This month our global tour through the world of board games brings us to the Czech Republic. Like many European countries, the Czech Republic has regionalised takes on classic card games. Czechia’s most popular card game is Mariáš; a trick taking, marriage type game usually enjoyed by three players. Mariáš utilises the familiar, thirtytwo card deck popular in Germany, albeit with more culturally relevant Bohemian art.
Some traditional card games are still played today, but as the emerging board game scene spread across Europe at the tail end of the twentieth century, Czech designers sought more complex experiences to grace the tabletop. An early example of this is Vlaada Chvátil’s Through the Ages. Released back in 2006 through publisher Czech Board Games, Through the Ages quickly ascended the hotness charts to become one of the tabletop hobby’s most cherished games. As a former video game designer, Chvátil took inspiration from Sid Meier’s classic Civilisation. Chvátil adopted the game’s century spanning civilisationbuilding heart and proceeded to literally lay it out on the table, through slick card drafting and tableau building mechanics.
Chvátil only produced a few titles with Czech Board Games – whose other releases include the humorous party game Infarkt and the Lovecraft meets Steampunk title Shuffle Heroes – before co-founding Czech Games Edition. CGE have since released several of his acclaimed games including the Spiel des Jahres winning Codenames and Galaxy Trucker.