2023 Meeples Choice Awards Nominees Announced

Posted on June 14, 2024 by huzonfirst

The Meeples Choice Awards is an annual game award that has been voted on by a group of gamers since 1995. The purpose of the award is to select the group’s three favorite designs from the previous calendar year. The first stage of the voting for the 2023 awards has been completed and 34 games have been nominated. (Usually there are only 25 or so nominations, but this year there were a large number of games tied for the last few spots.) The group will now vote on their favorites from the nominated games and the three games which receive the most votes will be declared the winners. The winning games will be announced next Friday.

Here are the nominated games in alphabetical order, together with their designers and publishers. Congratulations to all the individuals involved!

  • 12 Chip Trick (root) – Mandoo Games
  • Age of Innovation (Helge Ostertag) – Feuerland Spiele
  • Apiary (Connie Vogelmann) – Stonemaier Games
  • Cabanga! (Michael Modler) – Amigo
  • Darwin’s Journey (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – ThunderGryph Games
  • Daybreak (Matt Leacock, Matteo Menapace) – CMYK
  • Dune: Imperium – Uprising (Paul Dennen) – Dire Wolf
  • Earth (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games
  • Evacuation (Vladimir Suchy) – Delicious Games
  • Expeditions (Jamey Stegmaier) – Stonemaier Games)
  • Faraway (Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat) – Catch Up Games
  • Forest Shuffle (Kosch) – Lookout Games
  • FTW?! (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
  • Great Western Trail: New Zealand (Alexander Pfister) – eggertspiele
  • Hegemony (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou) – Hegemonic Project Games
  • Hooky (James Miller, Friends of Aseema) – Rio Grande Games
  • Knarr (Thomas Dupont) – Bombyx
  • Kutna Hora (Ondrej Bystron, Petr Caslava, Pavel Jarosch) – CGE
  • Magic Trick (Chris Wray) – Self Published
  • Nokosu Dice (Yusuke Matsumoto) – Engames
  • Nucleum (Simone Luciani, David Turczi) – Board&Dice
  • Path of Civilization (Fabien Gridel) – Captain Games
  • Sail (Akiyama Koryo, Kozu Yusei) – Allplay
  • Sky Team (Luc Remond) – Scorpion Masque
  • Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game (Caleb Grace) – Fantasy Flight Games
  • That’s Not a Hat (Kasper Lapp) – Ravensburger
  • The Fox Experiment (Elizabeth Hargrave, Jeff Fraser) – Pandasaurus Games
  • The White Castle (Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos) – Devir
  • Thunder Road: Vendetta (Daviau, Jacobson, Chalker, Myers, Choen, Keifer, Neff) – Restoration Games
  • Ticket to Ride Legacy (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder
  • Tipperary (Gunter Burkhardt) – Lookout Games
  • Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze (Jason Hager, Darren Reckner – Restoration Games
  • Voidfall (Nigel Buckle, David Turczi) – Mindclash Games
  • World Wonders (Ze Mendes) – MeepleBR/Mundus

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Mark’s Top 100 Games: The 2024 Edition

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Mark Jackson

Every couple of years (or so) I blog through my top 50 or top 100 games over on my personal blog, akapastorguy. In 2022, I shared that list with our faithful readers here at the OG… and I’m back to do it again.

And today’s recap won’t be the end of this report… I’ve asked my friends here at the Opinionated Gamers to weigh in with their ratings of the game on my list. I’ll summarize all that information for you on Sunday:

  • Games the OG team likes the most
  • Games they like the least
  • Games that many of them need to play

But today, it’s all about my list & my preferences.

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Dale Yu: Review of Chandigarh

Posted on June 13, 2024 by Dale Yu

Chandigarh

  • Designer: Toni Lopez
  • Publisher: Ludonova
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 40-60 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by Asmodee NA, distributor

In 1951, the Indian government commissioned the renowned architect Le Corbusier to design a new capital for the state of Punjab. Thus, Chandigarh was born. In the game Chandigarh, players in the role of urban planners are in charge of building this modern city from scratch. They will construct buildings, try to take advantage of buildings constructed by others, use the abilities of the different municipal employees, and try to position themselves in the key locations of the city, all with the aim of achieving the patterns of the plans they have chosen. Whoever scores the most prestige points wins.

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Dale Yu: Review of Patrician: Towers of Influence

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Dale Yu

Patrician: Towers of Influence

  • Designer: Michael Schacht
  • Publisher: Calliope Games
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 20-40 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to 13th Century Italy, a time when wealthy Patrician families build magnificent towers to represent their power and prosperity: the more influential the family, the taller the tower! You are a master builder, ready to profit from the vanity of the Patrician families. You take building orders, adding floor after floor, and when a tower is complete, you’ll be there to take the credit. At the end of the game, the builder with the most victory points wins!

