Naturelich Games

But first some biographical details in brief:

• Name: Naturelich (web pseudonym, not the real name)


• Age: 30. Born in Osnabrück


• Location: Düsseldorf, Germany (20 minutes from Essen)


• Native language: German


• Blog language: D-english (somewhat English but with lots of superimposed German grammar)

The Naturelich boardgame history

My boardgame career began at a very young age. My parents owned a collection of famous games called Die Große Spielesammlung which got me into gaming at the age of 2, maybe 3 (need to verify the exact dates). I believe almost every German family (at least in the 70s) owned a copy of a Spielesammlung. The first games we played were probably Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht (Pachisi) and Fang den Hut (Trap the Cap). Here, I had to learn how to lose (still a very familiar feeling) although my mother played it easy on me. I also remember playing Memory a lot with my Mum. The Spielesammlung also contained Mikado (Pcik Up Sticks), Mühle (Nine Men's Morris) and Dame (Checkers). In the years to follow I started playing those games. My grandpa was unbeatable for me in both Dame and Mühle. He never let me win, which as a kid can be really dramatic. But once he taught me the concept of a Zwicker in Mühle (an almost unbeatable strategy where you get to steal one meeple every turn - no clue what this is called in English) it got better and I was able to compete against my friends extremely well.

Episode II: Kindergarten and Primary School - Boardgames until the first home computer came...
During Kindergarden and the first years in school we played a lot of Spitz paß auf! and later plenty of Kniffel (Yahtzee), Monopoly and Stratego. During the early 80s I got the most recent Spiel des Jahres for Christmas. This includes games such as Scotland Yard, Heimlich & Co., Das verrückte Labyrinth (Amazing Labyrinth) and many others.

Eventually, one friend got Risk as a birthday present. I guess this must have been at the age of 12 or 13. We then started playing Risk a lot. At the same time, my interest in boardgames deteriorated because of the first home computer being braught into my room: the Commodore C16. This lead to a shift of interest from boardgames to computer games. This trend strengthened during the times of my first Commodore Amiga 500.
During the age of 13, I was introduced to Chess and later joined our local chess club. The junior team was very successful and played in the third highest junior league in Germany. I learned a lot of game openings, middle game and end game scenarios. The typical chess stuff, I guess. The school team I played with was somewhat successful but eventually I lost interest in Chess due to increasing responsibilities in school and final exams approaching. My "chess phase" overlaps a little bit with:

Episode III: The Highschool Years - A turn towards roleplaying
Probably around the age of 15 I got introduced to roleplaying games. The first RPG I loved playing was Das Schwarze Auge. With a couple of friends from school we started one regular RPG session a week. This later increased with the introduction of FASA's Shadowrun and Battletech. Game nights became longer and longer. Battletech was also the reason to visit Essen for the first time in 1993. We were extremely enthusiastic about all the new modules and expansions coming from the United States. During summer holidays we played a huge 16 map-size monster Battletech scenario which probably took around 4-5 weeks to finish. Yeah, the good old times. During my RPG-/Battletech-years, we even started a little bit of tabletop Battletech and Succession Wars.

Episode IV: The Military Services
After school I enjoyed one year of Wehrpflicht (mandatory military service in Germany) which restricted the amount of available time quite heavily. Some girl things got more and more serious, so there was less time for exhaustive gaming. I have to admit, this time period has seen me play a lot of party games, such as Tabu, Therapy and many others. I should really not go into more detail here... :-)

Episode V(a): The Customizable Card Game Years
Due to the hype of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the late 1990s I eventually got involved in Customizable Card Games, namely the Star Trek CCG, at that time published by Decipher, Inc. They got a whole lot of money from us and now I am stuck with all those duplicates. It was a huge lot of fun but the game was a very complicated one and required to really dive into the rules. Long, long rule FAQs were released quarterly which you had to know by heart or you could easily lose a game.

Episode V(b): Boardgame Revival During University
The next bigger gaming crossroad started upon joining university. I decided to go for business administration and economics and this brought me back into the boardgaming arena. With fellow students we enjoyed plenty of Settlers of Catan, El Grande, Mississippi Queen, Bohnanza, Tikal, Durch die Wüste (Through the Desert), TransAmerica and many many others.

Episode VI: The present - The Geek Years
And here I am stuck with all the great new games from Essen 2005 with far too little time to play them all. Job life really sucks up all the time. Sometimes I wish back to student or even better school years. Well, but that's just not possible, I guess.
As you can see I have been interested in all sorts of games and game types. The interest seems to be flipping back and forth during life and at the minute I am again very fascinated with good boardames. I presume this trend will last for a while as wargames, tabletops and roleplaying games required too much time. I am simply not able to devote that many resources to gaming. Personally, one hour or maybe even two is enough for one game. Boardgames, such as Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne are (right now) an optimal compromise for me to enjoy a nice evening with friends and family, leaving enough room for other activities.

Episode VII: The future...
Maybe there will be another shift back toward video games (the XBox 360 is waiting for me...) and/or toward heavier boardgames (such as Antike and/or Memoir '44 - which I have read a lot about and would really like to play some time soon). Classic Mah-Jongg is another hot candidate for playing a greater role in my boardgame life. But you will certainly be able to note such shifts on my blog as I continue to devote time and resouces to share my 2 cents here...