I've seen this game all over the Etsy and Pinterest pages. I guessed it must be pretty popular, so I decided to give it a try and see why.
The legend of Malefiz goes like this:
It was 1959 in western Germany in the city of Essen. A young bakery worker named Werner Schöppner was taking a break in “Die Herrentoilette” when a question came to mind about board games.
Of course it did.
Werner was apparently a fan of the ancient Indian game of pachisi, and this new idea of his was a variant on the classic cruciform race game. More than a variant, really. I would say it was “inspired by” pachisi.
He worked out the geometry for his new game board and developed some rules to share with family and friends. Eventually he got confidence enough to pitch the idea to some game publishers.
The first publisher he contacted rejected his idea.
Then he took his prototype to Ravensburg to a company called Otto Maier Verlag. Otto’s son Karl liked the game, but didn’t like the name.
Werner wanted to call it “Die Roten Stopper,” signifying the red pieces used as barricades on the game board. His second choice was “Sperrenknacker,” meaning “the lock pick,” which alluded to the unlocking of the barricades in the game. He also suggested “Ganz Ruhig” which means “stay calm.”
Karl wasn’t so sure about any of these, but he took the game home to try it out with his wife.
During their play-through, Karl executed a series of crafty moves that took away all chance that his wife could win the game. She cried out “Du Malefiz!”, a German colloquialism meaning “you evil-doer” or “you’re a curse.” It comes from the Latin “maleficere,” meaning “to do evil,” and is the root of a famous Disney villain's name.
Anyhow, Karl now had the perfect name for Werner’s game.
The company hired Alfons van Heusden, a Dutch graphic designer, to refine the game design for publication. His box design included an outlaw cowboy type, a bearded old man, and a pair of young ladies … plus a very odd representation of the game itself. Faintly below the title was the word “Barricade” — their alternate title for the English-speaking market.
The new game was unveiled by Ravensburger at the 1960 Nuremberg Toy Fair and they sold sold 830 copies at the event. By the end of the year, 8,000 units had been sold in Germany.
In 1965, the number had reached 35,000, and by 1970, the number had reached 175,000. By the time the game's 60th anniversary was celebrated in 2019, it had already surpassed 5 million units sold. Today, after 65 years on the market, that total is estimated close to 7 million.
Now let’s check out the rules to the game, and then we’ll talk a bit more about the game’s legacy.
The original and most common board layout is this sries of points on a stack of connected rectangular paths. It’s fairly obvious what’s going on here.
Each player starts with their five pawns on the colored spots at the bottom of the board.
Then this arrangement of connected spaces eventually leads to the goal at the top. Reminds be a little of the “Shen” space at the top of a Hounds and Jackals board. Eleven red pawns are placed upon the eleven red spaces. These are Die Roten Stopper.
Everyone’s objective is the same: To get one of your pawns to that goal space by exact count. The first to achieve this wins the game.
On each player’s turn, they roll a single six-sided die and move their pawn that many spaces, following the lines on the board. This movement can be in any direction and turn any corners but cannot reverse direction to follow backward along the same path in the same turn.
A moving pawn can also jump over any other pawn in its path. That pawn’s space counts as part of the move and is not captured or affected in any way.
If a pawn should end its move on an opponent’s pawn, that pawn is returned to its owner to start again on a future turn. A pawn may not end its move on a space occupied by another pawn of its own color.
A pawn cannot pass by a barricade … which is why they are called “barricades.” If a pawn ends its move on a Barricade, the player may move that barricade to any other empty space on the board except the first row at the bottom of the board. So blocking your opponent’s path is a huge part of the game.
It's nice, simple race game with plenty of "take-that,"" a certain amount of strategy and challenge. I can certainly understand it popularity.
The game can also be played in teams. Players would control alternate colors so that the turn order of teams A and B would be - A - B - A - B.
There is also a six-player version, often published as a circular layout.
And if you want to play with three, there’s a board for that, too.
The Ravensburger game was often imitated, and often licensed to other publishers. It’s available in many languages, published by at least 24 different publishers, and there are plenty of DIY and unlicensed versions available in webstores, too.
The American Hallmark version published in the 1970s can be found on auction sites and sometimes in thrift stores. It was called “Barricade,” with no mention of Malefiz on the box.
Ravensburger also published the game with the Barricade name only for foreign markets.
There are some themed versions — Disney, Mario Brothers, Spongebob, etc. — and of course digital versions as well. And some very sophisticated versions for the sophisticated adult audience.
The most prolific knock-off is a game called “Obstruction” by Whitman Publishing in the early 70s, and there’s one called “Roadblock.”
There are also a couple of other games called “Barricade” that are not Malefiz.
Werner Schoeppner later became a systems analyst at eVision Systems. He never published any other board games. He lived in Dortmund in his later years, about 25 miles from his birthplace, and died there in 1983 at the young age of 50.
But he did get to see his idea prosper, from restroom reverie to international best-seller!