Game Designers You Admire

[The Schaef]

For whatever reason, they did your favorite games, they have good systems or mechanics, whatever.

Reiner Knizia - I have to mention him just based on his body of work.  In particular, I like that he incorporates gameplay elements that give you a wide variety of play options, but give you a tough choice about what will help you/hurt your opponent the most.  Designed Modern Art, Tigris and Euphrates, and Lost Cities

Craig Van Ness - Most popular for the Heroscape game system, but in the height of Star Wars prequel hype, he designed the two best board games based on a film franchise that I have ever played: Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit and Star Wars: Epic Duels.  In fairness, Queen's Gambit is a rehashed version of Richard Borg's C&C battle system, but the 4-battle setup and the three-tiered palace always attracts attention.  Great games.

Speaking of which, Richard Borg designed several games using the Command and Colors system, which is a great way to condense light wargames down to a simple process: play a card, move, shoot.  The first one to use this system was Battle Cry but more popular examples include Memoir '44 and BattleLore.

Christian T. Petersen and Corey Konieczka - these two are responsible for some of the best titles to come out of Fantasy Flight Games, and put them on the map as publishers of games with tons of plastic bits in giant boxes.  Titles from one or both designers include Twilight Imperium - 3rd Edition, Tide of Iron, Starcraft and Battlestar Galactica.

Klaus Teuber has designed many games for Mayfair Games, including the Settlers of Catan series, but the best of these titles is Starfarers of Catan.  It is the best iteration of the Catan system, the rocketships are awesome, and it's just a better overall experience than the way standard Settlers plays out.  This is one of my favorite games of all time.

There are many more designers who I think are great at what they do, many of them for one or two games in particular, but these are five good ones to get started with.

[TimMierz]

I'm a fan of Vlaada Chvatil. Some of my favorite games are Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert, and Prophecy. I've only played Through the Ages once, but that seemed solid as well.

Since I started logging my plays in May of last year, some of my most-played designers are:
Donald X. Vaccarino (Dominion)
Rob Anderson (Redemption)
Rob Daviau (HeroScape, Betrayal at House on the Hill)
Andreas Sayfarth (Thurn & Taxis, Puerto Rico, Airships)
Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola, Bohnanza, Le Havre)
Tim Mierzejewski (Malta!, Dash)

[777Godspeed]

Is Galaxy Trucker worth it?  I was very close to buying it last week, but decided not to because of the price. If it is, in your opinion, worth it, I will pick it up as my boys about pulled my arms off trying to convince me to get it. It sounded very cool though.


Godspeed,
Mike

[TimMierz]

It's ridiculously expensive. It's also ridiculously fun. I don't know how much you know about it, but essentially it's a chaotic scramble to build a ship that might make it through a galaxy that's out to get you. Meteors, space pirates, and sometimes the other players are there to make it a fun, engaging challenge to survive. The ship-building part is one of my favorite elements in any game. It's cool that there's so much randomness, but also you can definitely get "better" at it.

That's just my opinion. But it's probably one of my top 5 favorite games of all time.

[777Godspeed]

Nice to know. My boys were enthralled with building their own spaceship and then trying to race it across the Galaxy. Sounds like our kinda game. Thanks for the info Tim.


Godspeed,
Mike

[YourMathTeacher]

I know this is for board & card games, but my favorite game designer is Chris Sawyer. I could play Roller Coaster Tycoon and such for the rest of my life and be happy. 

This may seem out of place on these boards, but I still admire Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for the original D&D.

[New Raven BR]

Rob Anderson

Shigyru Miamoto(this guy OWNS)

myself ( XD jk)

[The Schaef]

Rob Daviau (HeroScape, Betrayal at House on the Hill)

This guy also worked on Epic Duels with Craig Van Ness

Andreas Sayfarth (Thurn & Taxis, Puerto Rico, Airships)

An excellent choice.  Thurn & Taxis and Puerto Rico are two excellent games.

Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola, Bohnanza, Le Havre)

Another great choice.  Bohnanza is one of the most underrated card games ever.

This may seem out of place on these boards, but I still admire Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for the original D&D.

No harm in that.  For better or worse, D&D was the foundation of an entire class of games: pen-and-paper RPGs.  I would also credit Richard Garfield for creating an entire game genre when he designed Magic: The Gathering, Rob's own inspiration for the game that eventually became Redemption.  Garfield also did Robo Rally so hooray for that.

I don't know if you caught this on the RIP Gygax thread but this is something he reportedly said on a message board late in his life:

All I am is another fellow human that has at last, after many wrong paths and failed attenpts, found Jesus Christ.

A panel discussion in which he participated at GenCon 07: Christianity and gaming

[TimMierz]

Reiner Knizia

Despite being ridiculously prolific, I can't say he's made too many of my favorites. I've played many of his games: 3 plays of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, 3 plays of Sushizock im Gockelwok, 2 plays of Pickomino, 2 plays of Blue Moon City, 1 play of Strozzi, 1 play of Lord of the Rings, 1 play of King Arthur - Das Kartenspiel, 1 play of Medici, 1 play of Africa, 1 play of Trendy, 1 play of Battle Line, 1 play of Genesis. Out of these, the only one I'd rush to play again is Blue Moon City. I don't own a single Knizia game.

Craig Van Ness

I'm not too familiar with him, but besides HeroScape (which I enjoy quite a bit) he did Sorry! Sliders, which I've played at one session. Even disregarding HeroScape expansions, he seems to have a pretty big catalog, but it's just not one I've played much of.

Speaking of which, Richard Borg

I often confuse him with Richard Berg. It looks like I haven't played any games by Borg OR Berg. Berg, incidentally, lives not too far from here, and apparently has occasionally gotten my playgroup to assist with playtesting in the past.

Christian T. Petersen and Corey Konieczka

I recognize Corey's name from the back of the (massive) Battlestar Galactica rulebook. I haven't played anything else by him or Christian.

Klaus Teuber has designed many games for Mayfair Games, including the Settlers of Catan series, but the best of these titles is Starfarers of Catan.  It is the best iteration of the Catan system, the rocketships are awesome, and it's just a better overall experience than the way standard Settlers plays out.  This is one of my favorite games of all time.

I completely agree as far as Starfarers vs. Settlers goes. I'd take Starfarers almost any day. Especially with the expansion. Besides Starfarers and Settlers, I've also played Starship Catan and both the Anno 1701 card game and board game.

One other much-played designer that hasn't been mentioned yet is Thomas Lehmann. Most of my Lehmann plays come from Race for the Galaxy, but I've also played Pizarro & Co., Phoenicia, and Jericho, the first two of which are decent games. If it weren't for my playgroup's preferences, though, I probably wouldn't have many Lehmann plays.

Andy Looney, creator of Fluxx, Chrononauts, and more, hasn't seen much play in my life over the past year, but his games helped me make the transition to modern board/card games. Dominic Crapuchettes makes some great party games, notably Wits & Wagers and Say Anything. I have a decent amount of Wolfgang Kramer plays, but his games haven't completely pulled me in all that much (although for a while I was huge on Slide 5, a retheme of 6 Nimmt!). And I would be remiss to not include "(Uncredited)", to whom I am indebted 61 total plays of 19 different games.

Also, Stephen, you need to rate more games on BGG.

[The Schaef]

lol

[Lampy]

Heres my list:
Rob Anderson (Of Course)
Mistafunn (Creator of the amazingly addicting Sword of the Spirit TCG, found at www.swordofthespirittcg.com)
Richard Garfield (The creator of Magic, who got this whole Trading Card Game started.)
The Dude Who Made Heroscape, and the Dude Who Made Attacktix
Jordan Wiesmann who created the CMG
and myself, which created the Redwall TCG. (I'm still working on it.)