''Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary'' is a 2012

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

about the American adoption of German-style board games, and includes coverage of the 2009 board game event '' Spiel'' in

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, as well as interviews with many prominent game designers. The film was written, directed and produced by Lorien Green, who was introduced to board gaming by her husband. It was financed through the

crowd funding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance, to fund projects "without standard financial ...

service

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

Summary

Lorien Green shows how modern board games became popular in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. This includes interviews with influential game designers, fans, collectors, shop owners, specialized journalists and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

s who explain how, of all things, the internet promoted the success of non-digital games. It's been suggested that it's a useful tool to introduce newcomers to organized board gaming.

Reception

The ''Geeks Playing Games'' website called it a "must see for anyone interested in the people behind the games and the process behind the production", although German newspaper ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' criticized it for being somewhat dated, as the film spent several years in post-production and only covers games up to 2009.

Interviews

Designers

Klaus Teuber Klaus Wilhelm Heinrich Teuber (25 June 1952 – 1 April 2023) was a German board game designer best known as the creator of ''Catan''. Originally working as a dental technician, he began designing games first as a hobby then as a full-time care ...

('' The Settlers of Catan'') * Reiner Knizia ('' Keltis'') * Alan R. Moon ('' Ticket to Ride'') * Friedemann Friese (''

Power Grid ''Power Grid'' is the English-language version of the second edition of the multiplayer German-style board game ''Funkenschlag'', designed by Friedemann Friese and first released in 2004. ''Power Grid'' was released by Rio Grande Games. I ...

'') * Donald X. Vaccarino (''

Dominion A dominion was any of several largely self-governance, self-governing countries of the British Empire, once known collectively as the ''British Commonwealth of Nations''. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of self-governing colony, colon ...

'') * Nick Kellet ('' Gift Trap'') * Matt Leacock (''

Pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

'') * Mac Gerdts ('' Imperial'') * Kory Heath ('' Zendo'') * Stephen Glenn ('' Balloon Cup'') * Christophe Boelinger ('' Dungeon Twister'') * Corey Konieczka ('' StarCraft: The Board Game'') * Bryan Johnson (''Island Fortress'')

Publishers

* Jay Tummelson ( Rio Grande Games) * Mark Kaufmann ( Days of Wonder) * Alexander Yeager ( Mayfair Games) * Zev "Z-Man" Shlasinger ( Z-Man Games) * Derk Solko ( BoardGameGeek) * Nick Medinger ( Funagain Games)

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 2229165
Lorien Green interviewed by Jonathan H. Liu
at Wired.com Documentary films about fandom Kickstarter-funded documentaries American documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films Films about board games English-language documentary films