Remember that classic scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when Spock says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one”?  Spock used that as justification to sacrifice himself.  (Spoiler alert:  he got better!)  Spock may not have been a great after-dinner speaker, but I suspect he had the soul of a gamer.  Even in the 23^rd century, game awards probably hadn’t changed:  they all still focused on the best single game of the year (the “one”), but didn’t bother to honor which designer had the best portfolio of games that year (the “many”).  It’s enough to make a Vulcan give up Tri-Dimensional chess!

Well, I may not have green blood, but I did start thinking about the lack of a designer award about 20 years ago.  So I came up with the Designer of the Year award and have been handing them out every year since.  The idea is simple enough:  which designer had the best overall body of work over the previous calendar year?  That’s the question I’ll try to answer in this article for 2023.

I want to cover as much ground as possible, so let’s include just about any game that comes in a box.  Boardgames, card games, dexterity games, Euros, thematic titles—yup, they’re all good.  The one type of game I exclude are children’s games, since their criteria for success is pretty different than games for older folk.  And expansions are also excluded—I want to focus on original designs.  But I do include spinoffs, standalone expansions, and redesigns of previously published titles, although they’re not weighted as heavily as original titles.

The big thing is to make this as objective an exercise as possible.  My own tastes are just that—my own—and I have no desire to foist them on anyone else.  Moreover, there’s no way I could play all the games I’ll be covering in this article!  So I’ve come up with a ranking method based on three criteria.  First, how popular is the game?  I use each game’s average rating (and number of votes) on the Geek to estimate that.  It ain’t perfect, but it’s clearly the best data I have access to.  Second, how well will the game do in the annual game awards (both in terms of wins and nominations)?  It represents a different look at a game’s renown, so I think it’s worthy of inclusion.  I give more weight to the major awards (SdJ, Kennerspiel, DSP, and IGA), but also give credit to how well the game does with some of the other notable awards.  Games which came out during the latter part of last year won’t be eligible until later this year, so I’ve had to project the performance of some of these designs.  That’s not ideal, but the object is to get an estimate for award performance, rather than a precise value, and I’ve found my projections usually aren’t too far off base.  The third, and least significant, criterion is how much “buzz” the game is generating, where I consider buzz to be the attention the game is getting above and beyond its popularity.  A great example of a game that got positive buzz last year is Ticket to Ride Legacy, which set a lot of hearts a-flutter when it was announced.  Those are the factors I base my designer rankings on; the goal is to have an objective methodology that considers multiple aspects, to allow me to come to a balanced decision.

By the way, I make no distinction if a game has a single designer or if two or more individuals get design credit.  It’s impossible to determine who was responsible for what when there are multiple designers and anyone who’s ever been part of a collaborative effort can tell you that being part of a successful team is a skill of its own.  So anyone who is listed as a designer of a game gets full credit for it.  It just seems to me to be the most sensible and practical way to approach things.

My first Designer of the Year (DotY) article was way back in 2004, but the last time I checked, there was nothing special about that year, so why stop there?  I’ve done a little research (okay, maybe an unhealthy amount of research) to extend the awards all the way back to 1955!  Yes, kids, we actually played games back then!  In case you’re interested, you can find a Geeklist summarizing the results here:  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/170779.  I’ve included some gaming history for many of the years, to go along with the commentary about the designers, so hopefully you’ll find it informative and maybe even a little bit entertaining.

Last year’s winner was Matthew Dunstan and I’m still happy with my choice.  Most of the 11 games he released in 2022 continue to be well rated and he got 7 award mentions, including an SdJ nomination for Next Station: London.  It was a well deserved victory.

As you will soon see, 2023 turned out to be a very strong year for designers.  Quite a few people with portfolios that normally would have earned them a mention on this page had to be turned away.  It’s yet another indication of how healthy our wonderful hobby is.  But after cranking through the numbers, I chose the following 11 individuals that had the strongest collections of games published last year.  They’re all listed here, along with the titles they released.  Letters in parentheses after the game indicate that it’s gotten some recognition from the annual awards that already have been announced.  Most of the awards will come later this year, but an “i” indicates an IGA nomination, an “F” is an As d’Or win (since it’s the national game award of France), and an “f” shows a nomination for that award.  Some of the games are listed in italics; that indicates that it’s a redesign or spinoff of a title released previously by that designer, which means it carries less weight than fully original designs.

