Every year, the voters for the Meeples Choice Awards choose their three favorite games from the previous calendar year.  The awards have been around since 1995, making it one of the oldest annual awards in the hobby.  The list of nominated games have just been announced.  Here are the 28 nominated games, in alphabetical order, together with their designers and publishers:

• Akropolis (Jules Messaud) – Gigamic
• Atiwa (Uwe Rosenberg) – Lookout
• Carnegie (Xavier Georges) – Quined Games
• Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (Muneyuki Yokouchi) – Bezier Games
• Challengers! (Johannes Krenner, Markus Slawitscheck) – 1 More Time Games
• Clank!: Catacombs (Paul Dennen) – Dire Wolf
• Dead Reckoning (John D. Clair) – Alderac
• Dice Realms (Tom Lehmann) – Rio Grande
• Findorff (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
• Great Western Trail: Argentina (Alexander Pfister) – eggertspiele
• Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Granerud, Daniel Pedersen) – Days of Wonder
• Marrakesh (Stefan Feld) – Queen
• Mosiac (Glenn Drover) – Forbidden Games
• Next Station: London (Matthew Dunstan) – Blue Orange Games
• Planet Unknown (Ryan Lambert, Adam Rehberg) – Adam’s Apple Games
• Ready Set Bet (John D. Clair) – Alderac
• Return to Dark Tower (Rob Daviau, Justin Jacobson, Brian Neff, Isaac Childres, Noah Cohen, Tim Burrell-Saward) – Restoration Games
• Revive (Kristian Ostby, Eilif Svensson, Helge Meissner, Anna Wermlund) – Aporta Games
• San Francisco (Reiner Knizia) – Rebel Studio
• Space Station Phoenix (Gabriel Cohn) – Rio Grande
• Splendor Duel (Bruno Cathala, Marc Andre) – Space Cowboys
• Starship Captains (Peter Hoffgaard) – Czech Games Edition
• The Green Fivura (Taiki Shinzawa) – Kentaiki
• The Guild of Merchant Explorers (Matthew Dunstan, Brett Gilbert) – Alderac
• Tiletum (Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini) – Board&Dice
• Turing Machine (Fabien Gridel, Yoann Levet) – Le Scorpion Masque
• Wonderland’s War (Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner, Ian Moss) – Druid City Games
• Woodcraft (Vladimir Suchy, Ross Arnold) – Delicious Games

The only designers with multiple nominated games are Matthew Dunstan and John D. Clair, while the only publishers with more than one game on the list are Alderac (3) and Rio Grande (2).  It’s the sixth consecutive year in which Reiner Knizia has at least one nominated game, as the Reinerssance continues; remarkably, San Francisco is the 51st game of his to receive an MCA nomination.  Alexander Pfister’s recent MCA success is almost as good, as he has received nominations in the last 5 years and 8 of the last 9.

There will now be a second round of voting and the three winning games will be announced in a week.  Congratulations to the nominated designers and publishers!