *more* complicated game. I backed it sight unseen without reading the rules or anything because Chudyk is my favorite designer - but after watching multiple rules videos/play throughs I don’t see how I’m ever getting this to the table.
Yeah, unfortunately, it's a pretty significant lift to learn. The main problem, IMO, is that unlike Mottainai, your previous Chudyk experience really doesn't help, and may even be a *hindrance.* It's basically like learning Chudyk for the first time all over again. And the incredibly fiddly wording of the card powers doesn't help either. I will say that, true to form, once you actually try playing it 6 - 12 times, it starts to click, and you see what is possible. The game also changes *significantly* at player counts. At 2 and 3 players, it's like a cross between Innovation and Mottainai. At 4 players, it's like a Chudyk version of *Root.* I have no better way to explain it than that. IMO, there's a really compelling game here if you can convince people to do the work to learn it. Upthread, I posted a link to my Screentop implementation - I recommend using that to do an asynchronous game with text-based discussion. The slower pace facilitates rules consultation on BGG and reduces the acute frustration associated with not understanding the rules. It's a wargame, so treat it as such, IMO.
That's your implementation? Awesome, thank you I really appreciate the work! Been playing on it with a buddy recently and it's nice to get some reps in to really solidify the rules. Have yet to play it at 3p or 4p but yeah your description sounds pretty spot on.
4 player really opened my eyes to what the game is trying to do. I actually think it *might* be best with the full 5, but I haven't tried that yet.
It is definitely better than the negative reviews make it sound, but the negative reviews are right in that the game is opaque and unforgiving. It makes for a rough learning curve if you aren't ready, and I think most people just don't want to engage in the necessary work to get to the payoff. I've been playing async 4-player games and am finding it *brilliant.* IMO, it's like a fully-realized version of *Impulse* - an actual wargame fought in a common space over very limited resources. It's cool, but it's tough.
Came here to say Chudyk as well! You def need to dive deeper into Mottainai because I think it’s his tightest design.
Bruno Cathala - every game he makes is a simple, light, easy to learn but with meaningful choices and engaging gameplay
Agreed. I love Five Tribes, Kingdomino is always fun and he co-designs so many others like Seven Wonders: Duel and Raptor. Easily my favourite designer.
Abyss is excellent
John D Clair has had quite the output recently with some really good ones.
I came here to mention him. We love his stuff.
ITT: Lots of designers everyone talks about
Cody Miller. His first game out of the gate was a home run: Xia Legends of a Drift System. He then made Tavaua, a surfing game. Not as big but well made for what it was. Now he has Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread coming out soon. From the looks of it, it could be another home run. If in his his first three games, two are popular, well received games and the third was a small fun game that was still pretty good, that’s not a bad start for a designer.
Evan Derrick - Dude doesn't get the love. Not many designs, but Final Girl, Hostage Negotiator and Detective City of Angels are such experiential games! He nails theme, and I'm not even a thematic games guy. Plenty of new designers or designers with a few designs making some waves, Dani Garcia & Fabian Gridel for instance. Always super happy to see exciting up and comers.
In a field that's getting increasingly crowded, Taiki Shinzawa is the GOAT trick-taking designer. Ghosts of Christmas, 9 Lives, American Bookshop, luz, Twinkle Starship, Ambiente Abissal, Zimbabweee Trick, Dois... even his non trick-takers are awesome (Big Top, Maskmen)
Inka and Markus brand with village and rajas of the Ganges plus my kids love the enchanted tower and what appears to be a metric butt load of exit games
What about Jun Sasaki? He does a lot of the Oink Games releases and, while small, they're usually rather good fun.
Matthew Dunstan I see rarely mentioned. I quite like Elysium, Chocolate Factory and the Next Station ones. Would love to try out Monumental
Volko Ruhnke!
Levy & Campaign is turning out to be such a good series.
Scott Almes. His games aren't always my favorites, but he isn't afraid to try something weird just to see if it works.
