One of the interesting things about writing a regular, annual gaming article is how much things can change from year to year.  But I think it’s safe to say that I never imagined the world-wide circumstances we all would be facing when the 2020 version of my Designer of the Year entry would be posted.  I just hope that everyone reading this is healthy and safe, and making sensible choices.  With any luck, this article will help you take your mind off real-world issues for a little while.

So, yes, it’s time for me to designate my Designer of the Year for 2019.  What, you may ask, is this thing?  Well, here’s the elevator pitch, for those who are new to the series.  It came about when I noticed, way back when, that there are a huge number of Game of the year awards of every shape and description.  But there’s no formal award for the designers, the talented folks who create these wonderful titles.  Nature abhors a vacuum and I’m not that wild about it either, so I decided to fill this one by honoring the person who I feel has published the best portfolio of games over the previous calendar year.  That was my intent when I started posting these articles back in 2004 and little has changed since then, so I’m still at it, hopefully providing a small amount of insight and entertainment to the gaming community at large.

Which games are we talking about?  Just about all of them.  Children’s games are excluded, as that’s a whole different set of designers, and I’m not that familiar with them anyway.  But just about everything else—boardgames, card games, dexterity games, Euros, thematic titles—is eligible.  I do exclude expansions, since they’re not really complete designs (although spinoffs, standalone expansions, and redesigns of previously published titles are included, albeit at a reduced weight).  But everything else a designer produces gets tossed into the pot and affects the final decision. Continue reading →

Gulf, Mobile & Ohio

• Designer: John Bohrer listed on BGG
• Publisher: Rio Grande Games
• Players: 3-5
• Ages: 14+
• Time: 60 minutes
• Times played: around a dozen between current and older version

This is certainly an interesting time for game reviews; it’s hard to write reviews on games when I have almost no opportunity to actually play them right now!  We’re being asked to stay at home in Ohio right now, so my outlets for traditional boardgaming are about nil.  I did just receive a box of games from Rio Grande; and surprisingly enough, I found a new version of an old favorite within!  I have yet to have a chance to play the new version but it appears to be identical (gamewise) to the original clamshell version of the game from 2008 so I can review it based on my previous experience with the game.

Gulf, Mobile & Ohio (GM&O) is one of the last games I bought as a regular subscriber to the annual Winsome Essen package.  Back in those glory days, Mr. Bohrer would sublet a corner of an Essen booth for a single hour on the Friday of the fair, and he would collect money and distribute his pre-ordered sets of Essen games.   This was pretty much the only way to get the whole set of games, and you had to buy them all.   Having done this for a number of years, I would come up to the booth – wearing my Bengals jersey for sure – and ask for my set.  Mr. Bohrer, in his Steelers garb, would invariably grimace at my clothes, and then deliver set #69 to me. (Nice).  Sure, the components were rudimentary – usually simple cubes, construction paper money and shares, all wrapped up in a thin plastic clamshell case – but the games inside were always challenging and inventive.   Each year, I was almost sure to find at least one keeper in the Winsome set, and due to the relative scarcity, I could almost always find homes for the ones I didn’t like as much. (you know, anything that begins with 18…)

  Continue reading →