Franz-Benno Delonge

Franz-Benno Delonge

Franz-Benno Delonge (1957 - 2007)
game designer, author, and judge

Interview excerpts / Pöppelkiste 2005

"I was introduced to board games already when I was little kid. During school breaks, I always visited my game-enthusiastic grandmother who was living together with two widowed sisters in the country. One by one, she taught me all games that were available on the market in those days: "Mensch-Ärgere-Dich-nicht", "Mühle", "Halma", "Memory", and "Monopoly". Besides those board games I received a comprehensive introduction to card games as well. Starting with "NeunerIn" and ending with "Schafkopf", I also became a decent card game player at the age of 10.

Born in Munich on May 13th, 1957, Franz-Benno Delonge startet inventing own games when he was 15.

"When I was 14 or 15, I started to come up with own games which I then playtested devotedly with my two younger brothers."

In 1991 he started sending his own inventions to game publishers. "At first, the success was not measurable, but eventuallly in 1998 I could sign my first contract." "Big City" was his first published game in 1999. His biggest game successes became "Trans America" (nominated for "Spiel des Jahres" in 2002) and "Manila" (placed third in the "Deutscher Spielepreis" competition in 2005).

Besides board games, his passion comprised his family, soccer, his collection of beer bottle labels, and the composing of satirical-philosophic books focussing on politics.

During an interview in 2005 Franz-Benno Delonge explained the connection between his job as a judge and his playful game inventor hobby as follows: "Actually, I don't see a difference between the two aspects. The following assumptions are both incorrect: Neither, judges have to be strict and bloody serious all the time, nor you can always find peace and happiness at the playing table. As a matter of fact, I see some striking similarities between law and playing board games: Both domains are concerned with observing and comprehending facts and circumstances that happened in "real life" at first, before they become the subject of a board game or a trial."

Not only beacuse of his law background, Franz-Benno Delonge never lost the balance between his distinct sense of justice and his joy in playful competitions, which he passionately had been contributing to through his ingenious ideas to the last.

Franz-Benno Delonge died of cancer on September 2nd, 2007.

His ideas continue to live in us through each of his games.

Games

• 2004 Goldbräu
• 2005 Manila