[Headline]

The Boardgames Awards

With dozens of games being published each year, the average player rarely gets around to do enough playtesting in order to decide which games he should buy. To make the decision easier, several Boardgames Awards have been established, recommending games which are outclassing their peers...

The G@mebox Star

Well, although two official german games awards are quite well known to the public, I decided that Kulkmann's G@mebox needed an awards of its own. Thus, in the 7th year since the beginning of the G@mebox, I now have established the G@mebox Star as a mark for games which I consider as being outstanding as far as playability and design is concerned. Overall, a game which receives the G@mebox Star will be a game which I consider to be highly corresponding with the criteria which I have established for reviewing games.

The International Gamers Awards was created to recognize outstanding games and designers, as well as the companies that publish them. The awards are truly international in scope, with committee members representing countries throughout the world. The goal of the IGA is to select games that are truly the 'best of the best', helping lead to greater exposure for these wonderful games and help spread the word of the "wonderful world of gaming" on a global scale.

Although the IGA-jury is still small (about 15 people), all the jury members (which were especially selected and invited) stand for substantial knowledge in the field of boardgames.

  • 2009 (multiplayer): Le Havre by Uwe Rosenberg
  • 2009 (2 player): Day & Night by Valentijn Eekels
  • 2008 (multiplayer): "Agricola" by Uwe Rosenberg
  • 2008 (2 player): 1960 - The Making of the President by Christian Leonhard & Jason Matthews
  • 2007 (multiplayer): "Through the Ages" by Vladimir Chvatil
  • 2007 (2 player): "Mr. Jack" by Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc
  • 2006 (multiplayer): "Caylus" by William Attia
  • 2006 (2 player): Twilight Struggle by Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta
  • 2005 (multiplayer): "Zug um Zug Europa" by Michael Tummelhofer
  • 2005 (2 player): "Der Ringkrieg" by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi & Francesco Nepitello
  • 2004 (multiplayer): "Sankt Petersburg" by Michael Tummelhofer
  • 2004 (2 player): "Memoir `44" by Richard Borg
  • 2003 (multiplayer): "Age of Steam" by Martin Wallace
  • 2003 (2 players): "Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation" by Reiner Knizia
  • 2002: "Puerto Rico" by Andreas Seyfarth

The Deutscher Spiele Preis is awarded yearly in October , at the evening before the SPIEL games convention takes place at Essen / Germany.

Actually, the awards is not restricted to state borders, but instead it unites different initiatives of the games-sector which were established since the end of the 1970's in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Actually, the awards unites a broad international knowledge from different areas connected with gaming.

  • Thousands of gamers will be asked through polls.
  • Readers of the magazine Fairplay are asked to vote.
  • Chosen journalists are allowed to vote.
  • Over 300 playing groups from Germany, Austria and Switzerland hand in their top-lists.
  • Some chosen game stores hand in their top lists.
  • Since 2001 voting is possible via the internet.

The independend evaluation of the votes is done by a specialized institute. Here, a top-ten ranking is established from the different votes outlined above.

The Spiel des Jahres awards actually is the oldest of the german games awards. Each year, a jury of competent people reviews the newly released games and honors the game which they consider to be most outstanding.

Perhaps a word should be said here on the fairness upon which the awards is distributed. When seeing the list of games and thinking about their publishers, it is a bit odd that the Spiel des Jahres was distributed rather fairly among different publishers over the years. You may guess whatever you want from this fact, but for me it seems a bit as if the awards is also used as a sales promotion for the whole publishing sector, and thus it is distributed fairly to let everbody have a piece of pie...


Looking for the winners? Visit Funagain Games!


[Gamebox Index]
Kulkmann@aol.com

Copyright © 2003 Frank Schulte-Kulkmann, Trier, Germany