BrettspielWelt is a large, popular, and free German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 online gaming site. Its name translates as Boardgame World. It contains online versions of over 70 popular classical and modern board games and card games, such as Backgammon

Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...

, Bluff

Liar's dice

Liar's dice, or Liar dice, with roots originating in South America and popularized in early Spanish History, was brought to Spain by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro during the 16th century. It became extremely popular in Hong Kong and consequencially China...

, Carcassonne

Carcassonne (board game)

Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English....

, Can't Stop, Dominion, Go

Go (board game)

Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...

, Settlers of Catan, and Tichu

Tichu

Tichu is a multi-genre card game; primarily a shedding game that includes elements of Bridge, Daihinmin, and Poker played between two teams of two players each. Teams work to accumulate points; the first team to reach a predetermined score is the winner...

.

A Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

-enabled browser is required to play, and registering with the site is not required (though recommended, as many players will not play unregistered users). All major aspects of the Java client, games and website are also available in English. The site is independent and free from advertising, except for indirectly advertising the games themselves. As a result of the site's popularity, some board game publishers have presented new board games on BrettspielWelt before they are first published.

All players begin (by default) in the game manager, which is used by players from many countries. New players having difficulty getting started can introduce themselves to one of the English-speaking communities for advice and help. BSW offers a system for implementing translations.

History

BrettspielWelt started in 1998 as a project by Alexander Zbiek to play board games with his friends over the internet. The first version ran on a workstation in the Leibniz computing centre in Munich. Zbiek then teamed up with Regina Michl, Tobias Lang and Sebastian Mellin. After making the program more stable and expandable, it was released to the public in 2000.

Community

BrettspielWelt has an optional meta-game for its members, in which each game played earns experience points, credits and resources for the player. The metagame facilitates the building of smaller communities, set up as towns, in which players can meet, chat and play. As a player increases in rank and his or her virtual wealth increases, he or she may build a virtual home in the online "world" that includes games that earn credits and resources for the community.

There is a large contingent of English BrettspielWelt players, and several towns aimed primarily at English speakers. These include Concordia, EnglishTown, Smallville, BurgundyRidge, and The.Great.White.North (primarily aimed at Canadians

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

), as well as the multilingual Emerald.City, Whitechapel and PiratesCove. There are also a ChinaTown for Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 players, Japanese-Isle and Samurai-Village for Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese, KoreaTown for Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

ns and LionRock for Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 players. Other European language groups include DeLageLanden for Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and CarcassonnePlage for French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 players.

Games

The games available on BrettspielWelt are, for the most part, German-style board games, with a few notable exceptions (Tichu

Tichu

Tichu is a multi-genre card game; primarily a shedding game that includes elements of Bridge, Daihinmin, and Poker played between two teams of two players each. Teams work to accumulate points; the first team to reach a predetermined score is the winner...

, Go

Go (board game)

Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...

, Can’t Stop).

Some of the more notable games available are several Spiel des Jahres

Spiel des Jahres

The Spiel des Jahres is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the stated purpose of rewarding excellence in game design, and promoting top-quality games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award is one of the major drivers of the quality...

 winners:

• Settlers of Catan
• Thurn und Taxis
• Carcassonne
  Carcassonne (board game)
  Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English....
  
  
• Manhattan
  Manhattan (game)
  Manhattan is a boardgame designed by Andreas Seyfarth and originally published by the German company Hans im Glück. It was the winner of Spiel des Jahres in 1994. An English language version was published by Mayfair Games in 1996.-External links:...
  
  
• Bluff
  Liar's dice
  Liar's dice, or Liar dice, with roots originating in South America and popularized in early Spanish History, was brought to Spain by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro during the 16th century. It became extremely popular in Hong Kong and consequencially China...
  
   (Liar's Dice)
• Dominion
  Dominion (game)
  Dominion is a designer card game created by Donald X. Vaccarino, and published by Rio Grande Games. The game was released at Spiel 2008 in multiple languages, and voted best game of the fair by the Fairplay polls with a rating of 1.75 from 147 votes. Within two months of its release, Dominion was...
  
  

And Deutscher Spiele Preis

Deutscher Spiele Preis

The Deutscher Spiele Preis is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine "Die Pöppel-Revue", which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals and game clubs. The results are announced every October at the Spiel game fair in Essen,...

 winners:

• Saint Petersburg
  Saint Petersburg (board game)
  Saint Petersburg is a card-driven designer board game, with the design of the game credited to Michael Tummelhofer, a pseudonym for Michael Bruinsma, Jay Tummelson and Bernd Brunnhofer. Most of the design work was done by Brunnhofer...
  
  
• 6 Nimmt!
  6 Nimmt!
  6 Nimmt! / Take 5! is a counting card game designed by Wolfgang Kramer in 1994 and published by Amigo Spiele. The French version is distributed by Gigamic. This game allows 2-10 players who start with ten randomly numbered cards. These are played in turns onto four card stacks with the goal of...
  
  
• Caylus
• Puerto Rico (re-added in January, 2010, after a period of being unavailable)

Awards

BrettspielWelt was nominated for a Webby Award

Webby Awards

A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....

in 2004. It won the People's Voice Award for best Game site.

External links

• BrettspielWelt official site (English-language version)
• BSW Games List of games on Brettspielwelt
• Emerald City Town Home Page