The John the Baptist of the gaming world, Hanno Girke, leaves the comforts of the farm to come have a friendly fireside chinwag with Mr Skeletor and answer 20 questions.

1) Who are you, what do you do and what are you currently working on? This may be the only time I give you to pimp your shit so make the most of it!


Well, you already told your readers who I am. D'oh. Well, I repeat it for your sake. I'm Hanno. Yeah, that Hanno. I work as a freelance translator, mainly for Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary. Right now, I'm busy with some M:tG translations for a set whose name is not yet released and the Morningtide novel. In my spare time, I run a small game company called Lookout Games. You know, one of those businesses where you're CEO and support help desk at the same time. We're doing about one or two new boardgames and one cardgame per year, and our latest relase happened to be the FA antichrist "Agricola".



2) In your opinion does the term "eurogame" hold any meaning anymore? Robert Klarer (Juniper) recently explained what he sees as the division between "german style games" and "eurogames", which basically boiled down to Agricola and Carcassone having very little in common and thus shouldn't be in the same category. Do you agree with this? Are the audiences for both games the same or different? Can you see Agricola reaching the same level of mainstream german popularity as Carcassone has, or is it too much of a different beast?


I don't give any holy grail for labels like "Eurogame" or "German Game" other than for production issues.
It's not easy to compare Agricola and Carcassonne. They have some things in common: first of all, both games just call for expansions. Both games try to score high on replayability. And so on. Both come from smaller game companies. Both were not expected to have any major influence on the gaming market.
But: Carcassonne developed into a mass market game. It's a good game, but now it's mainly a cash cow. I still buy most of the expansions, though they don't hit the table at all.
I have no clue if Agricola will ever reach that level. I would love it. Not for the monetary benefits that would come with it, but I'd indulge in the fact that complex games win back against mainstream games. Hey, one third of the rulebook (the appendix) is printed in font size 6. We haven't seen that since long gone old Avalon Hill days.



3) You didn't really become famous until you cracked the shits on BGG over the Agircola ratings prank, where people who had never played the game gave it a low rating as a joke upon the people who were at BGG con.


Really? I thought I was even famous before that. I will have to fire my public relations weasels and to rewrite my Wikipedia entry. Thanks for letting me know.


Well I'd never heard of you. You seemed to really take that prank to heart and felt it caused a lot of damage to potential sales. In hind site do you think you over reacted or were you claims justified? Just how much influence does a site like BGG have on sales, and if it is a lot do you think that is healthy for the hobby?


Yes and no. This happened late November, some 4 weeks after the release.
At first, I just didn't get the joke. And reacted in a more drastic fashion than everyone expected. Probably you can call that the American way: Shoot first, apologize later.
Alas, my main point still stands: Pranks are not at all funny if people don't get it. Play pranks on your homies, not on innocent bystanders.

On the influence of sites like BGG on sales: I can't give you any numbers, because I don't have any. But: without BGG, ZMan's preorder system wouldn't have been popular enough to warrant an English edition of the game. At least not for 2008.



4) Do you think that the fact there is only 1 real board game site a bad thing since it ends up holding a monopoly on board game online public opinion? It does seem that if you or your game gets a bad reputation on BGG it can be a disaster for a small publisher - like what happened with Stein Thompson games.


Is this true? Well, maybe for the English speaking community. Other communites are more diverse. Go and check luding.org - thats a meta-site that just lists the plain data to each game and links to reviews on other websites.



5) You're most quoted line is "Do you also think it's a fun prank if all the folks who you played this prank on call your mom tomorrow and condole her while telling her you passed away eating your own shit at BGG.con?". It seemed to be quite a gloriously harsh line to be going in with so early; normally you wait until after a few blows before you bring mothers and shit eating into the mix. Schweig however in your defence claimed "When Germans curse they use a lot of fecal terms as opposed to English speakers who are more aligned towards words cursing in sexual terms, at least twenty years ago." Is this true? And does this help explain why German porn tends to be very... bizarre by western standards?


I have no clue who that Schweig swank is. I tried to find out what those pranksters thought to be funny. I imagined them the way I visualize the standard inhabitants of the Orcish Frat House. (If you don't know the Orcish Frat House, you're probably not Ameritrash enough to have earned the right to continue reading any further.) So I tried to find an example those pranksters might understand. Sorry (shoot, I said that word) if I overestimated anyone's capability.
And sorry if this is another disappointment for you: I have no clue what kind of German porn you get to see in Australia and what you consider "western standards".

Well if you ever come to Australia and take a chick back to your hotel room, I don't advise attempting to shit on her chest or pee in her shoes.


