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RIP: Alex Randolph, 1922-2004
Apr. 28th, 2004 11:54 pmAlex Randolph, one of the two greatest game designers of the twentieth century, died last night at his home in Venice.
Randolph designed at least 100 games which were published during his lifetime (according to his listing at Luding), many of which were classics in the field; his output encompassed deep abstracts like Twixt and Buffalo, light fillers like Ghosts and Raj/Hol's de Geier, and childrens' games like Enchanted Forest, with a wide variety of mechanisms, themes, and audiences. I happened to play his delightful connection game SiZiMiZi just two weeks ago. (In that one, players try to connect networks of anthills with strings of plastic ants.)
Beyond his games themselves, Randolph made two major contributions to the field of board gaming. In the mid-1960s, he was one of the lead designers for a new line of boardgames published by 3M--yes, the same 3M who invented Post-It Notes. The 3M games were the first significant line of boardgames designed and marketed primarily to adults. (Many boardgames before 3M were targeted at adults, including a lot of George Parker's inventions; but I believe that 3M was the first commercially viable line targeted exclusively at that audience.) In collaboration with his friend and fellow inventor Sid Sackson, Randolph more or less invented the adult boardgame market which flourishes in Europe and sputters to occasional life in the US to this day.
Randolph also invented the idea of the game inventor. Certainly there had been game inventors before--the aforementioned George Parker invented around 75 games from 1870 to 1930; however, he was also co-owner and co-manager of his company, Parker Brothers. Alex Randolph may have been the first person in history to make a career for himself purely as a designer. Randolph was a good self-promoter; in an era when Parker Brothers treated the identities of its game designers like a cross between an industrial secret and an ancestral shame, Randolph managed to get PB to credit him on the box of one of his inventions. (It was in six-point type, but still it was there!)
Randolph continued designing until very late in life--he had at least five games published in 2001, and another one published in 2003; a revised edition of his puzzle-game Ricochet Robot came out this year.
With the death of Alex Randolph, following so soon after the November 2002 death of Sid Sackson, I feel like an entire field of human endeavor has lost its fathers.
Randolph designed at least 100 games which were published during his lifetime (according to his listing at Luding), many of which were classics in the field; his output encompassed deep abstracts like Twixt and Buffalo, light fillers like Ghosts and Raj/Hol's de Geier, and childrens' games like Enchanted Forest, with a wide variety of mechanisms, themes, and audiences. I happened to play his delightful connection game SiZiMiZi just two weeks ago. (In that one, players try to connect networks of anthills with strings of plastic ants.)
Beyond his games themselves, Randolph made two major contributions to the field of board gaming. In the mid-1960s, he was one of the lead designers for a new line of boardgames published by 3M--yes, the same 3M who invented Post-It Notes. The 3M games were the first significant line of boardgames designed and marketed primarily to adults. (Many boardgames before 3M were targeted at adults, including a lot of George Parker's inventions; but I believe that 3M was the first commercially viable line targeted exclusively at that audience.) In collaboration with his friend and fellow inventor Sid Sackson, Randolph more or less invented the adult boardgame market which flourishes in Europe and sputters to occasional life in the US to this day.
Randolph also invented the idea of the game inventor. Certainly there had been game inventors before--the aforementioned George Parker invented around 75 games from 1870 to 1930; however, he was also co-owner and co-manager of his company, Parker Brothers. Alex Randolph may have been the first person in history to make a career for himself purely as a designer. Randolph was a good self-promoter; in an era when Parker Brothers treated the identities of its game designers like a cross between an industrial secret and an ancestral shame, Randolph managed to get PB to credit him on the box of one of his inventions. (It was in six-point type, but still it was there!)
Randolph continued designing until very late in life--he had at least five games published in 2001, and another one published in 2003; a revised edition of his puzzle-game Ricochet Robot came out this year.
With the death of Alex Randolph, following so soon after the November 2002 death of Sid Sackson, I feel like an entire field of human endeavor has lost its fathers.