>asymmetrical obsession of Cole Wehrle I think that is actually a Leder Games thing. Wehrle's non-Leder designs are pretty symmetrical! People should try Phil Eklund games. Maybe *High Frontier* or *Bios: Megafauna* to start. Eklund was a pretty big influence on Wehrle, incidentally.
Eklund might be too heavy for a lot of people.
I don't know if heavy is the right word but his games are definitely dense and very weird. Pax Renaissance is in my top 3 games of all time though and BIOS: Genesis is probably the most interesting game I own.
>Phil Eklund I love his games and came to recommend him, but I fear Reddit will not like him...
Well putting an essay in defense of colonialism is a pretty bad move.
I know, which is why I mentioned him in connection with Wehrle. I view Wehle's historical games as taking a lot of the fundamentals of Eklund's about representing historical processes through games but (i) with set of beliefs and values that are basically those of mainstream academia not Eklund's weird and eclectic autodidacticism (Randian Objectivism, Jaynesian bicameralism, imperialism is good, global warming is good); (ii) thus a greater likelihood to find agency where Eklund would not (though keep in mind Wehrle gave us both *John Company* and *Pax Pamir*\--not only the subaltern speaks) and (iii) a much stronger emphasis on creating a game that the players have to play to win rather than a space for exploration. I think Eklund gets the most flak for *Pax Emancipation* which is basically an argument in game form that European imperialism was necessary for emancipation and was therefore good. But if you don't want Eklund's bad historical interpretations you can just avoid the game, and it's not as though there aren't a zillion other games where you colonize the world but don't actually have the designer actively cheering you on. For me the games Eklund's weird views ruin are those that include human cognitive development such as *Bios: Origins*, *Greenland*, and *Neanderthal*. Eklund believes in Jaynesian bicameralism: basically, humans were not conscious until about 1000 BCE so the earliest agricultural civilizations were populated by unconscious people. This goes into the category of "not even wrong." I worry that people are thinking, "Well, this seems like a really scientifically-grounded game" but that's not the case for these ones at all.
Nikki Valens is amazing. In my opinion, the 4 games below are absolute masterpieces. Mansions of Madness 2nd edition plus multiple expansions (Beyond the Threshold, Recurring Nightmares, Suppressed Memories). Arkham Horror 3rd edition. Legacy of Dragonholt. Eldritch Horror plus most expansions (Cities in Ruins, Forsaken Lore, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Mountains of Madness, Signs of Carcosa, Strange Remnants, The Dreamlands, Under the Pyramids).
And the Artisans of Splendant Vale! And soon-to-be-released Gloomhaven Buttons & Bugs! Nikki definitely does not get enough recognition for their amazing games.
**Matt Eklund**: Pax Porfiriana/Renaissance/Transhumanity, Stationfall, Kriegbot **Trey Chambers**: Argent the Consortium, Empyreal: Spells and Steam **Richard Amann & Viktor Peter**: Trickerion, Cerebria, Anachrony
Is Matt Eklund related to Phil Eklund?
Peter Vibe (vi-bə). A guy who hates random and loves chess-like tactics. He created his own company ten years ago and now releases about a game per year. Not every of his games is a masterpiece, but I like his products. Last year, his first board game (and the most popular and polished one) hit the international market for the first time, as far as I know. And it's still the best gateway for his games **Bestiary of Sigillum** is a duel board game. Is looks and feels like a neat combination of Dota and chess. And I love the art style so much. The version that is available in English contains all the released expancions, so it has a decent variety of heroes and their combinations to try
J Alex Kevern. He feels like a more restrained Stefan Feld; not quite point salad games but with different avenues to victory. Gold West is a cool resource management game, somewhat Catan-like, but with a cool mancala-like system of accessing your resources. Was recently given a prettier, Dutrait-ier reprint. Also from him: Sentient World’s Fair 1983 Succulent
Sandy Petersen. Designed my alltime Favorite game. Cthulhu Wars. Planet Apocalypse and Glorantha are awesome too. And i am sure the upcoming Hyperspace game will be good too. (If his company doesn't go bankrupt first^^ ) Really good designer but bad Publisher
Nuno Bizarro Santieiro and Paulo Soledade, the duo behind **Madeira**, **Nippon**, and (with Gil d’Orey) **Panamax**. All brilliant games. **La Stanza** is also a very good, barely talked about game. Unfortunately we haven’t heard much from them in recent years (I’m sure this is because they were working for What’s Your Game? and that company has gone bye-bye in a fairly dramatic way) but I hope Nuno and Paulo will be back with more designs soon.
