Boardgame Geek has just announced the winners of the 2021 Golden Geek awards.  The awards separate their Game of the Year into three categories, with the following winners:

• Light Game of the Year – Cascadia (designed by Randy Flynn)
• Medium Game of the Year – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (designed by Thomas Sing)
• Heavy Game of the Year – Ark Nova (designed by Mathias Wigge)

Here are the category winners, as well as the designs that finished second and third in each of the Game of the Year categories.

• Two-Player Game – Radlands (Daniel Piechnick)
• Artwork/Presentation – Sleeping Gods (Artwork by Ryan Laukat)
• Cooperative Game – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (Thomas Sing)
• Expansion – Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders (Michaela Stachova, Michal Stach)
• Innovative – Oath (Cole Wehrle)
• Light GotY:
  • Winner – Cascadia (Randy Flynn)
  • Second – Canvas (Jeff Chin, Andrew Nerger)
  • Third –  7 Wonders: Architects (Antoine Bauza)
• Medium GotY:
  • Winner – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (Thomas Sing)
  • Second – Sleeping Gods (Ryan Laukat)
  • Third – Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition (Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, Nick Little)
• Heavy GotY:
  • Winner – Ark Nova (Mathias Wigge)
  • Second – Oath (Cole Wehrle)
  • Third – Imperium: Classics (Nigel Buckle, David Turczi)
• Party Game – So Clover! (Francois Romain)
• Print & Play – Gloomholdin’ (Joe Klipfel)
• Solo Game – Final Girl (Evan Derrick, A.J. Porfirio)
• Thematic Game – Sleeping Gods (Ryan Laukat)
• Wargame – Undaunted: Reinforcements (Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson)
• Best Podcast – Board Game Barrage
• Best Boardgame App – Gloomhaven

A few weeks prior to that, the American Tabletop Awards opened the 2022 game award season by announcing their winning games.  The ATA’s have four Game of the Year categories and the following games were cited as the winners of each category:

• Early Gamers – Happy City (Toshiki & Airu Sato)
• Casual Games – Cubitos (John D. Clair)
• Strategy Games – Cascadia (Randy Flynn)
• Complex Games – Lost Ruins of Arnak (Michaela Stachova, Michal Stach)

The win for Lost Ruins of Arnak wrapped up a terrific performance in the 2020 annual awards for the CGE title.  There are 13 Game of the Year awards I track each year; Arnak won 6 of them and received nominations for 10 of them.  It was clearly the dominant game of 2020.

Congratulations to all the winning games and the creative people behind them!