Paul Joseph Randles (December 16, 1965 – February 10, 2003) was an American

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

who designed

German-style board games A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...

Early life

Paul Randles was a native of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington.

Career

Randles began his career in game development at

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...

, where he worked on board games and card games including ''

RoboRally ''RoboRally'' is a board game for 2–8 players designed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1994. Various expansions and revisions have been published by both WotC and by Avalon Hill. Description In ''RoboRally' ...

'', ''

The Great Dalmuti ''The Great Dalmuti'' is a shedding-type card game published by Wizards of the Coast in 1995. Description ''The Great Dalmuti'', a card game for 4–8 players, is a commercial variant of the public domain game President and the Japanese game ''D ...

'' and ''

Xena Xena is a fictional character from Robert Tapert's '' Xena: Warrior Princess'' franchise. Co-created by Tapert and John Schulian, she first appeared in the 1995–1999 television series ''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'', before going on to ...

'' & ''

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

''. He worked as a brand manager at Wizards. Randles left Wizards of the Coast and started his own game design company, Randles Games. He designed his first game '' Pirate's Cove'' with Daniel Stahl under his own firm. Randles and Stahl showed ''Pirate's Cove'' first to

Amigo Amigo(s) (Portuguese and Spanish for ''male friend'') may refer to: People * Carlos Amigo Vallejo (born 1934), Spanish Roman Catholic archbishop emeritus of Seville Places Facilities * Amigos School, a bilingual primary school in Cambridge, Ma ...

, and Amigo purchased the game in 2000 which helped Randles become a respected game designer in the European market in less than two years. His games ''Pirate's Cove'' and ''

Key Largo Key Largo ( es, Cayo Largo) is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago and is the largest section of the keys, at long. It is one of the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe County, and the northernmost of the keys connected b ...

'' (with

Bruno Faidutti Bruno Faidutti (born 23 October 1961) is a historian and sociologist, living in France, who is best known as a board game designer. Early life and education Bruno Faidutti studied law, economics, and sociology, eventually earning a doctorate in H ...

and

Mike Selinker Mike Selinker is an American game designer, puzzle maker, and the founder and president of Lone Shark Games. Credits Selinker's design credits include ''Pirates of the Spanish Main'' and ''Fightball'' with James Ernest, ''Axis & Allies Revised E ...

) were published first in Europe and then in the United States.

Health

About a year after leaving Wizards of the Coast, Randles was diagnosed with

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

. He died on February 10, 2003.

References

1965 births 2003 deaths Board game designers Deaths from pancreatic cancer {{designer-stub