I probably wouldn't do that, as I was successful potty-trained. Plus, in Germany, we use something called a "toilet". Maybe this is too innovative for Australia?
And no, I don't want to know what you do with poultry in your hotel room.


Ohh-la-dee-dah Mr European man, a "toilet". Actually when I went around Europe most "toilets" were a fucking hole in the ground that I had to squat over, even at supposed high class places like the Moulin Rouge. I'll stick to my good old outdoor tin shed dunny thanks.

6) While Ameritrash games like to blow shit up, Eurogames tend to have very non confrontational themes and game play. Do you think this is due to Germany's shame over the Nazi party, the fact they just got sick of losing wars, or another reason? Why have German's seemingly become a pack of peace loving pussies who dream of building churches and kissing noble ass?


Good question. Why do you insist using an apostrophe for a plural?
Hey. You're talking to the guy who made Bohnanza into a war game. I thought you didn't want to give me a second  chance to "pimp my shit", but try playing "Bohnaparte". You can even use plastic pieces instead of cardboard counters. No tanks, but at leasts cannons, infantry, cavallery, fortifications... you're barking up the wrong tree.


Because apostrophes are Ameritrash, just like capital letters. Bohnanza is one of those rare games that I think works perfect as it comes in the box and have had no desire to look at the expansions for, even if they do involve mass slaughter of beans. It just seems like it would take away from the core game play, but maybe I will give them a try.

7) The German government is very strict on the removal of Nazi images and propaganda in Germany, which means many German wargame fans have a hard time acquiring many of the old Avon Hill WW2 games, and modern publishers have to be careful how they develop their WW2 games (using the Iron Cross for the Germans instead of a Swastika for example.) What is your stance on this, is your government justified in taking such measures or do you think it impedes to much on a persons civil liberties?


Every country gets the government it deserves. And do you really want to start a discussion on Hobbes, Locke and Voltaire here? I assume that most of your readers think of Hobbes as Calvin's tiger anyway.
The term "civil liberties" can be stressed. But as long as there's still a strong neo-fascist movement in Germany, I'm totally fine to give up my rights to brag with Nazi symbols for the common attempt to fight those wienerheads.



8) In Agroicola if you have a child you must build it a room to sleep in unless you have that child on your 2nd action, in which case it can sleep in a room with an adult for that end of turn only.


Wrong. I think I'll have Melissa spank your sorry butt for not listening while she taught you the rules. Bad puppy.


Bah, if the game had more story I'd remember. Anyway it seems that the time period of going from an infant to teenager is half a turn. There is however no such restriction with animals; baby animals can stay in an adults room for more than half a turn, meaning it's a fully grown animal that is staying in the same room as an adult. When you combine this with the fact that the mommy and daddy piece don't sleep in the same room, and when we take a look at the farmer on the cover of Agricola, can we say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Uwe's greatest achievement is that he has brought a game about animal fucking to the masses?


Uwe has done many interesting games. Think about "Yellowstone park" where all the wild animals are heavy on dope. Or his masterpiece "We're pregnant (by Uwe Rosenberg)".



9) Which nightmare scenario keeps you up all night more:
a) You wake up one day to find yourself in a bathtub full of ice with a letter telling you not to move, as the Russian maffia had abducted you and took your liver to sell on the black market. To make matters worse whoever stitched you up didn't do a very good job and left your entrails hanging out, and in the dim light you spot a German Shepard gnawing on the end of them, slowly chewing his way along them towards you....
OR
b) You wake up one day to find Agricola has slipped 100 points on the BGG rankings.


The answer is (c) I wake up to find out that I'm an honorary member of F:AT - and that I honestly deserved it.



10) Director Uwe Boll challenged his critics to a boxing match last year, where he proceeded to pummel the shit out of them. Would you jump at the chance to box Michael Barnes and I, and if so which of us do you think you could KO quicker?


Uwe Boll? I thought he was a ping pong pro.
I would jump at the chance to play Wrasslin' against Michael Barnes and you, and I will KO both of you even if you play as a tag team.



11) It has been claimed that Agricola is the greatest game ever invented, made farming sexy again, cured people of blindness in Romania and beat up Chuck Norris in a fist fight. If Agricola is so good then why does Zman need to implement a pre-order scheme to print it in English? Isn't this game a license to print money?


We need the money to finance world domination. This all is a sinister plot. Thanks to your investigative journalism, it is now revealed. You should get a Pulitzer for that, at least.



12) There have been several complaints raised on BGG about the cost of Agricola. Are you Zev ripping people off or are the Eurosnoots simply the biggest pack of tight asses known to man?