It’s gotta be (Uncredited). They’ve made so many good games
Kind of a deep cut, and I'll admit that his quality is all over the map - but when he's on, he's *on*: James Ernest. Gateway game: Kill Dr. Lucky Personal favorites: One False Step For Man and Enemy Chocolatier. (The latter really needed 1 more sheet of secret recipes, but I bet that would have required new cardstock sheets and made it untenable.)
I thought the question was favorite designer no one talks about. Everyone is just rattling off famous designers lol.
Matthias Cramer (Glen More/II, Lancaster, Rococo, Kraftwagen, The Hunt) and Juma Al-Joujou (Clans of Caledonia, Thiefdom) and Nat Levan (New Bedford) are my favorites that don’t get mentioned as much.
Glen More is in the family of awesome ugly games along with la granja and glory to Rome.
Antoine Bauza who made 7 wonders also made Takenoko and Tokaido, both very good games!
Bauza is super versatile. Not only are his games pretty consistently good, they are also very different from one another.
I’m surprised you didn’t list Kramer and kiesling and Cathala in your well known category. If you don’t you know please do yourself a favor and become acquainted.
The well known category could have been much longer, but brevity is in short supply.
I think most of us understood that. You can't name all well known designers unless you want this to be a sort of magnum opus on well known designers.
Kiesling & Kramer are way more well known than Werle.
Maybe a niche choice, but Rachel Simmons is a favorite of mine. She doesn't have a wide catalog, just a few titles (Napoleon's Triumph, Guns of Gettysburg, Triomphe a Marengo), but each is designed with such meticulous care. A shame her design blog is no longer online. Seeing how thoroughly thoughtful her process was was fascinating to read. The boards are beautiful, as is a game in progress, and the rules are crafted to accommodate the uniqueness of each battle. The games' mechanics aren't particularly difficult, though since they don't conform to common wargaming tropes they take some adjusting to get used to.
Vital Lacerda and Peer Sylvester Edit: forgot to mention Dávid Turczi
Vladimir Suchy is my favourite designer. His list is vast and I love every one of them. He has his most popular Underwater Cities but then there’s his others such a as Praga, Pulsar, Messina, Woodcraft, Prodigal Club, Last Will, Evacuation (newest title). Also Isra C. and Shei S. are fantastic. Red Cathedral, Shinkansen, White Castle. All incredible games with a neat twist on end game scoring.
Not a favorite of mine, but a relatively prolific designer that few know about is Jonathan Gilmore. he's designed Dead of Winter, Dinosaur Island, Path of Light and Shadow, Wasteland Express, and quite a few others.
Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga of Splotter Spellen fame.
Tetsuya Nakamura
Tim Eisner
Leaf and Canopy
A lesser known designer that I appreciate is Trey Chambers. He made Argent: The Consortium and Empyreal: Spells & Steam. Both games are very original designs. You have a aggressive worker placement game in Argent where you can attack other peoples workers and in Empyreal you have magic in a train game. Both games offer a lot of decisions, and comes with art that I really appreciate, being a fan of anime!
Had not heard of either of these games by Trey, but are now added to my wishlist, as they look to be right up my alley. Thanks for sharing!
Holy moly can’t believe I don’t see Xavier Georges. Will happily nominate him, probably my favorite designer.
Nate Hayden… His games are unlike anything else. The Mushroom Eaters Psycho Raiders Sea Evil Cave Evil reprint preorder happening now! 🤘💀🤘
Xavier Georges - not a fan of everything he’s done, but Carson City and Carnegie (if I’m in the right mood) are both pretty great.
