Several significant game awards announce their winners during the Essen game fair.  The IGA’s present their awards to the winning designers during the festivities, but their results were announced earlier.  However, two other awards just made their results known during the past few days.

The DSP (Deutscher Spiele Preis) award is usually considered to be the second most prestigious board game award in Germany, behind only the SdJ’s.  They had previously announced the top 10 games in their voting, but did not give the order of the top three.  The actual finish was provided last Thursday and the winner is Sanctuary, the more streamlined version of the celebrated Ark Nova, which won the DSP four years earlier and is currently the #2 rated game on the Geek.  Like Ark Nova, Sanctuary is designed by Mathias Wigge and published by Feuerland Spiele.

The DSP committee also announced the winner of their Best Children’s Game award and it’s Toriki, a cooperative exploration game designed by Wojciech Grajkowski.  Here is the full list of the top 10 games, together with their designers:

1. Sanctuary – Mathias Wigge
2. Boss Fighters QR – Michael Palm, Lukas Zach
3. Galactic Cruise – T.K. King, Dennis Northcott, Koltin Thompson
4. Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship – Matt Leacock
5. Take Time – Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prethiere
6. Rebirth – Reiner Knizia
7. Cozy Stickerville – Corey Konieczka
8. River of Gold – Keith Piggott
9. Star Trek: Captain’s Chair – David Turczi, Nigel Buckle
10. Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor – Kosch

The other significant gaming award announced last week is the a la carte award.  This is an election conducted by the German magazine Fairplay and rewards the best card game of the year.  The winner is Take Time, which has already received quite a few other honors, including an SdJ recommendation and wins in the Meeples Choice and Spiel der Spiele awards.  It is designed by Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothiere and published by Libellud.  Here is the full top 10, together with their designers:

1. Take Time – Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothiere
2. dnup – Kei Kajino
3. Moon Colony Bloodbath – Donald X. Vaccarino
4. Meister Makatsu – Reiner Knizia
5. Carnuta – Yohan Goh, Hope Hwang, Gary Kim
6. La Cuenta – Carles Carreras
7. Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor – Kosch
8. Symbiosis – Jeremy Partinico, Christelle Partinico
9. Confusing Lands – Zak Eidsvoog
10. Pondscape – Tomas Holek

Interestingly, that list contains quite a few former a la carte winners, including Kajino (Scout), Vaccarino (Dominion), Knizia (Res Publica and Pirat), and Kosch (Forest Shuffle).

Congratulations to all the winning and listed games!