2008_the_dice_tower_awardsThe premier board game podcast, The Dice Tower, has posted its nomination list 2008 awards. Aside from “best game” they tried to pick a few awards that aren’t the usual, which is nice. Update: edited.

  • Best Game: Agricola, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Pandemic, Stone Age
    [Good luck choosing best game out of these, fellas. There comes a point where one game is not better than another, just more suitable for different places, people, and times.]
  • Best Small Publisher Game: Galactic Emperor, Snow Tails, 2 de Mayo, Pizza Box Baseball, Tinner’s Trail
    [I heard good things about Tinner’s Trail, and little about the others.]
  • Best New Designer: Antoine Bauza for Ghost Stories, Marco Bing for Timber Tom, Donald Vaccarino for Dominion, Uwe Eickert for Conflict of Heroes, Daniel Val for 2 de Mayo
    [I think Dominion is probably the essence of excellent game design, but I don’t know the others.]
  • Best Reprint: Formula D, Chinatown, Chicago Express, Cosmic Encounter, Talisman
    [Heard many good things about Cosmic Encounter, and Tom has a soft spot for it.]
  • Most Innovative: Android, Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Snow Tails, Space Alert
    [Not sure how innovative the others are; I expect Dominion will likely inspire other games with similar mechanics.]
  • Best Expansion: Descent: Road to Legend, Last Night on Earth: Growing Hunger, Memoir ’44: Mediterranean, Shadows Over Camelot: Merlin’s Company, Time’s Up: Title Recall
    [Heard good things about Descent and Memoir expansions.]
  • Best Artwork [Update: TDT has now added names for this award]: Kevin Childress, Andrew Navaro, Brian Schomberg, and WiL Springer for graphic design, and artwork from NBC Studios for Battlestar Galactica, Stephanie Painscot, Nicolas Caniaux, and Arnaud Simon-Laforet for Formula D, Pierre Lechevalier for Ghost Stories, Michael Menzel for Stone Age, Josh Cappel for Wasabi
    [People compliment the new Formula D art, but I didn’t think it was that fantastic; Stone Age’s artwork is incredible. Unfortunately, they covered only popular hobby games. That’s a huge problem for the authority of this award. There are probably a lot of fantastically illustrated or designed games that are not really any fun, but could rightfully win an award with this title.]
  • Best Family Game: Formula D, Pandemic, Say Anything, Sorry Sliders, Stone Age
    [Formula D and Stone Age are not really family games just because they have dice; Sorry Sliders is accessible, but it’s just shuffleboard; I think Pandemic has hit an incredible market outside the normal game market, and should win.]