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 2024 awards has been completed and 31 games have been nominated. 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 week.

Here are the nominated games in alphabetical order, together with their designers and publishers. Friedemann Friese had a particularly good year, gaining nominations for three of his games, while newcomer Tomas Holek and veteran designer Reiner Knizia each placed two designs. Congratulations to all the nominees!

• Black Forest  (Uwe Rosenberg, Tido Lorenz) – Feuerland Spiele
• Bomb Busters  (Hisashi Hayashi) – Cocktail Games
• Captain Flip  (Paolo Mori, Remo Conzadori) – PlayPunk
• Cascadero  (Reiner Knizia) – Bitewing Games
• Castle Combo (Gregory Grard, Mathieu Roussel) – Catch Up Games
• Cities  (Phil Walker-Harding, Steve Finn) – Devir
• Civolution  (Stefan Feld) – Deep Print Games
• Endeavor: Deep Sea  (Carl de Visser, Jarratt Gray) – Burnt Island Games/Grand Gamers Guild
• Ezra and Nehemiah  (Sam Phillips) – Garphill Games
• Fishing  (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
• Flip 7  (Eric Olsen) – The Op
• Free Ride USA  (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
• Fromage  (Matthew O’Malley, Ben Rosset) – Road To Infamy Games
• Galileo Galilei  (Tomas Holek) – Pink Troubadour
• Harmonies  (Johan Benvenuto) – Libellud
• Let’s Go! To Japan  (Josh Wood) – AEG
• LotR: Duel for Middle-Earth  (Antoine Bauza, Bruno Cathala) – Repos
• Power Grid: Outpost  (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
• Rebirth  (Reiner Knizia) – Mighty Boards
• River Valley Glassworks  (Ben Pinchback, Matt Riddle, Adam Hill) – Allplay
• SETI  (Tomas Holek) – CGE
• Shackleton Base  (Fabio Lopiano, Nestore Mangone) – Sorry We Are French
• Slay the Spire  (Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, Casey Yano) – Contention Games
• Tales of the Arthurian Knights  (Andrew Parks, Eric Goldberg) – Wizkids
• The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game  (Bryan Bornmueller) – Office Dog
• The Gang  (Kory Heath, John Cooper) – Kosmos
• Tower Up  (Sebastien Pauchon, Frank Crittin, Gregoire Largey) – Monolith Board Games
• Unconscious Mind  (Laskas, Jonny Pac, Yoma, Antonio Zax) – Fantasia Games
• Wilmot’s Warehouse  (Ricky Haggett, Richard Hogg, David King) – CMYK
• Windmill Valley  (Dani Garcia) – Board&Dice
• Xylotar  (Chris Wray) – Bezier Games

It’s that time of year when I travel north to leave the outside world behind for 1 week in order to experience, explore, and enjoy as many different board games as possible.  This year, I had the opportunity to play 54 different games a total of 84 times, and I’ve returned to rank them top to bottom as I’m wont to do.

Last year, I came away from the experience with several new favorites that I had to add to my collection, including Fishing, Triqueta, and Rebirth, which have definitely been great additions.  This year, I’ve purchased 6 new games as a result of the convention.  Read on to find out what games made the cut.

In keeping with The Opinionated Gamers rating system, I’ll sort the games based on the Love It, Like It, Neutral, and Not For Me categories, starting with the 8 games (out of all 54 games) played that I really love, admire, and want to play a bunch more.

LOVE IT

1. Dune: War for Arrakis – My favorite game of the week was easily Dune: War for Arrakis.  I played it 3 times during the week.  I had already bought the game the month before and played it twice, but it was a real treat to get to play it 3 more times in quick succession.  With War of the Ring as my favorite game of all-time and Dune my favorite novel of all-time, I was simultaneously predisposed to love this game, but also very skeptical that it could live up to my hopes.  I’m still not ready to say whether it will stand the test of time over 80+ plays like War of the Ring, but I’m really enjoying exploring the system and all of the ways that it differs dramatically from its spiritual predecessor.  I’m excited to keep vying for control of Arrakis in the year to come.

2. Galaxy Trucker: Do What?! – I’ve been a huge fan of Galaxy Trucker since I first tried it in 2008, and I’ve really enjoyed the Rough Road, Big Expansion, and Another Big Expansion, so I was thrilled to see a prototype for the upcoming “Do What?!” expansion available to try.  You can learn more about it in this CGE video.  The missions are definitely a great addition to one of my favorite board games!

Splendor: The Sun Never Sets expansion

• Designer: Marc Andre
• Publisher: Space Cowboys
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link:  https://amzn.to/4ktOHxj
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.

In this expansion, you get two modules to flavor your Splendor game.

Place your strongholds and mark your territory!

Discover the wonders of the Orient and enjoy new powers.

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Things in Rings

Designer: Peter Hayward
Artist: Snow Conrad

Publisher: allplay
Players: 2-6
Age: 6+
Time: 20 minutes
Review copy provided by allplay
Reviewed by Jonathan Franklin (played 7-8 times)

Things in Rings is the sort of party game I like. It is clever and leaves room for creativity. The gameplay is snappy and the post-game discussions can be as fun as the game itself.

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River Valley Glassworks

• Designer: Adam Hill, Ben Pinchback, and Matt Riddle
• Publisher: allplay
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 25 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/43unoLF
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to River Valley! The beautiful pieces of glass that can be found along the river here have attracted the most entrepreneurial of woodland creatures to set up shop.

In River Valley Glassworks, you play as one of these pioneers, drafting glass from the market of river tiles. To do so, you have to play a piece from your inventory into the river. Each river tile can take only a specific shape, and you must play into a space adjacent to where you want to draft from. After you pick up your glass, the river shifts forward, revealing new pieces and new opportunities.

Store the glass you pick up strategically in your shop. Depending on how the glass pieces are placed, your score will change drastically. Fill in rows and columns to gain bonus points, but don’t draft too many of one type to avoid negative points!

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