Dice Tower Awards 2014! Wait… 2015? No? What!?

That is, awarded in 2015 for games released in 2014. Phew… The Dice Tower is the legendary board game review, news and commentary site from Tom Vasel. They have a ‘con’ each year in June when their awards are announced. As is customary, the winners are chosen by dropping all the nominees into a giant dice tower and seeing which reaches the bottom first.

 

 

Best Game of the Year
Dead of Winter

Oh God! They’re coming through the barricades! Shoot them! Shoot them!!!

Oh phew its just you. Sorry I didn’t know there was anyone else alive out there. We’ve been barricaded in here since winter, desperately fighting off hordes of the undead and trying not to be betrayed by the very people we trust. We kicked Chris out first day, obviously! Just move that trash to one side and take a seat. It’s time to play Dead of Winter.

Your team of friends will be leading a group of survivors from the colony. You’ll have a group objective to complete, numerous “crossroad” events to handle, as well as personal secret objectives ranging from a minor obsession with medicine, to wanting to watch the colony burn. Any, none or all players can win a game and you’ll never know for sure who’s working for the good of the colony… and who’s not.

What happened to the other nominees you ask? Oh, Dead of Winter ate them.

 

Nominees: Alchemists, Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs X-Men, Five Tribes, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Imperial Settlers, Kanban: Automotive Revolution, Splendor, Star Realms, Xia: Legends of a Drift System

 

Best Coop Game
Dead of Winter

They must have followed you! Here’s the shotgun, aim for the head! I’ll try and patch up the barricade. Dead of Winter has also won the best coop game. Appropriate, given it’s the best game. Plenty of coops have a betrayer mechanic, but DoW gives each player a personal objective that requires them to play sub-optimally to achieve, meaning no one can ever be completely sure who to trust. Giving everyone multiple survivors rather than just one role is also a nice way of ensuring the game can feature plenty of death, without too great a risk of complete player elimination. Ok I think we’re safe. Thank goodness we brought all these boards with us!

 

Nominees: Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game, Pandemic: The Cure, Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients, Witness

 

Best Board Game Components
Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Speaking of boards, the award for best components this year goes to Star Wars: Imperial assault. Not surprising this one! A pile of beautiful miniatures (have you seen that AT-ST!?), luscious cardboard room tiles, a plethora of tokens and playing cards that allow tons of variety straight out of the box. But then this is a Fantasy Flight game, a company famous for its excellent components. And would you believe it? This is the 4^th year in a row one of their games has won this award.

 

Nominees: Arcadia Quest, Colt Express, Splendor, Xia: Legends of a Drift System

 

Best Family Game
Splendor

A jewel for all the family (Geddit!!?? It’s all about jewels! …?) Splendor is a beautifully simple and clever card game. Just trade in the right set of gems to buy cards from the tableau in the centre of the game. 1^st tier cards reduce the cost of higher tier cards that offer victory points. The issue is, when do you shift gears and start buying from those higher tiers? A lovely theme anyone can enjoy and simple rules to understand make for a great game for everyone.

 

Nominees: Camel Up, Diamonds, King of New York, Spyfall

 

Best Game Artwork
Abyss

*Gasp* just look at that face… That is actually the box cover of Abyss: no logos, no borders, not even the game’s name. Yet it immediately transports you into the world its trying to create. You’ll be taking a dip below the waves to battle for the throne of the Abyss in a game of card collection and cany use of game changing abilities. But that incredible artwork will be with you throughout the entire game. As is clear from that box, they kept the artwork front and centre of this game, grabbing your attention and holding it tight.

 

Nominees: Alchemists, The Battle of Five Armies, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Imperial Settlers

 

Best Game Expansion
Tuscany: Expand the World of Viticulture

Most expansions add two or three new elements that change parts of a game. Sometimes they can result in huge shifts in play style, some just add more options. Tuscany adds 10 modular expansions in one go, as well as a 1 player variant. That’s incredible. Typically publishers would break such a collection up into multiple expansions spread across a number of years. Instead, Stonemaier Games put it all into one box, and did something incredibly clever. Players are advised to “uncork” one expansion at a time, with the resulting game winner picking the next one to open. This adds a fantastic legacy style experience and just fits the wine-making feel of the game perfectly.

