Golden Geek Nominations for 2023 Announced

Posted on April 23, 2024 by huzonfirst

Boardgame Geek has just announced the nominees for their game awards for the 2023 calendar year, the Golden Geeks.  As usual, these were determined by selections made by the BGG community.  With 15 different categories, there are too many citations to list here, so we’ll just focus on the three Game of the Year (GOTY) categories, for Best Light Game, Best Medium Game, and Best Heavy Game.  10 games were nominated in each of these categories.  It looks like the voters did a pretty good job this year and included most of the most notable games released last year.  The final results will be announced on or around May 15.  Here are the nominations, with each game’s designers listed in parentheses, followed by its publisher.  Congratulations to all!

LIGHT GOTY

  • Art Society  (Mitch Wallace) – Mighty Boards
  • Bonsai  (Rosaria Battiato, Massimo Borzi, Martino Chiacchiera) – DV Games
  • Faraway  (Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat) – Catch Up Games
  • Knarr  (Thomas Dupont) – Bombyx
  • Nimalia  (William Lievin) – La Boite de Jeu
  • Point City  (Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich) – Flatout Games
  • Rebel Princess  (Daniel Byrne, Jose Guerrero, Kevin Pelaez, Tirso Virgos) – Zombi Paella
  • That’s Not a Hat  (Kasper Lapp) – Ravensburger
  • Thunder Road: Vendetta  (Rob Daviau, Justin Jacobson, Dave Chalker, Brett Myers, Noah Cohen, Jim Keifer, Brian Neff) – Restoration Games
  • Trailblazers  (Ryan Courtney) – Bitewing Games

MEDIUM GOTY

  • Apiary  (Connie Vogelmann) – Stonemaier Games
  • The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition  (Stefan Feld) – alea
  • Distilled  (Dave Beck) – Paverson Games
  • Earth  (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games
  • Expeditions  (Jamey Stegmaier) – Stonemaier Games
  • Forest Shuffle  (Kosch) – Lookout Games
  • Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Scorpion Masque
  • Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West  (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder
  • The White Castle  (Isra C., Shei S.) – Devir
  • World Wonders  (Ze Mendes) – MeepleBR/MUNDUS

HEAVY GOTY

  • Age of Innovation  (Helge Ostertag) – Feuerland Spiele
  • Darwin’s Journey  (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – ThunderGryph Games
  • Dune: Imperium – Uprising  (Paul Dennen) – Dire Wolf
  • Evacuation  (Vladimir Suchy) – Delicious Games
  • Great Western Trail: New Zealand  (Alexander Pfister) – eggertspiele
  • Hegemony  (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou) – Hegemonic Project Games
  • Kutna Hora  (Ondrej Bystron, Petr Caslava, Pavel Jarosch) – Czech Games Edition
  • Nucleum  (Simone Luciani, David Turczi) – Board&Dice
  • Scholars of the South Tigris  (Shem Phillips, SJ Macdonald) – Garphill Games
  • Voidfall  (Nigel Buckle, David Turczi) – Mindclash Games

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Dale Yu: Review of Flashback Lucy (Spoiler Free)

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Dale Yu

Flashback Lucy

  • Designers: Baptiste Derrez, Marc-Antoine Doyon, Gabriel Durnerin
  • Publisher: Scorpion Masque
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 7+
  • Time: 30 min per chapter, 4 chapters
  • Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA

Flashback is back in a scary universe that will give you chills. Take on the role of Lucy, a young woman with strange powers, who inherits a mysterious mansion in which dark and disturbing events have taken place. Explore this eerie place and learn more about Lucy, her power, her family, and her role in this grand story.


Using the Flashback mechanism, travel into the past through Lucy’s visions, and meet the shadow that haunts the mansion. Put yourself in the shoes of the characters and discover their points of view, collect clues, solve mysteries, and answer the questions you’ve been asked.

In Flashback: Lucy, you will be travelling from era to era, discovering the mansion at different moments in time. Before and after each of Lucy’s visions, explore the mansion with her cat, Gredin, in an interactive comic strip. And, of course, discover even more original and immersive gadgets!

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Dale Yu: Report from the Gathering of Friends  (Day 0 – 5)

Posted on April 19, 2024 by Dale Yu

Well,  it’s that time of year again, where I trundle up to basically Canada (Niagara Falls NY) and get ready for a long weekend full of games.  This year is the 34th edition of the event, and I think this is around my 20th time actually being there.  In short, it’s an invitational event that started out as friends of Alan R. Moon, a guy you may have heard of…  It has grown through the years, and I believe about 400 people or so are invited each year.

