German Board Game Designers Find Fun in the Pool and the Cold War

KCRW: DnA

While in Berlin, DnA’s producer Caroline Chamberlain visited the world’s first board game cafe called Spielwiese. She met with the designers of some games dealing with some very German challenges. “Cool am Pool” is a board game coming soon by Hartwig Jakubik that has players compete over the best places by the pool. Caroline learns how it works and whether it is rooted in a German vacation tradition. 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, fictionalizing the Cold War in pop culture is on the rise with the TV shows “The Americans” and “Deutschland 83.” And now a two-player board game called is taking on the theme. “Wir Sind Das Volk” -- meaning “We Are The People,” the rallying cry of East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall -- was created by native West German Peer Sylvester. Caroline Chamberlain spoke to Sylvester about how he turned the ideological struggle between East and West into a game and why players can choose not to build the Berlin Wall.