User:SpesAlitAgricolam/sandbox

Knizia was born in Illertissen, West Germany, in 1957. During his childhood, the small town of Illertissen offered only limited access to boardgames (the only place that sold games was the local barbershop, which had a limited selection). He played Monopoly, which had an impact mainly because the paper money allowed other forms of creativity, such as game design. Because of the limited selection of games in his hometown, at age 8 or 9 he began designing games of his own based on themes he found interesting, such as racing and castles, to play with friends. In one childhood design, a board used a fantasy map of spaces on which knights moved to attack pieces of the other player and occupy their castle. As a teenager, he developed an international-themed wargame, and in his 20s he self-published a play-by-mail magazine where readers would send moves which would be announced in new issues.

He later gained a Master of Science degree from Syracuse University in the United States and a doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Ulm in Germany. He went on to manage a two-billion-dollar financial company, from which he was able to retire at age 40. He published many magazine-based games while writing for Spielbox (a German games magazine), and began having success publishing boxed games in the 1990s, with two games themed around digging for gold. Goldrausch was centered around the California Gold Rush, and Digging was themed about avoiding bandits while mining for gold.