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So tell me, are you feeling a little pushed and pulled by the stresses of daily life? Just another hamster racing on your own giant exercise wheel, as it careens madly, but pointlessly, in space? Well, what you need is a little empowerment, my friend. A chance to speak your mind, to make your opinions felt, to make them *count* for something. Something important. Something that will outlive us all. Something like, oh, I don’t know…the 2017 Meeples Choice Awards!
Hi, this is Larry Levy and I see by the clock on the wall that it’s time to start the process for the Spielfrieks user group to select our three favorite games of the last calendar year. We call it the Meeples Choice Awards and we’ve been doing it for close to 20 years. And doing a damn fine job of it, if I do say so myself. Check out the winners for the last five years if you don’t believe me:
2016: Terraforming Mars; Great Western Trail; Yokohama
2015: Codenames; Food Chain Magnate; The Voyages of Marco Polo
2014: Roll for the Galaxy; Castles of Mad King Ludwig; Splendor
2013: Russian Railroads; Bora Bora; Concordia
2012: Terra Mystica; Tzolk'in; Keyflower
If you want to check out all of the winners, here's a link to the Meeples Choice page on the BGG Wiki: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Meeples_Choice#.
So let’s get to brass tacks, whatever the hell that means. Everyone on the Spielfrieks user group is eligible to vote in this election. If you know of someone who isn’t a member who’d like to participate, no problem. Just have them send an email to spielfrieks-owner AT yahoogroups DOT com and the powers that be at that address will get them enrolled in the ranks in no time.
In order to come up with our three winning games, we employ a three-stage process. First, we’ll decide which games will be part of our initial election. The goal is to make sure every member can vote for all their favorites, so this list usually winds up with close to 200 games. Then, we’ll conduct that election, with every voter choosing their 10 favorite games. This will give us our list of nominated games, which will consist of the 25 games (plus ties) that receive the most votes from the first election. Finally, we’ll vote one more time, with everyone picking their three favorites from the nominated games. The three games that get the most votes from that second election will be declared the winners of the Meeples Choice Awards!
So our current task is to come up with that initial list. What games, I hear you say, are eligible? Basically anything that was first released during 2017. RPGs and video games aren’t included, of course, but board games, card games, dexterity games, co-ops, wargames, party games...pretty much any game that debuted last year and which is listed on Boardgame Geek can be voted for. Pure expansions aren’t eligible, but standalone expansions are. The games have to be published ones, so Print ‘n’ Play or web-published games are excluded.
Because gaming has truly become an international hobby, we’ve recently expanded our eligibility rules. If a game first appeared earlier than 2017 in a form that limited its exposure (for example, a print and play game, a limited print run, or a non-English language release), but a more accessible version was published last year, it can be voted for. The only restriction is that no games nominated for the second round of voting in an earlier year can be voted on this year. But the initial list of games currently only includes 2017 designs, so if you can think of any titles that fit into what I’ve described above, please mention them, so that we can get them on the ballot.
To ensure that no foreign powers will be influencing *these* elections (I’ve been told that Yahoo Groups is very big in Mother Russia), we will once again be using our exclusively designed app, created by our very own Wei-Hwa Huang. Wei-Hwa’s generous contribution is feature-licious and folks really seem to enjoy using it. I’ll discuss how to use the application once we’ve settled on the games for our first election, but it’s very intuitive, so I don’t expect any AP from these rules.
So the next few days will be devoted to coming up with that first list of games. I went to the Geek and came up with a group of 190 leading games from last year. That sounds like a lot, but I’m sure there are some titles that I’ve missed, so I need your help. The games are listed at the end of this note. Please go through them and post any additional titles from 2017 that have a good chance of making your top 10 from the year. You should also include any designs that debuted before last year, but which you think haven’t been truly accessible until 2017. List your reasons for why you feel that game should be included this year and I’ll make the judgement call on each of them. But I’ll try to be accommodating, since the goal is to let everyone vote for their top 10 games of the year during the first election. Either post your suggestions here or, for folks who don’t have access to the user group, send them to me at huzonfirst AT gmail DOT com. I’d also appreciate it if you could point out any of the games I listed that you don’t think should be eligible this year, and why.
So those are our marching orders. On Friday, I’ll add your suggestions and provide the list of games for our first round of voting. I’ll also give the procedure for using our voting app. If you want the current list in a form you can manipulate, check out the spreadsheet I’ve uploaded. For each game, I’ve listed its Game Rank on the Geek, together with its Average Rating and Number of Ratings (based on what was showing a couple of weeks ago, when I gathered the stats from the Geek). There are two tabs, one sorted by Game Rank, and one in alphabetical order of the games. If you don’t want to be bothered with that, I’ll list the games in alphabetical order at the end of this note.
