The American Tabletop Awards (founded last year) announced its second round of winners, for games released in 2019. Each category has a Winner, two Recommended titles, and two Nominated titles, based on nominations and votes (and a lot of discussion) from the committee.
Since the American Tabletop Award was just started last year, we weren’t able to choose and announce our winners until October 2019, but then we got started right away looking at titles for this year’s awards, so that we could get the announcement out a little earlier.
A few of these titles are ones that we’ve reviewed on GeekDad, but a lot were new to me or have reviews still in the works. I’ve linked to the games that we’ve reviewed before.
American Tabletop Award Results!
Early Gamers Winner: Draftosaurus
The Winner in the Early Gamers category is Draftosaurus, a dinosaur-drafting game from Ankama Games where you pull adorable dinosaur meeples from a bag and arrange them in your dinosaur zoo. The Recommended titles are Snowman Dice and My First Castle Panic. The Nominated titles are The Aquicorn Cove Board Game and L.L.A.M.A.
Casual Gamers Winner: ShipShape
The Casual Games Winner is ShipShape, one of the titles in Calliope’s Titan series; it’s a fun puzzle game where you’re stacking crates in your ship’s hold, trying to get the most gold without getting your contraband seized. The Recommended titles are Point Salad and Wavelength. The Nominated titles are Miyabi and Silver & Gold.
Strategy Games Winner: Wingspan
The Winner of the Strategy Games category is Wingspan, a lovely card game by Elizabeth Hargrave that also won the Kennerspiel des Jahres. The Recommended titles are Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated and Ecos: First Continent. The Nominated titles are SHŌBU and Hadara.
Complex Games Winner: The Taverns of Tiefenthal
The Complex Games Winner is The Taverns of Tiefenthal by Wolfgang Warsch (designer of GeekDad Game of the Year The Quacks of Quedlinburg), which combines deck-building and press-your-luck in a game about building the best tavern in town. The Recommended titles are Barrage and Pax Pamir. The Nominated titles are Pipeline and Cthulhu: Death May Die.
You can read more about the awards and the winners on the American Tabletop Awards website!
Images provided by Bebo for the American Tabletop Awards.
Thanks for this list! We really like Wingspan but haven’t tried out The Taverns of Tiefenthal yet. Have you played it yet?
I’ve played it a couple of times, and have enjoyed it so far, but I need to get a few more plays in before I’m ready to write it up. It’s a significant step up in complexity from Quacks of Quedlinburg, which I hadn’t expected at first, but it also introduces the rules gradually using separate modules that you add each time you play, which is helpful.