GIL HOVA
In the mid-2000s, I was a budding designer who subscribed to the notion that elegance in a game was king. This was the era of Knizia, where games were a series of mathematical mazes with a somewhatrelated theme stuck on top, more for grounding than immersion.
In the middle of this, I encountered Friedemann Friese’s Power Grid. And I was immediately enchanted, because this game wasn’t just riveting and compelling. It was untidy. It was messy, weird and was good because of that, not in spite of it. Power Grid has rough edges and corner cases.