I think I’ve blathered on long enough.  Here, then, in alphabetical order, are the finalists for the 2023 Designer of the Year award.

Trevor Benjamin:

• Undaunted: Battle of Britain (i)
• Patterns
• Witchcraft!
• General Orders: World War II
• Cupcake Draft

Benjamin is a Canadian designer who lives in the UK.  He’s designed games with both Brett Gilbert and Matthew Dunstan, who were GotY finalists last year; this year, it’s Trevor’s turn and it’s his first time on these pages.  His versatility shows, as it’s a very varied collection of games.  Battle of Britain continues the very successful Undaunted series, while General Orders is another well rated WWII wargame.  Patterns is an abstract, while Witchcraft, a solitaire title, is a redesign of his earlier Resist!; nothing like going from resistance fighters to a coven of witches, huh?  All four games have Geek ratings of at least 7.7, which is mighty good stuff.  Hopefully, Trevor’s first GotY visit won’t be the last one for this talented designer.

Rob Daviau:

• Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West
• Stranger Things: Upside Down
• Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown
• Thunder Road: Vendetta
• Unmatched: For King and Country
• Unmatched: Teen Spirit
• Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn

Daviau is a former DotY winner who makes regular appearances on this page.  He has another strong group of designs this year whose only weakness is that most of them are redesigns and spinoffs.  Still, when the ratings are sky-high, even games like those make an impact.  Leading things off is one of the more anticipated titles of the year, Ticket to Ride Legacy.  It’s very highly rated, plus I bet it gets multiple nominations later this year.  Other spinoffs include a sister game to the very popular Death May Die dicefest, a redesign of the venerable race game Thunder Road, and a couple of more editions of Unmatched.  Rob also scores for his original design based on the Stanger Things TV series.  It’s a really strong year, but will it be enough to give the Father of the Legacy Game his second Designer of the Year award?

Matthew Dunstan:

• Waypoints
• Perspectives
• Pioneer Rails
• Next Station: Tokyo
• Prey Another Day
• echoes: Draculas Erbe
• Adventure Games: Die drei ??? – Das Geheimnis der Statue
• echoes: Mord auf Ex

As I mentioned earlier, Dunstan was my choice for DotY last year and it looks like he’s going to make a habit of appearing here, as this is his third straight mention.  His collection isn’t quite as strong as last year’s, but it’s still awfully good.  Waypoints is a dice-driven pencil and paper game.  In Perspectives, each player has different information about a mystery and they have to cooperate in order to solve the case.  Pioneer Rails is a railroad-themed Flip-and-Write game, in which the cards you select let you lay tracks, and you also use them to form a Poker hand!  Plus, there’s another city in the SdJ-nominated Next Station series and two more echoes audio mysteries.  It may not be enough to win in a strong year, but Matthew is showing that he has plenty of staying power, and a second future win is far from a remote possibility.

Johannes Goupy:

• Faraway (F)
• Rauha
• Elawa
• Nautilus Island

It used to be that the only French designers to appear on the DotY pages had the first name of Bruno, but those days are long gone.  The Frenchmen appeared in force this year and the first one we encounter alphabetically is Goupy.  Johannes has only been designing for a few years, but he hit it big in 2023 with his co-design of Faraway.  This tableau builder in which you play the cards from left to right, but score them from right to left has been a sizable hit; it’s already won the As d’Or and is probably the leading contender for this year’s Kennerspiel award.  He also has some other nice games, including Rauha, another tableau-building family game, and Elawa, a prehistorically themed set collector.  Even if Faraway goes on to win one of the SdJ awards, there isn’t enough here to beat out all the other designers, but it’s a nice first appearance for this relative newcomer.