Man, that's capitalism. The manufacturer rips me off. The graphic desigenr rips me off, too. Uwe Rosenberg rips me off for royalties. So I rip off Zev for a license fee, and Zev rips off his customers.
On the other hand, the complaints  at BGG were mostly blatant attempts by FA:T sheep to earn a few troll points. Boys, you can do better. Try harder.
There's also the fact that I hate trees so much. One of my lifetime goals is to cut down all the trees in the world and make them into wooden cubes, meeples and an(t)imeeples. Unfortunately, this is expensive. More expensive than having child slaves manufacture beautiful plastic pieces in China.



13) So you think Agricola works better with colored cubes for animals, rather than having magnificent plastic ones that actually look like animals?


I don't care if it works better or not. Trees must die.
Therefore, there will be magnificent wooden animals in future editions of Agricola.

14) If Agricola was printed in China (like the first printing of the Decennial edition of El Grande) about how much would this have potentially shaved off the cost of Agricola?


Maybe a couple of Yen. It would have added 6 weeks for shipping and a couple of days haggling with customs.



15) You win the license from Stalone to make a board game for John Rambo (aka Rambo 4). What kind of game do you make with the license, and Auction game or a resource management game?


Rambo 4 has no plot. So it has to be an abstract game where you just use the images and names. Unfortunately, there's just the chance of a snowball in hell to make this a train game, otherwise I'd do that.
If I had the ASL license, too, I'd make it an Up Front stand-alone expansion.

16) The Scepter of Zavandor is a game where players play wizards bent on aquiring the most power so they can become an archmage. Despite the theme the designer managed to develop the game with no Ameritrash attributes what so ever - how the hell did Jen's manage to do that?!?!


Hey - blame this on Jim Hlavaty, the designer of Outpost. Wait, ain't this an American game? All that Jens did was to streamline the game from 5 hours down to 3 hours and solve the leader runaway problem.
If I also may ask a question: AmeriTrash games like Risk tend to have pink plastic pieces. Doesn't that make those games really girlish?
And why are there no female inmates on F:AT? Is there any coincidence?


What better color in Risk to represent the French than pink?
As to there being no female inmates on F:AT... well normally here I'd crack a joke at Ubarose's expense but with the moods she's been in since working on the site I'll not risk my testicles.

17) Can I loan $50?


US$ or AU$ ? I knew that you're a cheapass to buy Agicola at some internet discounter for $44 plus shipping instead of paying $60 pre-order to  make me rich.



18) If I design a board game about the exciting world of collecting road taxes while riding a lame donkey in the middle ages, do you think this would get me magical immunity from being banned on Board Game Geek?


Give it a try. Send me a prototype, I might publish it. As long as there are no pink pieces in it and I can cut down some trees.



19) Will we ever see Lookout Games publish some nice violent Ameritrash titles or are you going to expand you range by publishing a title where you build a church for the local community?

I would love to publish a game like "The Awful Green Things From Outer Space", if this qualifies for AmeriTrash. We'll probably stay in our range of games: Train Games, Uwe Rosenberg games, and new editions of games I always liked that are out-of-print.
So no church-building for you, but probably neither a burning-down-churches game.


I haven't played it, but I'm pretty sure Awful Green Things is an AT title. If you do reprint it just make sure you don't change it to "Awful Brown Things", I don't need you upsetting my mother again.



20) Any final words for our readers?


"Where'd that elf go?", said Brion.


Well that was strangely tame.

Thanks to Hanno Girke for participating.

Comments (37)

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Ken B. said:

... Heh...I had a feeling Hanno was alright after all. As for the price complaining, though--we had nothing to do with that...most of us have withdrawn from BGG since that time. Hanno, you're now dealing with the same cheapasses who bitched to high heaven about Mayfair 'only' offering 20% discounts at online retailers. We're the guys (and gals!) who pay $80 for Twilight Imperium...and many of us used to pay $60-80 PER BOX for the latest CCG expansion. Hanno my friend, we're neither cheap nor trollin'. Time to face facts--those people bitchin' about price or the non-exclusivity of the meeples or whatever? Yeah, those are the folks you're in bed with now. Seems like waking up after a hella bender to find "Stella" in bed next to you--unfortunately, Stella stands up to pee.

January 30, 2008

Mr. Bistro said:

... Wow, I never imagined I would see that interview.