 

Nominees: 7 Wonders Babel, Cyclades: Titans, Mice and Mystics: Downwood Tales, Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice

 

Best Game Reprint
Ticket to Ride: 10^th Anniversary

Ticket to Ride is one of the “Big 3” games that brought many modern gamers into the hobby (along with Settlers of Catan and Carcassone). This 10^th Anniversary edition is a luxurious box of components, with a huge and even more beautiful map and individually sculpted train cars stored in specially made tins. The game includes all the contents of the Ticket To Ride: 1910 expansion as well as some of the destination tickets from the Mystery Train expansion. A truly impressive bundle for a classic game!

 

Nominees: Ca$h ‘n Guns 2^nd edition, Doomtown: Reloaded, Medina 2^nd Edition, San Juan 2^nd Edition

 

Best Game Theming
Dead of Winter

You need to see the picture again? Ok fine…

Like the horde of shambling undead the game portrays, Dead of Winter is overwhelming the awards, taking the best game theming! Batten down the hatches and wrap up well before you open the box and unleash the forces of death… and winter.

 

Nominees: Alchemists, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

 

Best New Designer
Matúš Kotry

Matúš Kotry is the Slovakian designer of the very original Alchemists, and is looking slightly bruised from his trip through the tower. The game is a fascinating puzzle, with clever use of a mobile phone app to make the puzzle different every time you play and probably the biggest, most elaborate, player screens I’ve every seen. It is also the most hilarious satire on academia I’ve come across!

 

Nominees: Marc André (Splendor), Yann et Clem (Heroes of Normandie), Tim Fowers (Paperback), Cody Miller (Xia: Legends of a Drift System)

 

Best Party Game
Spyfall

On of the most anticipated games of the last year, Spyfall takes the brilliant ideas of hidden role games like The Resistance and Two Rooms and a Boom and adds a magnificent farcical layer to them. Everyone takes it in turns to ask a question of a player about the location they are in. The players win if they can identify which of them is the spy, whereas the spy doesn’t know what the location is, and is trying to figure it out from the other player’s questions.

 

Nominee:Ca$h ‘n Guns 2^nd edition, Good Cop Bad Cop, Strike a pose, Clusterfight

 

Best Small Publisher
Star Realms

Star Realms is becoming an immensely popular game, winning the fan favourite award at Origins this year, and the Best 2 Player Game award (below). There’s a whole pile of small expansions out already (all so dangerously affordable and easy to collect!). Plus they’ve just released their new game, Epic Card Game, on Kickstarter.

 

Nominees: Medieval Academy, Paperback, Run Fight or Die!, Xia: Legends of a Drift System

 

Best Strategy Game
Five Tribes

2014’s uniquely interesting worker dis-placement game features a plethora of meeples, including cameeples, and turn markers that look surprisingly erotic. Five Tribes is a stunning game full of options, beautifully illustrated Djinn cards and different paths to victory. Just don’t mention the slave cards… damnit!

 

Nominees: Imperial Settlers, Kanban: Automotive Revolution, Panamax, Xia: Legends of a Drift System

 

Best 2 Player Game
Star Realms

Space battles! Explosions! In a 2 player (or more with 2+ base sets) deck building game that is all action right from the off. Typical deck builders take a little while to get going, rewarding careful development and building up to powerful final turns. Star Realms has that build up but crammed into half the playing time!

 

Nominees: The Battle of Five Armies, Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs X-Men, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Warhammer 40,00: Conquest

 

Most Innovative Game
Tragedy Looper

Tragedy Looper is a fascinating game of deduction with a time travel twist. One player will be the mastermind, attempting to cause some tragedy that the other players must prevent, without knowing what that tragedy is. When it occurs, however, the players loop back to the start of the game to replay and try and prevent its happening again. Released in Japan in 2011, it received a western release last year.

 

Nominees: Alchemists, Dead of Winter, Golem Arcana, Spyfall

 

 

So there we have it! What a collection of worthy games. Do you agree with the choices? How many have you played/bought? And are any of these next on your list!