Nice article about Uwe Eichert

[bayonetbrant]

http://www.toledoblade.com/Retail/2014/03/09/History-strategy-is-more-than-just-a-game-for-local-developer.html

Uwe Eickert loves to play games, but you won't catch him playing cards or a simple board game like Monopoly.

When leisure time arrives, his playground is the past.

Mr. Eickert, 50, an engineer by training and entrepreneur by trade, is the owner and founder of Academy Games, a tiny Sandusky County start-up that specializes in complex, critical-thinking strategic games for uber-game players, classrooms, and even members of the military.

Mr. Eickert's historical games — the company has published eight of them, which cost $70-$80 and is about to release five more — are designed to foster decision-making, the art of working with others, and dealing with the consequences.

As a general rule, Mr. Eickert's games are designed to force players to make decisions every 15 seconds while also conducting negotiations.

In each of the company's games, it's nearly impossible for a single person to win alone.

"So these are all things like in real life. You can play the game any way you want. There's no dictated path in all of our games," Mr. Eickert said. "But almost all of our games are cooperative games, where you're cooperating with other players, a group against another group, or you need to discuss with your opponents, come up with deals, trade, barter, whatever it takes in order to gain your objectives.

"So kids, in our games, they learn critical thinking — big time. It's all about critical thinking and negotiating, and getting along with other people. That's life, and that's what we try to stress in our games."

Academy Games is just six years old, but already the company has several prestigious awards to its credit.

It has won historical board game-of-the-year awards from the Academy of Adventure Gaming and Design for three of its military history games — "Awakening the Bear," a game about Germany's Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; "Storms of Steel," a game about the tank battle outside the Soviet city of Kursk in 1943, and "Strike of the Eagle," a game about the 1920 Polish-Soviet war.

The firm also won a coveted Charles S. Roberts award in 2008 for "Awakening the Bear."

more on the website

[TheCommandTent]

Interesting read.  I really enjoy the quality of the games that Academy Games produces.  Although, while I thought Freedom was a well designed and presented game IMHO it was way to heavy of a game to be played for anything other than educational purposes.


Also, I really hope they get their line of Civil War games out soon.  I've been looking forward to those for a while.