Dr. Knizia is a full-time game designer who has a PhD in mathematics and has previously worked in the banking industry till he was 40. He left banking and had his first published game in 1990. Today he has published more than 700 games! He is the world's most prolific game designer and has many global licenses to his games such as Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Disney, Star Trek and Star Wars.
The doctor’s work has won so many awards and nominations that it requires a dedicated webpage just to keep track of everything. His work ranges from simple, colorful children’s games to sprawling, thinky strategy games, and everything in-between. But if there’s a common thread that runs through his games, it is creating an easy to understand game, but with a second level of depth. He is particularly notable for his auction and tile-laying trilogies. Let’s look at some of his games that can help us activate our strategic thinking and planning minds.
Modern Art
Players act as museums and take turns auctioning off pieces of art by playing a card from their hand. If another player buys the card, then the auctioneer receives all the money, yet the auctioneer can decide to buy it for themselves and lose that money to the bank. And money is the crux of the game, because whoever has the most at the end wins. The only reason you’ll want to buy art is if you expect to make a profit on it at the end of each of the four rounds. But a specific artist’s work is only as valuable as the group determines them to be. The more one artist’s work is auctioned off in a round, the more valuable their paintings become to own. Modern Art is a highly interactive experience of players tossing burning matches into several haystacks of opportunity and then scrambling to douse certain stacks with gasoline while smothering others with water depending on personal incentives. This clever yet simple premise never fails to entertain, and it’s made all the more fun by the fact that there are four different types of auctions that players participate in throughout the game.