January 30, 2008

Schweig! said:

... Hanno said: "I have no clue who that Schweig swank is." Well, all I was trying to say is that when a German gets enraged he's more likely to shout "Scheie!" (shit) than "Fuck!". I was in no way trying to "swank" with my sociology skills. And about German porn: Belive it or not, but when I was just innocent 10 years old I found one of my cousin's magazines titled "Fick Extrem" - it was not a pretty sight. :X

January 30, 2008

NeonPeon said:

... Man I had to quit reading this interview because I was laughing so hard at my desk. Good job.

January 30, 2008

Schweig! said:

... After I read it all, I have to say: Superb article!!! And sorry if my last post war derogatory; at least I didn't flesh out what the mags about ... fortunately I only remember one article ;(

January 30, 2008

Michael Barnes said:

... This is the greatest interview our hobby has ever seen. Seriously, this is it, the standard by which all other interviews should be judged from this point forward. I feel conflicted though...it's kind of like reading an interview with Hitler and coming out of it thinking that despite all the politics that he's actually a pretty cool guy. I have to say that I actually think Hanno is kind of awesome, even after we demonized him a couple of months ago. When he PM'ed me about those stickers, I realized that he was probably more like us than...them. I didn't realize Hanno did BOHNAPARTE...it's a cool expansion if like BOHNANZA. You basically finance a war using bean proceeds. Hanno- it's on. Frank will take Jimbo the Elephant Man and I will take Mr. Umpire. You'll be down for the 1-2-3 before you even have a chance to check rule 45.34.2b to see if you've actually lost. And kids, please remember Hanno's wisdom- Play pranks on your homies, not on innocent bystanders.

January 30, 2008

mikelawson said:

... That was great. Hanno gave as good as he got. And I want to see that Wrasslin' match! Hey, don't forget Thaad too! I'd imagine that she'd be annoyed that you forgot about her, Skelly. --Mike L.

January 30, 2008

Juniper said:

... Hanno: I'm still waiting for the plastic general pieces that were promised to preorder customers who bought HANNIBOHN: ROMA vs. KIDNEY. When can we expect to see these?

January 30, 2008

Kriz said:

... You didn't ask him why he never leaves Africa! Way to softball on that issue Skeletor. Great interview. I like his point about child slaves making plastic for ameritrashers, its true. I would pay more money to not have my games produced by slaves in China.

January 30, 2008

Exciting Jeff said:

... Great interview. I've got to ask, though: how does it feel to be zung on your grammar by a non-native speaker?

January 30, 2008

Michael Barnes said:

... I call this one "Hanno's Dream, or, The Eurogamer's Secret Shame"

January 30, 2008

vandemonium said:

re: Hanno: I'm still waiting for the plastic general pieces that were promised to preorder customers who bought HANNIBOHN: ROMA vs. KIDNEY. When can we expect to see these? I heard that he is hand carving new ones to replace the crummy plastic ones. Each is carved out of an entire tree that he personally chops down in the rain forests, so it is naturally quite a lengthy process. Great article Frank! For the record BTW We WERE playing a prank on homies, the side effect was the unanticipated bit... Van

January 30, 2008

Thaadd said:

re: That was great. Hanno gave as good as he got. And I want to see that Wrasslin' match! Hey, don't forget Thaad too! I'd imagine that she'd be annoyed that you forgot about her, Skelly. --Mike L. Nice interview. Can we keep him? I sent you a Christmas card, Skellie, and you forget about me. Meh. No love for the mistress of plastic monsters.

January 30, 2008

Michael Barnes said:

... Thaadd, don't you remember what happened when we got you that gerbil? You went off to Iceland to play spaceships with boys and didn't feed and water it. I'd hate to see the same fate befall Hanno, although I'm sure with the knowledge of farming he's gleaned from AGRICOLA he can take care of himself.

January 30, 2008

Mr Skeletor said:

... Great interview. I've got to ask, though: how does it feel to be zung on your grammar by a non-native speaker? That's hardly unusual, normally asians have the best written grammer around here. And no I did not forget about you Thaadd, however up until yesterday you seemed to be strangely MIA. I thought maybe you crashed your spaceship into planet carebare and was lost in the frozen peeks or something.

January 30, 2008

Thaadd said:

... I just got my inbox to below 100 mails Customer Service, post holidays. Meh. Plus, I will admit, I am a bit of an 'old dog' in the fact I sorta liked the old format. (duck). The new header setup means less poking about, and I can logic poking through here while my email software is searching for all mails from X person (so as to follow disjointed request threads...).

January 30, 2008

jeb said:

... Damn, that was awesome. How can people spend their whole life on BGG talking about how to make pigs out of art clay when we have this gem over here. Your page views should go to a million.

