Mycelia Wins Austria’s Spiel der Spiele Award

Posted on October 9, 2024 by huzonfirst

The results of the Spiel der Spiele, Austria’s national game awards, have been announced.  The Game of the Year is Mycelia, designed by Daniel Greiner and published by Ravensburger.  The SdS also honors games in six other categories; here are their recommendations, along with the game’s designers.

Games for Experts:  Sabika, designed by German Millan
Games for Friends:  Marsch der Krabben, designed by Julien Prothiere
Games for Families:  Featherweight Fiesta, designed by Julien Prothiere and Juan Rodriguez
Games with Cards:  Finito, designed by Garrett Donner, Brian Spence, and Michael Steer
Trendy Games:  Bag of Chips, designed by Theo Riviere and Mathieu Aubert
Games for Children:  Garden Heist, designed by Fabrice Chazal and Anthony Perone

Congratulations to all the winning games and their designers!

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White Castle, Thunder Road, Sea Salt & Paper, and Blob Party Win 2024 ATA Awards

Posted on October 9, 2024 by huzonfirst

The American Tabletop Awards have been around since 2019 and they just announced their winning games for 2024.  The ATA’s honor games in four categories, focused at four different styles of gamers; here are the winning games, along with the other games that got mentions in each category:

EARLY GAMERS
Winner:  Blob Party, designed by Pam Walls
Other Mentioned Games:  Chicken!, Deep Dive, Turbo Kidz, Maple Valley

CASUAL GAMES
Winner:  Sea Salt & Paper, designed by Bruno Cathala and Theo Riviere
Other Mentioned Games:  Dorfromantik, Next Station: Tokyo, Fit to Print, My Island

STRATEGY GAMES
Winner:  Thunder Road: Vendetta, designed by Rob Daviau, Justin Jacobson, Noah Cohen, Brian Neff, Dave Chalker, Brett Myers, and Jim Keifer
Other Mentioned Games:  Daybreak, The Fox Experiment, Forest Shuffle, Kinfire Chronicles: Night Fall

COMPLEX GAMES
Winner:  The White Castle, designed by Israel Cendrero and Sheila Santos
Other Mentioned Games:  Nucleum, Earth, Dune Imperium: Uprising, Motor City

Congratulations to all the winning games and their designers!

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Nucleum Wins 2024 Jogo do Ano Award

Posted on October 9, 2024 by huzonfirst

Well, the last few significant gaming awards of 2024 have trickled in, so let’s summarize the results in a few posts.

First, Spiel Portugal, a leading Portuguese gaming club, announced the results of their Jogo do Ano award today.  The award focuses on heavier games and the winner this year is Nucleum, by designers Simone Luciani and David Turczi, and published by Board&Dice.  Earlier, Nucleum won the IGA’s Best Multiplayer Game award and was one of four winners of the Meeples Choice Award.  It’s the second JdA victory for Luciani (he won previously for Barrage) and he sixth time he’s been nominated in the award’s 18 year history, more than any other designer.  It’s the first JdA nomination and win for Turczi.

Nucleum beat out four other excellent games which were nominated:  Evacuation, Hegemony, Horseless Carriage, and Scholars of the South Tigris.  Congratulations to Luciani, Turczi, and Board&Dice!

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Dale Yu: Review of That’s Pretty Clever! Kids

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Dale Yu

That’s Pretty Clever! Kids

  • Designer: Wolfgang Warsch
  • Publisher: Schmidt / CMYK
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 5+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3Y0In7n
  • Played with review copy provided by CMYK

You want to get your hands on everything you can at the birthday party: balloons, gifts, candles, and mountains of sweets! Will you be able to grab more than all the other partygoers?

This game is similar to Ganz schön clever, with one player rolling dice on their turn, then choosing what they want while everyone else gets something from what’s left behind.

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Earth is the Dice Tower Game of the Year

Posted on October 8, 2024 by huzonfirst

So we’ve got some catching up to do.  The Dice Tower Awards were revealed during GenCon, but with all the other excitement surrounding the event, I missed the announcement.  So apologies for that, but I did want to mention the results.

The Dice Tower’s pick for its Game of the Year is Earth, designed by Maxime Tardif and published by Inside Up Games.  It’s the fourth significant award for Earth; previously, it won the IGA (best Solo experience), the Golden Geeks (best Medium Weight game), and was one of the four winners of the Meeples Choice Award.  So a very impressive year, indeed.

A total of 10 titles received Game of the Year nominations.  Here they are, together with their designers and publishers.

Game of the Year
***Earth  (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games***
Darwin’s Journey  (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – ThunderGryph Games
Distilled  (Dave Beck) – Paverson Games
Forest Shuffle  (Kosch) – Lookout Games
Nucleum  (Simone Lucinai, David Turczi) – Board&Dice
Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
The White Castle  (Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos) – Devir
Thunder Road: Vendetta  (Daviau, Jacobson, Neff, Myers, Keifer, Cohen, Chalker) – Restoration Games
Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West  (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder
World Wonders  (Ze Mendes) – MeepleBR

Finally, here are the winners in the individual game categories.

Welcoming Game:  Wandering Towers  (Wolfgang Kramer, Michael Kiesling) – Abacus
Two-Player:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
Party:  Blob Party  (Pam Walls) – WizKids
Solo:  Legacy of Yu  (Shem Phillips) – Garphill Games
Reprint:  The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition  (Stefan Feld) – alea
Co-op:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
Small Publisher:  Distilled  (Dave Beck) – Paverson Games
New Designer:  Last Light  (Roy Cannaday) – Grey Fox Games
Theming:  Thunder Road: Vendetta  (Daviau, Jacobson, Neff, Myers, Keifer, Cohen, Chalker) – Restoration Games
Production Value:  The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition – alea
Artwork:  Disney Lorcana – Ravensburger
Strategy:  Earth  (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games
Innovative:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque

Congratulations to all the winning games!

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Dale Yu: Review of Belratti [Essen SPIEL 2024]

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Dale Yu

Belratti

  • Designer: Michael Loth
  • Publisher: Kosmos
  • Players: 3-7
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 25 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4e8Q155  

You are buying artwork for your museum, always trying to meet the current trends and finding genuine art from your associates. But the famous Belratti is trying to cheat his own fake paintings into your collection.

In Belratti, players are split into two roles — buyers and painters — and are playing against the game. The game presents two cards as topics for which the buyers need to buy paintings. They ask for a certain number of cards, and the painters have to collectively meet this target number.

The painters select cards from their hands they think will fit the most to one of the topics. Then additional cards are added as Belratti’s fakes. All cards are shuffled upside down, then flipped up. The buyers then have to select all the cards from the painters, not the fake cards by Belratti.

The roles change after each round. If too many fakes are bought, the players lose. (The name of the game is obviously derived from the name of the German art forger W. Beltracchi)

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