The year 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of Dr Reiner Knizia’s career as a board game designer – his first published game, Complica, was released in a magazine in 1985 (although he’d self-published games before then as well).
Since then Knizia has designed and published over 800 games, many of which are critically acclaimed. Put simply, Reiner Knizia is the landscape on which all other modern designers build their houses.
To celebrate Knizia’s career and back catalogue, Meeple Mountain are taking things back to basics to consider the ABC of Reiner Knizia: one game for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet.
This time: The Letter ‘C’.
C – Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
A recent interview with Knizia suggests that he steers clear of games by other designers partly to avoid compromising his own creativity and partly because he hasn’t much time around playtesting his own designs.
Sometimes, however, he looks up from his drawers of works-in-progress (expanded from 40 to 80 during the pandemic) to take a reading of the tabletop weather. The results are games that employ mechanisms of the moment whilst feeling distinctly Knizian at the same time. For instance:
- The Quest for El Dorado is Knizia’s take on the deck building boom of the mid-2010’s;
- The twin release of Cascadero and Cascadito feel inspired by the craze for combo-tastic tracks and bonuses ignited by Ganz schön clever;
- My City and My Island saw the good doctor conquering the legacy format;
- Witchstone and Mille Fiori dine heartily on the point salad buffet of the 2020’s;
- Blue Moon, Knizia’s homage to Collectable Card Games (CHG), resulted in the creation of the Living Card Game (LCG) genre.
Very occasionally, however, Knizia is invited to frolic in another designer’s playground. Enter our choice for the letter ‘C’: 2003’s Carcassonne: The Castle.
We’re big fans of Carcassonne here at Meeple Mountain (just check out our Carcassonne Conversation, Carcassonne Strategy Guide, 20th Anniversary Carcassonne Celebration, and even our Carcassonne Haiku), so a marriage between one of our favourite games and one of our favourite designers is a match made in meeple heaven!
Not to be confused with Klaus-Jürgen Wrede’s own Carcassonne: The City published a year later, Carcassonne: The Castle is a typically Knizian twist on the much-loved classic, taking the usual Carcassonne mechanics and trapping them within the confines of the city walls. Gone are the cities, roads, monasteries and farms of the original, instead replaced by towers, houses, paths, courtyards and markets.
It’s a two-player only affair, an attempt to tackle the ‘two-player looseness’ that some people feel is wrong with the original. Instead of players starting in the middle and building out as in the original (the chances of interaction reducing as the game goes on), players start from the castle walls and build inwards (forcing them to bump and jostle with each other as space becomes tighter). Of course, if you find the original Carcassonne to be too loose with two then perhaps you aren’t playing it as competitively as you could be!
Sadly Carcassonne: The Castle has long been out of print (although it’s available to play online at Brettspielnetz.de). Rio Grande Games originally planned to release an expansion for it in 2009 but due to licensing changes it never reached production. Instead Knizia made the expansion, The Falcon, available as a print-and-play expansion on his own website in 2015, although with 4 wall pieces, 18 castle tiles, a dozen tokens and two types of special followers, it’s not a print-and-play for the faint of heart! If you really want the full experience without the printing effort then see if you can track down the slightly tweaked 2020 Polish version of the game, Zamek, for which an official The Falcon expansion was released in 2022. Just be aware that the grand towers of the original are now pigsties!
As with Age of War/Risk Express and the original Risk, Carcassonne: The Castle is a great example of Knizia taking an existing design and creating a different experience that retains the feel of its predecessor. Players can even place tiles that don’t match next to each other. Sacrilege!
Cool and Credible Knizia Creations
‘C’ Is a relatively populous letter for Knizia, and apparently an animal-centric one at that, with cats, fleas, monkeys and capybaras all getting their time in the Knizia sun. Here are a few that stand out:
Cascadero / Cascadito
Knizia released this pair of siblings with Bitewing Games in 2024, and with art by Ian O’Toole they make quite the handsome pair. Cascadero is widely viewed as the original game of the two and whilst we’ve already mentioned the tracks and bonuses, the other half of the game involves connecting towns with envoys to spread the word of El Cascadero. Riffing on earlier designs such as Through the Desert and Babylonia, you’re building groups and routes whilst climbing those tracks and, ideally, triggering cascading combos. It’s scored well with most tabletop critics but, as Meeple Mountain’s Andrew Lynch discovered in his review of Cascadero, if you aren’t a fan of combos as a game mechanic then there are better Knizia games for you. Cascadito is a roll-and-write version which, whilst marginally less respected, is a good deal quicker!
Cat Blues / Cat Blues: The Big Gig
Recently updated and re-released, the original 1998 game blends auctions with rummy to create something that plays its own tune and, in the words of Charlie Theel of Player Elimination, contains an agony-inducing “Knizian bargain”. Last year saw the release of The Big Gig, an updated version of the game that is the second title in Bitewing Games’ Crown Jewel Selection line (the first being Zoo Vadis, which – spoiler alert! – we may well be seeing more of later in our alphabet). A number of minor (and more major) tweaks and changes were made between the two versions of the game, however in his designer diary the founder of Bitewing Games, Nick Murray, notes that it only took a total of 20 days between him contacting Knizia to consider updating Cat Blues and Knizia replying with a developed, tested and polished final rule set. He may have the blues but he’s speedy!
Circus Flohcati / Cheeky Monkey
These games aren’t formally related but there’s no doubt that 2007’s Cheeky Monkey is a descendant of 1998’s Circus Flohcati. Both feature push-your-luck set collection and stealing from your opponent, and both have seen multiple editions since their releases. Meeple Mountain founder, Andy “light card games are my super power” Matthews, recently reviewed the 2024 edition of Circus Flohcati and called it “fun and exciting and a bit silly”. For our money though the best edition of these games is the version of Cheeky Monkey that came with animal poker chips and a stuffed toy monkey draw bag!
Classic Art
No, not a sequel to Knizia’s 1992 auction masterpiece (pun intended) Modern Art, 1996’s Classic Art is actually a different beast entirely. Originally known as Members Only, Classic Art sees players attempting to predict works of art due to be shown in various exhibitions. Rather than auctions, players are betting on what art might be showcased, whilst attempting to influence those exhibitions. As a game it’s perhaps not quite a true work of art but it’s worth looking at all the same.
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We’ll leave the exploration of the ‘C’s there for the time being but notable games we’ve not discussed include microgame Chartae, the zombie-themed City of the Living, and Capybara Cookie Club, which deserves recognition for that name and theme alone!
So what do you think? Have we charted the seas of ‘C’s cleverly or have we completely capsized? What ‘C’ games have we missed out? What would you have picked? Let us know in the comments below and check out the rest of the Reiner Knizia Alphabet here!
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