Hello dear board game designers,
finally, I am fed up with lurking and am eager to participate in those intriguing discussions on this forum of yours.
I reside in Berlin, work on a couple of software projects and my heart belongs to all kinds of games, RPGs, board games, video games, card games, etc. Even though I am tinkering around with some ideas concerning card game design, I am far from being able to call myself a game designer. However, since I discovered the scientific approach to the aspect of creativity, gaming theory and game design in form of some great books, I quickly found myself magically lured to it. I like to think of it as one of the most fulfilling professional/hobby areas out there...well, from my point of view :o)
My all-time favorite game designs include Agricola, Puerto Rico, Texas Hold'Em, Super Mario All-Stars, Doom II, X-Com: UFO Defense, StarCraft, Tetris, Zelda, Lego, the Middle-Earth CCG, Savage Worlds, World of Darkness and Das Schwarze Auge.
During the last months, I felt some kind of a nostalgic stroke, reminding me of those mid-90s-times in which I encountered Magic at school, stopped worrying and learned to love all other collectable card games as well. Despite I let Magic go once and for all, I still collect extinct CCGs and like the notion of buying huge lots of displays/card lots on eBay for ridiculously small money. Unfortunately, it is hard to find some decent CCG players nowadays. Most either play M:tG or Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, and I would like to play other games as well - I know that the defunct CCG sector contains some truly unique, hidden gems of gaming like Netrunner, Mythos, Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, BattleTech, Kult and Middle-Earth. More modern card games like Babylon 5, Deadlands, 7th Sea and Spycraft have shown me some excellent card game design focusing not on some special gaming technique of combat or resource management (like most unsuccessful Magic clones did) but rather on the implementation of its theme's essence (pirates, space opera, wild west, etc.).
I feel obliged to apologize for my poor English skills and hope to be able to contribute something positive to this forum nevertheless.
