We travel the desert in search of a two-player oasis between the mirages, and we find it, in Targi

Words by Owen Duffy

TARGI

Two-player games are one of the most important parts of almost any player’s collection, and over the years some fantastic one-on-one challenges have hit shop shelves, from the tight and intense trading of Jaipur to the Tetris-like tile laying of Patchwork.

Also among these two-player classics is Targi. Designed by Andreas Steiger and released in 2012, it cast players as the leaders of nomadic desert tribes vying to develop trading empires in the vast Sahara, and in the years since its publication it has earned praise from fans and critics alike.

We spoke to its designer to discover the story of its creation, and to learn how he went from playing games with his wife to designing a two-player hit of his own.

Andreas Steiger lives with his wife and sons near Stuttgart in southern Germany, where he works as a kindergarten teacher. Introduced to board games at an early age, he grew up playing pachisi (ludo), Uno and The Settlers of Catan. But it wasn’t until he started a family of his own that he began to explore the geekier side of the hobby.

“There wasn’t a specific game that made me into a hobby gamer,” he explains. “Instead it was the fact that my wife became pregnant with our first son. Previously we had gone out to the theatre and the cinema very often, but it became too exhausting for her, so we stayed at home more and played some of the games we had lying around. We enjoyed it so much that I went to a game store to buy some more, and we were astonished by how many fascinating games and mechanisms were out there for us to discover.

“When I started to use the intersection mechanism, the game really started to shine. It gave Targi a very special feeling of tension”

“We were hooked. From that point on we played regularly at least two or three times a week. It became precious quality time for us.”

When the couple’s second son was born a few years later, though, Steiger’s wife found that day-to-day childcare left her too tired to play games at night once their children were in bed. With his main gaming partner suddenly unavailable, Steiger decided to use the time to create a game of his own.