Page 7 - spielbox 03/21 - English

7 Games for Life. Hanno Girke
Hanno Girke is the managing director of Lookout Spiele, along with Alexis Desplats. He studied statistics in Dortmund, worked as a customer consultant for a software development studio, and was also a teacher.
Favorite games? Sure, everyone has these. But let‘s face it: Most of the time, what we like to play is – in a completely unromantic way – the current hotness. It‘s the cult of the new that many people are pursuing. Sounds familiar, right? But we wanted to find out: What are the games of life? The ones with
memorable stories associated to them? Which games that have kept the passion burning? We asked Lookout Games‘ Hanno Girke about the games that inspired him.
1When I think back to my early childhood, the game Hummelchen by Pelikan comes to mind. In it, there were several paths you could take by rolling dice. So, I had to decide if I wanted to choose
branches farther away in order to avoid other players. It was my first complex children‘s game.
2Risk fascinated me early on, primarily because of the inaccurate game board. Be- cause of it, I designed my own map with twice as many countries. I also made playing cards using animal stamps because I didn‘t have stamps with cannons or
horsemen on them. And I used up quite a few blue felt pens to color the A2-sized map by hand.
3Diplomacy really left its mark on me. That must have been in the early 80s. I was sick and my mother had brought me the magazine “Spiel“. It featured a long article by Walter Luc Haas on Diplomacy. That was it, I was hooked. So, I saved up the 70 marks to buy it – even though finding seven people for a game was virtually impossible. However, the search for like-minded people finally led me to the world of play-by-mail games, where I was also the game master for a session. By the way, one of my fellow players at that time was a certain Uwe Rosenberg. Later, I published my own play-by- mail game magazine. I enjoyed the soccer game United most of all, managing many teams over the decades. Unfortunately, the games were gradually discontinued. The last game ended about a year ago when Michael Schröpl, who was the game manager, quit. Saying goodbye to my one remaining team made me quite nostalgic.
Diplomacy & Magic
4I cut my teeth
gaming with
Uwe Rosenberg;
I must have played
about 37,000 test
games with him
back then. The
Lookout Spiele story
began with a Bohnanza expansion. The story goes like this: without Bohnanza there would be no High Bohn, and with- out High Bohn no Lookout Spiel.
5I had read about a card game called Magic in the Pöppel-Revue. The arti- cle got me into this world quite early
on – both as a player and at the meta level. I was the first German on Magic’s mailing list. When they announced a German edition, I wanted to be involved. That resulted in me being in charge of the Ger- man edition for 18 years. I also worked for Wizards of the Coast in Seattle for two and a half years. That‘s where I learned ev- erything about games and mar-
keting.
I‘m a big 1830 fan. This type
of game offers the best kind
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of challenge in my eyes: I have to recognize markets, see where there is something to optimize, and react to my fellow players. I don‘t play 18xx to
win, but to gain experience.
7When I think back to game nights with my family, we played Tarot very often. I was pleased to discover that it
has a large fan base on Board Game Are- na. I associate Tarot primarily with a re- laxing evening, like evenings at the cabin, because it‘s a wonderfully no-frills affair. And I also collect unusual card games. I started doing this on a skiing vacation in South Tyrol. I’ve bought Italian card games from Piacenza, Trieste, Naples, and other places . . . (tw)
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Protocol: Andreas Becker / Photos: Becker, Göldenitz