Reiner Knizia:

• Marabunta
• My Island
• 4 For One games (Galaktix, Kniffel, Number Up, Schwarze Rosen)
• Zoo Vadis
• Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition
• Sunrise Lane
• Pollen
• Reif fur die Insel
• 3 Pick a Pen games (Tuinen, Riffen, Crypten)
• Havalandi
• Duo Regna
• At the Office
• 9 other games

Knizia’s claim to fame has always been the huge number of games he gets published every year.  But even by Reiner’s standards, last year was incredible.  No fewer than 26 of his designs were published!  And only about a quarter of them were redesigns of his earlier games.  It helped that two complete new series were published (the four For One games, all of them solitaire titles of different kinds, and the three Pick a Pen games, in which, uniquely, the provided pencils serve as both a writing implement and a randomizing device).  But it’s still remarkable.  Should we just shut down the rest of the analysis and award The Good Doctor his unprecedented eighth DotY award (he already holds the record for most wins, with 7)?

It’s tempting, but there is a bit of a caveat with Knizia’s massive portfolio.  And it’s one we’ve seen before with his games—the lack of blockbuster titles.  His highest ranked original game is Marabunta (an “I split, you choose” dice roller themed around ant colonies), which has a rating of 7.6—good, but not as high as the top games of most of the other designers here.  And outside of that and the For One games (all of which have solid ratings), his highest rated games are the redesigns or spinoffs:  My Island (a spinoff of My City); Zoo Vadis (1992’s(!) Quo Vadis?); his redesign work on Amun-Re; Sunrise Lane (Rondo); and Pollen (Samurai: The Card Game).  In addition, I wouldn’t be shocked if none of these titles got award nominations.

So it’s not a total slam dunk.  Still, more than two dozen games of this quality makes for a fantastic year—the question is, will it be enough to give Reiner DotY number 8?

Matt Leacock:

• Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West
• Daybreak
• Forbidden Jungle

This is Leacock’s first mention on the DotY pages since 2017, but it’s definitely one of his better years.  Besides his co-design of Ticket to Ride Legacy, he scores with the highly rated Daybreak, a cooperative game themed around climate action, as well as the latest “forbidden” game, Forbidden Jungle.  Matt’s specialties—cooperative designs and legacy games—are well represented in his output from last year.  Hopefully, it won’t be another 6 years before we see the next appearance from this designing great.

Corentin Lebrat:

• Faraway (F)
• Arkeis
• Elawa
• Lumen: The Lost World
• Skate Legend
• Goddam Dilema

Prior to last year, Lebrat was best known for being part of a productive quartet of established French designers.  The foursome of Antoine Bauza, Ludovic Maublanc, Théo Rivière, and Lebrat have worked together on a dozen different games, including some well regarded ones.  Last year, however, Corentin also found success away from his more seasoned partners.  Faraway is the big hit, of course, but Arkeis, a cooperative exploration title created with his old group, is also very well rated.  Combine that with Elawa, another co-design with Goupy, and three other titles, and you have a very fine year indeed.  This is Lebrat’s first mention on the DotY pages, but with more years like this one, it won’t be his last.

Simone Luciani:

• Nucleum
• Darwin’s Journey (i,f)
• Rats of Wistar
• Sea Dragons
• Anunnaki
• High Season: Grand Hotel Roll & Write

Luciani shared the Designer of the Year award back in 2019 and, were it not for an historic year from Alexander Pfister, he would have won it in 2015 as well.  But last year might have been the best one of his career.  Nucleum, an economic game themed around nuclear reactors in a steampunk world, is one of the year’s leading titles; I think it has an excellent chance of winning some gaming awards.  Darwin’s Journey, a worker placement game where you relive the great scientist’s trip to the Galapagos Islands, already has a couple of nominations to its name.  Both games have extremely high Geek ratings of 8.2.  He also has three more games with very good ratings:  Rats of Wistar (experimental rats escaping from their lab); Sea Dragons (they protect the seas by sinking pirate ships); and Anunnaki (a 4X sci-fi Euro).  Even High Season, a spinoff of his earlier Grand Austria Hotel, has a solid rating.  It’s a powerful combination of excellent ratings and award potential.  But in a very strong year for designers, will it be enough to give Simone his second DotY?

