Scenic Tour of Historic Game Design Locations

Braunson Umlaut, designer of famed Euro "Buchhalter", was able to translate his passion for math, calculations, and bean counting into fortune and fame.


"I could not stop thinking of this design, yes."  Braunson continues, "I would work all day at my desk and when I would arrive at the haus I would still be swimming with ideas about accounting."


"Eventually, I would invite my friends over to playtest my design.  One night as we played, we all looked up at the end and realized we had been playing against each other the whole time.  It was shocking to me.  At the end of this game, I was able to win by 1 point over Niclas, and a full 2 points over poor Fynn.  We laughed at Fynn for days over his pathetic performance.  At any rate, I knew I was close to having the perfect design."

BUCCHALTER was eventually snapped up by Rückständespiele and went on to sell an astounding 1,250 copies.  Below, you can see where the lion's share of the design work was done.

Of course, with success--particularly in the idea-starved game industry--Braunson soon found himself being asked to try and replicate his original success.

"I knew I wanted to try and recreate the excitement of BUCCHALTER but in an easier to play format.  Not everyone has a full 60 minutes for a game, und I am very sympathetic with this."


Still, that left him being tasked to come up with something that would capture that eventual magic.


"Eventually, I decided that the best course would be to design BUCCHALTER: DAS KARTENSPIEL," he nods sagely.  "This would allow der people to take the exciting world of accounting with them on the go!"

"Coming up with the design, it was not so easy.  I eventually decided the best way would be to have players try and collect sets of cards and cash them in for points.  Each card would have a number and some portrait of a rustic accountant.  It really captured the theme, I think."


Below, Braunson shares a picture of the location where he came up with this smashingly original idea:

BUCCHALTER: DAS KARTENSPIEL went on to sell a whopping 950 copies, very respectable indeed.   Soon, Braunson Umlaut was a household name on the tongues of at least a few dozen hobbyist geeks throughout the world.


It goes without saying that by now these fans were salivating at the chance to continue to absorb this amazing world of accounting--or at least, the execs at Rückständespiele were hoping they would be.  Their attempts at branching out into other games--some about trading in the Mediterranean, some about impressing the provost--all had met with very little acceptance.  They need another hit--and fast.


This led to BUCCHALTER: Würfelspiel, a game that took the excitement of the original and distilled it into dice form.


At this point, Braunson looks a bit sheepish.  "I think," he stammers a bit, "that this still managed to complete my original game design vision."  He coughs nervously.  "Rolling the dice is very thematic, as players try and complete dice sets to score points, each in their own turn."


Below is where Braunson came up with his latest idea:

"It is pretty fitting, I think," Braunson adds wistfully. We couldn't agree more, my friend. We couldn't agree more.