Author: amanda

Ménage à trois with Lost Cities

It takes two to tango, two to get married, and two to play Lost Cities.

A while ago, a nice little story reached us from Matt and his wife Laura who have shared their relationship from the start with our Lost Cities game. Dating for them meant cooking dinner together, followed by playing a game of Lost Cities. Sounds like an excellent way to date actually! 😊

But it did not stop there: Not only did Matt hide an engagement ring in the game when he proposed to Laura during a vacation in the Alps, but playing a game of Lost Cities was needed to complete their wedding ceremony.

However, a problem arose for this love triangle when their first child was born, where the Lost Cities game was present as well…

… but how to play with three players in the future?!? I guess, we have a solution for that: Lost Cities Dice Game which you can play with … up to 4 players!

By the way, the Lost Cities Family has a new look. A number of versions has already been presented by different publishers around the world:

Cubes in Kraków

Polish publisher Muduko invited Reiner to visit the BookGame Fair in Kraków in March 2025 and spend a day with interviewers and fans.

On the fair, a group of Rubik’s Cube artists wowed the crowd by twisting and turning hundreds of cubes each day to create a giant pixelated masterpiece. On Saturday, with Reiner as the fair’s special guest, their swift fingers flew into action, solving and assembling exactly 1,008 cubes to form a massive portrait of Reiner. After more than two hours of signing game boxes and posing for photos with a sea of enthusiastic fans, Reiner finally got to admire the cube-crafted version of his face, clearly impressed, though possibly wondering if his nose really was that square.

To round off the day, Reiner played the new version of Whale Riders – just published by Muduko with new artwork under the title Trakty i Kontrakty – in the finals against the two best players of the day’s Knizia Games Tournament. The final was won by a 12-year-old girl. Congratulations!

Dusty tables

Spanish publisher Mercurio has scored a huge hit with their game Pelusas, originally designed by Reiner under the title Hit, a game that’s now been published in at least eight different languages and art styles around the world.

Pelusas means “dust balls” and just like real dust, the game is steadily spreading across the Iberian Peninsula, covering tables and even turning players into walking, giggling dust balls.

A group of colleagues from a cancer research team in Barcelona sent us these pictures showing how they celebrated Carnival by dressing up as Pelusas!

Also, we wish Mercurio all the best for their 20th anniversary which they were celebrating at InterOcio in Madrid in March 2025!

Time to party – 40 years of Knizia Games!

Pop the champagne corks in 2025 to celebrate 4 decades of fun and bringing enjoyment to the people worldwide by Reiner Knizia and his publishing partners around the globe.

Let’s take a quick look back into the past: Reiner’s publishing career started in 1985 with a self-published play-by-mail magazine “Postspillion” and published games in various magazines. From there, it was only a small step towards the first game boxes. In 1990, Reiner hit the gold vein with Digging and Goldrausch. The following years brought top-sellers like Quo Vadis, Pirat/Loot, Tutanchamun, Auf Heller und Pfennig/Kingdoms and many more to the players – over 800 games big and small (and medium too!) have been published up to 2025. And there are still a lot more in the pipeline…!

In 1993, Reiner’s Modern Art was crowned with the German Game Prize and from then on national and international awards came rolling in. Including the double-hit of Spiel des Jahres (Keltis) and Kinderspiel des Jahres (Wer War’s?) in Germany in 2008.

Today, Knizia Games is also proudly looking at Game of the Year awards in France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Japan, and even Down Under in Australia.

More important than all the awards, however, is the ongoing fulfilment of our mission “Bringing Enjoyment to the People”. Therefore, we call upon the many, many fans of Reiner’s games in all corners of the world to celebrate with us the 40 Year Anniversary of Knizia Games: Get to the tables, set up a game and let the fun continue!

Thank you for all your support!

Chartae with a nice touch!

A message reached us from Spain a while ago that Reiner’s game Chartae is now also popular with the visually impaired gamers. Publisher Ouril developed alternative game material which allows players to feel the coast lines and sea waves on the Chartae tiles rather than see them.

To the eye of the average beholder the tiles may appear a bit bleak but lower your lids and let your fingertips do the looking and you will get a feel of the special appeal of this unusual version of our game.

We wish all players of “Chartae Adaptado” a wonderful experience!