January 30, 2008

BigLizard said:

... This isn't some kinda April Fool's joke is it? That guy sounds so much like Skelly I thought Frank might be talking to himself. But if legit I suggest we give Hanno some kind of honorary AT status, if not for the games he prefers, then at least for his AT attitude. Bill N.

January 30, 2008

robartin said:

... I call this one "Hanno's Dream, or, The Eurogamer's Secret Shame" Hey, that's my back yard! I must have gone through two cases of Schlitz and 5 gallons of gas in my chainsaw cutting all that shit down. I've gotta say, Frank - you have set the gold standard for game interviews. I don't think Tom Vasel could ever achieve that level of greatness.

January 31, 2008

Ken B. said:

... Next up: Rob Martin interviews the guy who made the CSI boardgame with the little bobblehead dolls and who honestly believed he was making "a great game". Should be...something.

January 31, 2008

vialiy said:

... WOW, what a great interview! For your next guest, go get the one guy who makes all the optimization engine games in Germany. I bet he has designed an optimization engine to make them more efficiently. Maybe he's Dr.Z, the Daimler boss!

January 31, 2008

Mr Skeletor said:

... This isn't some kinda April Fool's joke is it? That guy sounds so much like Skelly I thought Frank might be talking to himself. No, it's legit.

January 31, 2008

Jur said:

... Awesome. What's next? Skeletor interviews Drew?

January 31, 2008

scissors said:

... Hobbes isn't Calvin' tiger?! Damn! An I was gonna name my dog Socrates.

January 31, 2008

Michael Barnes said:

... I don't think there's anything cooler than when a guy who has obviously never held a guitar before does so...you always see two things, that speak to the totally awesomeness of such a figure: 1) Strumming with the thumb 2) No strap

January 31, 2008

Ken B. said:

... I would think the random strumming and the "meedly meedly mee" finger gestures would've been the dead giveaway.

January 31, 2008

Schweig! said:

... Hanno said: One of my lifetime goals is to cut down all the trees in the world and make them into wooden cubes, meeples and an(t)imeeples. Unfortunately, this is expensive. More expensive than having child slaves manufacture beautiful plastic pieces in China. Yes, rather have your customers build their own miniatures. Guess it's still better than playing with plastic toys like Ameritards do...

January 31, 2008

Mr Skeletor said:

re: Awesome. What's next? Skeletor interviews Drew? Why would I want to bore my audience to death?

January 31, 2008

Juniper said:

... 1) Strumming with the thumb Picks are for losers. Fingerstyle pwns. http://www.howtotuneaguitar.or...s-picking/

January 31, 2008

moofrank said:

... Wow. Easily the best interview I've read in awhile. And I should apologize for being mean to Hanno about the whole translating Agricola. Lookout is a fairly fringy company by German standards. They've kind of assaulted the 90 minute time limit imposed on German games. Triumvirate *is* totally an AT game. All of the elements are there, although a weird reductionist streamlining technique was involved in development. The one thing that Lookout is also doing is obsessively created games. They are Euros, but they aren't SdJ targetted. They aren't games from the Knizia and Kramer game factories. One of the things that strikes me particularly interesting about Agricola is that it should not exist. No designer who is intending to publish a Euro creates a game that requires that many pieces. No publisher blows out the price by adding what amounts to the first two expansions into the base game. It just isn't done. And so at least for my part, when I look at Essen reports, I immediately scan for whatever Lookout is doing, and what the Czechs are cooking up.

February 01, 2008

Schweig! said:

... Hanno can be as cool as he wants, it's just sad that the Agricola forums are an official joke-free zone. (Believe me - I tried...) But maybe that's more a problem of the site where those forums vegetate.

February 01, 2008

Juniper said:

... Hanno was joking? I ate all that shit for nothing?

February 01, 2008

Schweig! said:

... Of course he did... You wouldn't want a stranger call your mom and tell her what you did!

February 01, 2008

Burnhamalive said:

... "I'm Hanno. Yeah, that Hanno." Honestly, when he said that, I was expecting the Carthaginian general. I was a little disappointed to find out it was actually just some game designer.

February 03, 2008

Mr Skeletor said:

... "I'm Hanno. Yeah, that Hanno." Honestly, when he said that, I was expecting the Carthaginian general. I was a little disappointed to find out it was actually just some game designer. How do you know it's not him, reincarnated? Could explain his hatred of trees and love for animeeples.

February 03, 2008

Ska_baron said:

... Definitely one of the funniest interviews... Kudos for getting this one Skeletor! I think instead of teaming up with Tom V. for a podcast, that Hanno would be hilarious.

February 04, 2008

pbwedz said:

... Well done Hanno. :)

February 11, 2009