A collection of interviews about Alex Randolph

Alex Randolph’s 90th Anniversary

May 4, 2012: Alex Randolph’s 90th anniversary (1922-2004). The city of Nüremberg took the opportunity to commemorate this great personality from the world of games by organizing a special event. The Museums of Nüremberg, of which also the Spielzeugmuseum (Toy Museum) is part, has recently acquired the Deutsches Spiele-Archiv, based in Marburg/Lahn, and recieved among donations of games, prototypes and papers from Alex’s office in Venice. The commemoration was held at the Pellerhaus, a prestigious historical building in Nüremberg, the current city library that will become headquarters of the Deutsches Spiele-Archiv in Nüremberg. The room was furnished with a partial exhibition of the published games by Alex and also prototypes. Among the various interventions there was a long movie based on various interviews (including one by Dario De Toffoli) by friends and colleagues who remembered Alex and its importance for the world of games. The highlight was the presentation of the book “Die Sonnenseite” Philippe Evrard and Johann Rüttingher, even if the closing speech by Herbert Feuerstein, friend of Alex, has attracted the attention of those present for both the verve of the character and the amount of anecdotes and stories. Feuerstein is president of the Halvah Foundation, created by Alex in order to help non professional authors and among the Premio Archimedes  sponsors. And now let’s wait for the whole material moved from Marburg to come to light and be once again accessible to all games followers, so that Nüremberg has one more reason to be visited!

Giuseppe Baggio

Venice 1994 – Herbert Feuerstein, president of the J.P.Halvah Foundation, meets Alex Randolph

Alex Randolph was a person that made you love mankind. He had a long and very intense life, lived in different countries, absorbing with great intelligence different cultures. To spend time with him was a great honour and ment to enrich ones mind and soul. He was good-natured, but at the same time difficult and unpredictable. He was not bothering at all about money but was able to drive crazy editors with the clauses of his contracts; he was ingenious, but sometimes he needed help by making the most simple things; he was strong and youthful until his death, which occurred in 2004.

We all loved him sincerly, he really has been our Master, and not only in games.

To talk about his games is not easy because they are a lot and many of them are really masterpieces for their brilliance and refinement. We will just mention the beloved Twixand Sagaland with which he won the Spiel des Jahres Prize in 1982, Inkognito which is the game that Leo Colovini had the honour to be part of, and Worm up! that we recently relaunched with its original rules.

To him we dedicate our Premio Archimede, supported by the J. P. Halvah Foundation, founded by him and now directed by Herbert Feurstein.