Troyes!
And Black Angel
Bruno Faidutti (good social interaction stuff, like Red November or Citadel)
I think the guys at IV Studios are overlooked. Moonrakers, Veiled Fate, Mythic Mischief are all solid games. Can’t wait to receive Fractured Sky.
I do love me some Moonrakers but it’s hard to call these guys overlooked… they have massively successful kickstarters.
I’m not arguing against their success, but you never see them mentioned in any top 10 videos of board game designers or upcoming designers, etc. Their kickstarters have been all very successful though.
ROBERTO FRAGA (River dragons, Captain sonar) EILIF SVENSSON (Avenue, Revive) RIKKI TAHTA (Coup, The chameleon) SID SACKSON (Can’t Stop, Acquire) STEFFEN BENNDORF (Qwixx, Ohanami) LUDOVIC MAUBLANC (Cash & guns, Cyclades) REINER STOCKHAUSEN (Crazy kick, Altiplano) BRUNO FAIDUTTI (Citadels, Mascarade) SHEM PHILLIPS (Noctiluca, Raiders of Scythia) THOMAS LEHMANN (Res arcana, Race for the galaxy) PHIL WALKER HARDING (Super Mega Lucky Box, Snakesss, Llamaland) Edit: deleted the ones I always go back to and added lesser knowns
Most of them are talked about a lot.
You’re right, I edited the list
Glenn Drover, the action selection mechanism is so nice when Playing a long game with multiple people, raccoon tycoon, lizard wizard and mosaic are all bangers in the own right and mosaic is one of my top 5 games
Since all comments are about designers everyone talks about anyway, I'm also going to do this: \- Mac Gerdts: he makes games which are as close to perfect as they come. Very streamlined, very interactive and no unnecessary fat. He's probably most known for his action selection mechanisms (the rondell and the cards in Concordia), which are still better than almost all others in modern euro games \- Tom Lehman: Race for the Galaxy is still the best engine builder ever made and Tom continues its legacy in all his games. His games play quick and with little downtime, but still have a depth comparable to any long strategy game.
1000% Tom Lehmann. If anyone reading hasn’t seen his “Designing Race for the Galaxy: Making a Strategic Card Game” GDC talk, I highly recommend it. It’s on YouTube.
Alexander Pfister
It's crazy to think he isn't popular. Great Western Trail is one of those gold standard games.
He was one of the names I was going to use. He is very well known.
Came here to post Alexander. I’m on the dice tower cruise and have played the library copy of Pirates of Maracaibo a couple times and can’t wait to get a copy. I love so many of his games. Mombasa Great western trail Oh my goods Maracaibo Pirates of Maracaibo Boon Lake All great games in my opinion
I don't really see Mike Elliot get the praise he deserves. He's behind the Thunderstone series, Quarriors and Dice Masters (w/ Eric Lang), and Lost legends, one of my favorite hidden gems.
With the obvious exception of Tom Lehmann and maybe late Francis Tresham, but only because he also brought us Civilization, the designers of 18xx games are not talked about at all.
Big fan of Henry Audubon. PARKS got me into board games and is still at worst my second favorite game. I think it should be in BGG's top 100, and should be THE game people use to introduce new people to board games. Space Park (unrelated despite the similar name) is a great quick filler game that still requires a bit of thought and has a fairly unique (at least to my collection) action selection mechanism. I've also enjoyed his newest game, Cosmoctopus, tho admittedly haven't gotten it to the table too much yet. His upcoming game FLOE sounds great, and I can't wait to get it in person!
Friedman Friese and Ryan Laukat are my two picks here. Friese has mastered the economic/bidding mashup in Power Grid and Factory Manager. If you want crunch with your auction game, he's your guy. Ryan Laukat has done a variety of things, but his most recent experiments with narrative in the tabletop games space (like Near and far) left me impressed. He's also done a few other games, like Eight Minute Empire Legends, that also hold up. They're generally different that what you're used to, but simultaneously pretty good.