I assume that some of you know that I administer the Meeples Choice Awards every year. It’s a labor of love, since not only does the group do a great job of picking the best new games, but there’s always a good deal of scintillating discussion between the voters (many of whom go back to the beginnings of the award 25 years ago). After the voting this year, we were debating the merits of various Stefan Feld games. Chris Brandt, one of our regular voters, suggested it might be fun to vote for our favorite Feld games, using the same procedure that we use for the Meeples Choice Awards. This suggestion was met with considerable enthusiasm, with requests for other designers we could vote on. I set a few of these up and the designer requests just kept rolling in. By the time we were finished, we had picked our favorite games for 30 different designers!
The lists are a fascinating insight into the way more seasoned gamers view these great designers. I knew they would make a very interesting series of OG articles, so, with the permission of the group, I’ve put those together. I also asked the OG writers to add their votes, so for most of these designers, we have 60 or more people weighing in on their favorite games.
As I mentioned, the voting was conducted just like the usual Meeples Choice procedure: each voter listed up to three of their selections and then we recorded which games got the most picks. The designers were chosen by the MCA voters; we did try to focus on those who have a reasonably large number of published games to choose from. We only listed base games on the ballot and not expansions, but other than that, any voter could vote for any of the designer’s game that they wanted to.
One of the issues we had to grapple with for each of the votes were how to group certain games. Just about every designer creates groups of very similar games over their career. For example, Martin Wallace published his Hall of Fame train game Age of Steam in 2002. For a variety of reasons (not all of which were in his control), he then proceeded to release a number of closely related games, including Railroad Tycoon, Steam, and Railways of the World. These are not identical games and most gamers who have played more than one of them have one they prefer. Nevertheless, the games have a great deal in common and the thinking was that if they were listed separately, they would split the vote. So, for each designer, we grouped together what we considered to be very similar games into one selection. This was not always a straightforward process and there was some spirited discussion on the best way to do it, but in each case, a consensus was reached. Just keep the groupings in mind when you view each designers’ results.
For each of the next 10 weekdays, we will publish the results for three of these designers. I’ll discuss how the vote went and give some interpretations of the totals. Hopefully, it will inspire some interesting discussion and show just what we think of the creations of these very talented individuals. Make way for the Designer Choice Selections!
