Spiel des Tom? Deutscher Spiele Tom? The best I could come up with was "Games of the Years" but I suppose it's the most descriptive and clear of the bunch. With the relatively recent announcement of the International Gamers Award (Through the Ages and Mr. Jack), Deutscher Spiele Preis (Pillars of the Earth), and Games Magazine Game of the Year (Pillars of the Earth), I decided it was high time for me to go through the arduous task of picking my favorite game from every year... stretching all the way back 131 years to good ol' 1876. You'll be surprised to know that somehow I wasn't able to come up with a Best in Show for every year, so I ended skipping a couple years. Thus, I present you with 18 Games of the Years. Please note that the the years are based on the years in BGG database, so for example, El Grande and Settlers both fall under 1995, despite the former winning the SDJ in 1996, and Age of Steam falls under 2002 despite winning the 2003 IGA.
You'll notice that these 18 games differ a fair bit from my Top 20. In fact, 8 of the Top 20 games were bumped because they were released in competitive years. The Top 20 games that failed to make the cut by a quirk of fate due to their release date include: Goa, Caylus, Carcassonne, Louis XIV, Reef Encounter, Settlers of Catan, Princes of Florence, and Wallenstein.
Unsurprisingly, the winning designer is Reiner Knizia with 3 Games of the Years (in contrast to his zero SDJ's of course), and Wolfgang Kramer comes in second place netting himself 2 Games of the Years (with my two favorite games - El Grande and Java). Interestingly, Rudiger Dorn failed to capture a single Game of the Year, but nonetheless had an impressive showing with 4 second-place finishes with Arkadia, Louis XIV, Goa, and Traders of Genoa. An impressive crop of games that got barely edged out in 4 different years.
The rest of the designers all show up once (in alphabetical order): Ralf Burkert, Allan Calhamer, Stefan Dorra, Bill Eberle, Stefan Feld, Richard Garfield, Mac Gerdts, Claudia Hely, Michael Kiesling, Jack Kittredge, Alan Moon, Peter Olotka, Roman Pelek, Sid Sackson, Karl-Heinz Schmiel, Richard Ulrich, and Martin Wallace.
To see how my picks compare to the SDJ, DSP, IGA, Mensa, and Games Magazine award-winners check out this chart:
http://www.columbia.edu/~tir2101/nycgamer-article-Links.html...So what do you think? Where did I go right? Where did I go wrong? What are you surprised to see? What did I overlook?
Has a 3rd game been mentioned or is this a hopeful statement?
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/25889/item/524264#item...
Some very fertile possibilities in the CDG environment.
In fact, I'd go so far to say that with something as strong as Notre Dame "languishing" (no flames, please - it IS intended slightly tongue in cheek) in the bottom of the top 50, that I really can't imagine another Euro pipping PR at the number one spot.
ie. if ND can't do it, it's going to take something completely new and different to knock PR off the #1 spot.
It scales well because there's almost no player interaction (except for the area majority in the middle of the board and the dispute for those car-hexes). I find it too dry... first game in my collection that I've sold away (I'm new to the hobby, though).
Has a 3rd game been mentioned or is this a hopeful statement?
I think/hope that it's inevitable that Matthews make a third game in the series, given how successful the first two have been... let's hope
In fact, I'd go so far to say that with something as strong as Notre Dame "lanuishing" (no flames, please - it IS intended slightly tongue in cheek) in the bottom of the top 50, that I really can't imagine another Euro pipping PR at the number one spot.
ie. if ND can't do it, it's going to take something completely new and different to knock PR off the #1 spot.
I'm also surprised that Notre Dame never made it to the Top 20, but I guess it just keeps getting harder and harder as those top spots get more and more crowded. You're probably right that PR is here for the foreseeable future, and the new slightly derivative games like Notre Dame and Cuba won't be able to rival it, especially given the sheer number of ratings that PR has. Ah well, no matter, I can still enjoy Notre Dame plenty