Catan creator, board sport pioneer Klaus Teuber lifeless at 70

Board sport designer Klaus Teuber, creator of The Settlers of Catan, died on April 1 after “a short and extreme sickness.” He was 70 years outdated. Teuber’s household confirmed the sport creator’s demise in a information launch on his firm’s web site.

Extensively considered one of the influential fashionable board video games, The Settlers of Catan — later rebranded as Catan — was first printed in Germany in 1995. That very same yr it gained the Spiel des Jahres, amongst board gaming’s most prestigious awards. Impressed by tales of Viking exploration, the non-violent expertise gathers gamers collectively on a distant island, the place they have to use communication, negotiation, and just a little little bit of bluffing to get forward. An financial simulation at its coronary heart, Catan and its iconic sources, like wooden and sheep, helped to construct a bridge into the board gaming interest for numerous gamers around the globe. Greater than 40 million copies have been bought in additional than 40 languages, based on its writer.

Picture: Catan Studio/Asmodee

Teuber remained near his creation all through his whole life, personally performing design work on a lot of Catan’s greater than 50 expansions. That features Catan 3D, with elaborate tiles and tokens that he sculpted by hand. His memoir, My Journey to Catan, was printed in 2021.

“We mourn the passing of Klaus Teuber,” the official Catan web site mentioned. “The Teuber household respectfully requests the prospect to bid farewell to their liked one in non-public and to be allowed the area they should grieve.”