(once you have been 20 times officially, you get a Black colored badge)

Unlike most cons, there isn’t much structure.  We meet up in a hotel with a lot of gaming tables.  Attendees bring their own games and set them up on tables around the exterior of the gaming space.  And then, welp, you find people to play games with.  No dealer hall. No ticketed events.  Depending on the year, sometimes folks will volunteer to run a puzzle hunt or a game show.  But for the most part, the plan is to show up, see your friends and make new friends, and play lots of games.  Oh yeah, maybe go outside to see those waterfall things.  And, if you’re really adventurous, take a drive to Rochester (to see the Strong Museum of Play) or Toronto.

(this year, I only glimpsed the falls from the car as I returned from Canada one afternoon)

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of The Glade

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Dale Yu

The Glade

  • Designer: Richard Breese
  • Publisher: R&D Games
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 60 minutes
  • Played with copy purchased at Spiel 2023 from the publisher

It’s summer time, and amid the forest lies the glade.  In The Glade, you fill your personal forest board with sets of forest tiles (played from your tile rack) that feature creatures, leaves, and forest fruits. Create sets of three tiles to place one of your toadstool counters onto the central glade board. Complete a set of four tiles to add a toadstool to your store. Claim toadstool counters from the glade for your store by playing matching forest tiles. Play toadstool counters into enclosures in your forest to create extra actions. When one player has played all twelve of their toadstool counters or when all the forest tiles have been drawn from the bag, the player with the most points wins. After playing the basic game, progress to the “matching” game in which you also match your forest tiles to the creatures, leaves, or forest fruits on your forest board.

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Dale Yu: Review of Evil Corp.

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Dale Yu

Evil Corp.

  • Designer: Jeremy Ducret
  • Publisher: La Boite de Jeu
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 45 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA

We at Evil Corp. have been working for 666 generations to frighten human villages. When it comes to scaring, we’re the best!

Every year, we hold a team seminar where each of our managers is tasked with recruiting a team of monsters and competing against their colleagues to prove they’re the best at terrorizing humans. Will you have the most terrifying team of the year?

In Evil Corp., the first player — or team when you play 2vs2 — to take control of its second village will be declared the new CEO of the Company, and therefore, winner of the game. To do this, send your troops of monsters to scare the villagers more than your opponent, to the point that their village becomes yours. During your turn, you can perform one action:

  • Send a monster (a tile) to one of your two adjacent villages.
  • Recruit a new tile at the monster’s job center.
  • Activate one of your monster powers.

When you have no more available actions or when you choose to do so, you may pass, which ends the round for you.

Depending on where the monsters are placed, they grant you bonuses:

  • Advance on the Terror track according your monster’s strength. Once you reach the bottom of it on your opponent’s side, you take control of the village.
  • Gain Magic Force, which you can use to deal direct damage to an opponent’s monster or draw a tile.
  • Earn gold coins
  • Seize the Power Stone pawn that gives you the advantage in case of a tie situation in the village.

The order in which you choose to perform your actions will tremendously impact your strategy and the outcome of the game. Good Luck, CEO Pretender!

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Dale Yu: Review of Pyramidice

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Dale Yu

Pyramidice

  • Designer: Luigi Ferrini
  • Publisher: Ares Games
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time 30-45 minutes

On the Giza plateau, the best architects of ancient Egypt are called to imprint the mark of the Pharaoh. It’s not just a matter of building tombs, but of erecting actual engineering masterpieces, monuments that will be worshipped and that will forever raise the honor of the Pharaoh to heaven.

The competition among architects is a snake hiding in the sand ready to attack; project building and worker management mingle with the worship of the gods. Wisely choosing which god to ask for blessing will be crucial for your fame to outshine all others, ensuring the immortality of your name. Hold tight to your precious Scarab and with the power it infuses you, be ready to make Egypt the most incredible place in the world…

Pyramidice is a game of dice and card combos that makes timing and control of the opponents’ strategies a core element. Fast and deep, the game boasts high replayability and different strategic paths to pursue victory. In the solo mode, you challenge one of the great architects of ancient Egypt: Snefru, Hemiunu, Amenhotep, or Imothep.

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