Shem Phillips:

• Legacy of Yu (i)
• Scholars of the South Tigris

New Zealand’s Phillips, who got a DotY mention three years ago, had two very highly rated games last year.  The IGA nominated Legacy of Yu is a solitaire design in which you try to control the floods in Ancient China.  Scholars is the second game in the South Tigris trilogy; it’s a bag builder set in 9^th century Arabia.  It’s not easy to get a Designer of the Year nomination with only two games released, but when their Geek ratings are this high and they have good potential for award nominations, it’s not surprising at all.  A very good year for Shem.

Théo Rivière:

• Arkeis
• Dracula vs. Van Helsing
• Rauha
• Sous Scelles: 63 Ames
• 16 lueurs d’hiver
• Nautilus Island
• Happy Bee
• Pokemon Chips
• Rock Band
• Goddam Dilema

Rivière is the third French designer to get a DotY nomination this year.  Like his countryman Lebrat, he was, until recently, best known for his work with the Bauza/Maublanc/Lebrat/Rivière quartet.  But unlike Lebrat, whose 2023 portfolio rests heavily on one popular and potentially award-winning game, Théo’s success stems from his productivity, as he got no fewer than 10 games published last year.  Arkeis, designed along with Lebrat, was his biggest success, but he also scored with Dracula vs. Van Helsing (a 2-player card game themed around the confrontation between these immortal foes), Rauha (designed with his other countryman, Goupy), and a few other titles with nice ratings.  Like the other two Frenchmen, this is Rivière’s first mention on these pages, but given the way all three of their careers are developing, there is far more than a soupçon’s chance that we’ll see one or more of them again.

Dávid Turczi:

• Nucleum
• Voidfall

Turczi has had an interesting career.  Born in Hungary, he’s also lived in the UK, and now in the Netherlands.  Most gamers probably first became aware of him as the absolute master of creating solitaire rules for multiplayer games; I think he’s probably produced at least 50 of them.  But he’s also designed quite a few popular heavier titles over the past decade.  Last year, he only released two games, but both were monster hits.  I’ve already discussed Nucleum, but Voidfall’s ratings are even higher—over 8.6 on the Geek!  Like Nucleum, it also has a very good chance of picking up some award mentions later this year.  This is his first time on the DotY pages.  Winning the award with only two games is rare, but it’s not unprecedented and when they’re as well regarded as Dávid’s are, it can’t be ruled out.

 

So that’s our list of nominated designers.  As I mentioned, it was a very strong year and each of the collections of games I’ve listed is impressive in its own way.  But only one of them can be the best.  There were several great years represented, but one did stand head and shoulders above the rest.  So it is with great pleasure that I announce that the Designer of the Year for 2023 is…

SIMONE LUCIANI!!!

It truly was a remarkable year for Luciani.  Two very highly rated and, probably, multiple nominated games, plus three other popular titles makes for a tough combination to beat.  It was the best year for one of the leading designers in the world and it brings him his second DotY crown.

I thought long and hard about letting Knizia share the award.  26 published games is such an amazing total and there was quality there as well.  At the end of the day, the lack of big hits is what doomed him.  With less fierce competition, Reiner would have cruised to his eighth DotY award, but Luciani had just too good a year.  So the Good Doctor will have to be satisfied with his seventh second place finish, which, like his 7 wins, is more than any other designer.  Wow.

Daviau finishes third; it was a strong year for him, but not enough of his games were original designs.  Turczi, with his two blockbuster titles, finishes fourth in his first DotY appearance.  Both years were good enough to possibly win in other years, but not in 2023.  Lebrat finishes fifth, although that will depend on Faraway doing as well with the gaming awards as I think it will.

So congratulations to Simone Luciani for winning his second Designer of the Year award.  Will 2024 be an even stronger year?  France was well represented last year; will some other corner of the world give us even more nominees?  Will Knizia manage to get even more of his games published???  All you can do is tune in next year at about this time and find out.