The International Gamers Awards (IGA) announced their Game of the Year selection during SPIEL.digital and the winner is Barrage! Barrage was designed by Simone Luciani and Tommaso Battista and published by Cranio Creations. The game received strong support from the IGA committee, with 6 first place votes from the 14 voters. It beat out The Crew for the win in a close contest.
Barrage is the second IGA award for Luciani, as he previously won for The Voyages of Marco Polo back in 2015. It’s Battista’s first IGA and the first win for Cranio as well.
In addition to Barrage and The Crew, the other short-listed games for the award were Azul: Summer Pavilion, Imperial Struggle, and Maracaibo. Seven other games received nominations.
The IGA is the last of the 2020 major gaming awards to be announced. The other winners were Pictures (SdJ) and The Crew (Kennerspiel and DSP awards).
Congratulations to Luciani, Battista, and Cranio Creations for their victory!
Wow! I am surprised! I loved Barrage so I am happy to see it win, although I am also sad because now I have to eat my left shoe.
Bon appetit, Will! :-)
I’m sure that The Crew will be considered the favorite to win all awards this year (and it did give Barrage a very good run for the money). But the one thing to remember is that while many of the awards have moved towards lighter games, the IGA continues to feature heavier designs. To illustrate this, here are the multiplayer winners since 2012:
Trajan
Terra Mystica
Russian Railroads
Voyages of Marco Polo
Mombasa
Great Western Trail
Rajas of the Ganges
Root
Obviously, weightwise, Barrage fits right in with those great games. My main concern with it was that the game’s Kickstarter fiasco would hurt it in the vote. But it got great primary support and was able to hold off a worthy challenger in The Crew. Barrage was not only my personal Game of the Year, but it’s my favorite title of the last 5 years, so I’m delighted that has received this recognition.