BoardGame Geek has just announced the winners of their annual Game of the Year awards, the Golden Geeks. There are three categories–Light, Medium, and Heavy GotY. The winner in the Heavy category is Hegemony, an asymmetric economic brain-burner in which the players represent one of four classes. The award for the Medium category goes to Earth, a tableau-builder where the players try to create the best ecosystem. And for Light games, the prize goes to Thunder Road: Vendetta, an extreme makeover of a 40 year old design that’s been described as the Mad Max boardgame. Congratulations to all the winning games.
In each of the three GotY categories, two runner-up games were also announced. Finally, there was voting in 12 other gaming categories and those winners were revealed as well. Here is the list of all of the winning and runner-up games, together with their designers:
- Heavy GotY (winner) – Hegemony (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou)
- Heavy GotY (runner-up) – Dune: Imperium – Uprising (Paul Dennen)
- Heavy GotY (runner-up) – Darwin’s Journey (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone)
- Medium GotY (winner) – Earth (Maxime Tardif)
- Medium GotY (runner-up) – The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition (Stefan Feld)
- Medium GotY (runner-up) – The White Castle (Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos)
- Light GotY (winner) – Thunder Road: Vendetta (Rob Daviau, Justin Jacobson, Brett Myers, Dave Chalker, Noah Cohen, Jim Keifer, Brian Neff)
- Light GotY (runner-up) – Knarr (Thomas Dupont)
- Light GotY (runner-up) – Faraway (Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat)
- 2-Player – Sky Team (Luc Remond)
- Artwork/Presentation – Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition (Stefan Feld)
- Cooperative – Sky Team (Luc Remond)
- Expansion – Ark Nova: Marine Worlds (Mathias Wigge)
- Innovative – Hegemony (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou)
- Party Game – That’s Not a Hat (Kasper Lapp)
- Print & Play – Waypoints (Matthew Dunstan, Rory Muldoon)
- Solo – Legacy of Yu (Shem Phillips)
- Thematic – Hegemony (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou)
- Wargame – Undaunted: Battle of Britain (Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson)
- Podcast – One Stop Co-Op Shop (hosted by Peter Gousis & Michael Kelley)
- Board Game App – Unmatched: Digital Edition (based on the game system designed by Rob Daviau and Justin Jacobson)