This new version of the classic game includes several expanded ways to enjoy the game. When playing with two players, you compete against the Architetto, a wily bot opponent who thwarts your plans. The Trade Routes and Delegates modules can optionally be added in to increase the decisions and affect final scoring.

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SdJ Nominations for 2024

Posted on June 11, 2024 by huzonfirst

The SdJ Jury has released its nominated and recommended games for 2024. Here are the nominees, together with their designers and publishers:

SdJ Nominees

  • Captain Flip (Paolo Mori, Remo Conzadori) – PlayPunk
  • In the Footsteps of Darwin (Gregory Grard, Matthieu Verdier) – Sorry We Are French
  • Sky Team (Luc Remond) – Kosmos/Scorpion Masque

Kennerspiel Nominees

  • Daybreak (aka e-Mission) (Matt Leacock, Matteo Menapace) – Schmidt
  • The Guild of Merchant Explorers (Matthew Dunstan, Brett Gilbert) – Skellig Games/AEG
  • Ticket to Ride Legacy – Legends of the West (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder

Kinderspiel Nominees

  • Grosse kleine Edelsteine (Wolfgang Warsch) – Schmidt
  • Taco Cat Pizza Junior (Dave Campbell, Thierry Denoual) – Blue Orange
  • The Magic Keys (Markus Slawitschek, Arno Steinwender) – Game Factory/Happy Baobab

The thing you have to remember about the SdJ awards is that in order to qualify, a game must have a German release from the past 12 months or so. So, for example, The Guild of Merchant Explorers came out in English in 2022, but the German version didn’t debut until April of last year. Another game that might have been picked, Faraway, will not get its German release until later this year, so it isn’t eligible.

For the SdJ, the fascinating question will be if a game which can only be played by 2 can win. Sky Team is probably the most critically acclaimed of the three nominees, but will the Jury, which has historically been focused on choosing a great family game, make it the pick?

For the Kennerspiel, Matt Leacock has been here before–he once received nominations in three consecutive years–and Daybreak is his sixth SdJ game to be nominated (including a Special Award he received for Pandemic Legacy: Season 2). But none of his games have ever won. It will be an interesting race between Daybreak, Guild of Merchant Explorers, and Ticket to Ride Legacy. The original Ticket to Ride won the SdJ back in 2004, but there was some controversy over Days of Wonder’s refusal to discount the game (as is usually the case with SdJ winners in Germany). It looks as if the Jury has finally forgiven DoW, but it will be fun to see how it fares and if a legacy game can take the prize.

I’m a bit surprised that Forest Shuffle didn’t receive a KdJ nomination. Instead, it will have to be content with a recommendation.

Finally, here are the games that the Jury recommended this year:

SdJ Recommended Games

  • Ghost Writer (Mary FLanagan, Max Seidman) – Pegasus
  • Harmonies (Johan Benvenuto) – Libellud
  • Doesn’t fit! (Thomas Weber)
  • Schatz it if you can (Ralf zur Linde) – Moses
  • Trekking – Journey through time (Charlie Bink) – Game Factory
  • Trio (Kaya Miyano) – Cocktail Games

Kennerspiel Recommended Games

  • Bier Pioniere (Thomas Spitzer) – Spielefaible
  • Botanicus (Vieri Masseini, Samuele Tabellini) – Hans im Gluck
  • Forest Shuffle (Kosch) – Lookout Games
  • Ritual (Tomas Tarragon) – Strohmann Games

Kinderspiel Recommended Games

  • Fluffy Valley (Maxime Rambourg, Theo Riviere) – Loki
  • Lucker Lava (Sophia Wagner) – Drei Magier
  • Die Nadel im Heudaufen (Thomas Sellner) – Schmidt

Congratulations to all the nominated and recommended games! The winning games will be announced on July 21.

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Dale Yu: Review of Hungry Monkey

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Dale Yu

Hungry Monkey

  • Designer: Erik Andersson Sunden
  • Publisher: Heidelberg
  • Players: 2-6
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15 min
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Once upon a time, Hungry Monkey searched for his lost breakfast bean in the jungle. He asked the other animals for help, from Swift Sparrow to King Tiger, but they all ignored his pleas. Until Tiny Ant climbed into Tiger’s ear and ordered him to help. King Tiger was scared by the voice in his ear. He commanded all animals to look for the bean, and no one dared to refuse. Eventually, Swift Sparrow found the bean, and Hungry Monkey was finally happy.

Hungry Monkey is a card game where the goal is to get rid of your hand cards and collect beans. You have animal cards both in hand and in a face-down row. You must be the first to play all your cards, first from your hand and then from your card row. You have to play cards with the same or a higher number. You can trigger an effect with a powerful animal.  If you want to play multiple games you keep track of the scoring with Bean cards. The player with the most beans at the end of the last game wins.

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