Jeffrey D. Allers

Jeffrey D. Allers has played and designed games since he was a child. After moving to Berlin in 1994, he was introduced to modern German board games and joined a gaming group in 2004 where published designers regularly tested their prototypes. Soon after, he was bringing his own ideas to the group, and has had his games published around the world since 2008.

In 2005, he also began writing a series of online articles titled "Postcards From Berlin," first on GameWire, then BoardgameNews and now, the Opinionated Gamers. He enjoys writing about game design and his experiences as an American expatriate living in the midst of the Berlin boardgame culture.

His international group of Berlin game designers now meet regularly in the Spielwiese gaming cafe, and he writes about his experiences there and the design process for his games on his blog, Berlin Game Design. He has also taught game design workshops in schools and has spoken on the topic as a guest lecturer at Berlin's Technical University as well as visiting university groups from the United States.

For his "day job", he has worked as an architect, youth pastor, and director of a Christian community center in partnership with the German free evangelical church.

Interviews and Links:

Video Interview at the Spielwiese gaming cafe in Berlin, showing Berlin designers testing their prototypes
Lecture on Boardgames Design at the Gamification Lab, Leuphana Universität Lünenburg, Germany (my part starting at 1:30)
Interview with Opinionated Gamers
Interview with dreamwithboardgames in Portugese and English
Interview with jogoeu in Portugese and English
Interview with Giochi sul nostro tavolo in Italien and English
Designer Profile on the alea web site
Geek of the Week Interview
Video Interview with BGG's Derk Solko at the 2010 Göttingen Game Designers Meeting
"The Prototype Architect" Podcast Interview with zuspieler.de in German
Postcards From Berlin article series about culture, gaming and game design from the perspective of an American in Berlin
Game Designers Survey





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