It's that most wonderful time of the year, everybody—the Meeples Choice Awards voting! I hope a whole bunch of you participate. Thanks in advance and I look forward to your suggestions over the next few days.
1754: Conquest
1868
5-Minute Dungeon
878: Vikings
A Column of Fire
A Game of Thrones: Catan
A Handful of Stars
Aeon's End: War Eternal
Agra
Alicematic Heroes
Alien Artifacts
Altiplano
Amun-Re: The Card Game
Anachrony
Arcadia Quest: Inferno
Azul
Bärenpark
Battle for Rokugan
Betrayal at Baldur's Gate
Biosphere
Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game
Bunny Kingdom
Calimala
Can't Stop Express
Carthago: Merchants & Guild
Cat Lady
Caverna: Cave vs Cave
Century: Golem Edition
Century: Spice Road
Charterstone
Chimera Station
Clank! In! Space!
Clans of Caledonia
Codenames Duet
Colonial Twilight
Commands & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution
Custom Heroes
Cytosis
Dark Souls
Deadball
Deckscape: Test Time
Dice Forge
Dinosaur Island
Downforce
Dragon Castle
Dragonfire
Element
Ethnos
Ex Libris
Exit: The Game – Dead Man on the Orient Express
Exit: The Game – The Forbidden Castle
Exit: The Game – The Forgotten Island
Exit: The Game – The Polar Station
Fallout
Fantasy Realms
Fast Forward: FEAR
Fast Forward: FLEE
Fast Forward: FORTRESS
Fate of the Elder Gods
First Martians
Flatline
Flip Ships
Fog of Love
Fugitive
Gaia Project
Gentes
Gloom of Kilforth
Gloomhaven
Heaven & Ale
Herbaceous
High Frontier (3rd edition)
Holland '44: Operation Market-Garden
Iberian Gauge
Iberian Railways
Illimat
Immortals
Indian Summer
Indulgence
Istanbul: The Dice Game
John Company
Jump Drive
Karuba: The Card Game
Keyper
Kingsburg (Second Edition)
Kitchen Rush
Legacy of Dragonholt
Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game
Lisboa
London (second edition)
Lords of Hellas
Lovecraft Letter
LYNGK
Magic Maze
Majesty: For the Realm
Masmorra
Massive Darkness
Meeple Circus
Memoarrr!
Merlin
Mini Rails
Mint Works
Monopoly Gamer
Montana
Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Near and Far
Nemo's War (second edition)
New York Slice
NMBR 9
Noria
Nusfjord
Okanagan
One Deck Dungeon: Forest of Shadows
One Night Ultimate Alien
Otys
Outlive
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2
Pandemic: Rising Tide
Photosynthesis
Pioneer Days
Pioneers
Pixie Queen
Plague Inc.
Planetarium
Pulsar 2849
Q.E.
Queendomino
Quests of Valeria
Rajas of the Ganges
Reworld
Rhino Hero: Super Battle
Riverboat
Rum & Bones: Second Tide
Sagrada
Santa Maria
Sentient
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures
Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn
Sidereal Confluence
Sol: Last Days of a Star
Spirit Island
Spyfall 2
Stop Thief!
Storm Hollow
Sub Terra
Sword & Sorcery
Tak
Tao Long: The Way of the Drago
That's a Question!
The 7th Continent
The Castles of Burgundy: The Dice Game
The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
The Expanse Board Game
The Fox in the Forest
The Game: Face to Face
The Godfather: Corleone's Empire
The Lost Expedition
The Palace of Mad King Ludwig
The Quest for El Dorado
The Ruhr
This War of Mine
Ticket to Ride: Germany
Time of Crisis
Tiny Epic Quest
Too Many Bones
Tortuga 1667
Transatlantic
Twenty One
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition
Tybor der Baumeister
Unearth
Unfair
Unlock! Squeek & Sausage
Unlock! The Formula
Unlock! The House on the Hill
Unlock! The Island of Doctor Goorse
Valletta
Vikings Gone Wild
Villages of Valeria
Viral
Voodoo Prince
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire
Wasteland Express Delivery Service
Welcome to Centerville
Wendake
Werewords
Whistle Stop
Whitehall Mystery
Wordsy
XenoShyft: Dreadmire
Yamatai