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First Place - Fox Five by Jeff Grisenthwaite
Fox Five is a party / trivia game in which you team up to put top 5 lists in order. It's everyone vs. the question reader, who concocts a fake answer (The Fox) to hide among the 5 real ones. Can your group catch The Fox and correctly order the 5 real answers? 2-10 players, ages 10+, can play Fox Five in 30 minutes.
Jeff lives with his lovely wife, two boys and two cats in the suburbs of Chicago. He’s been dabbling in game design as a hobby his whole life, but got serious about it in the last year or so, winning The Board Game Workshop's 2022 Medium category with Medieval Hustle, earning a Finalist spot with Cardboard Edison with Positano, and signing his first game with a publisher. Jeff hosts weekly virtual playtesting on Monday nights with Break My Game.
Second Place - Picture Postcards by Matt Golec and Arun Mehra
In Picture Postcards, you play as a group of travelers who sent postcards that fell apart on their way through the mail. Now, you must work together to match postcard locations with their messages by ‘writing’ and sorting clues. Picture Postcard is a two-round cooperative game, and while there’s no way to lose, players can improve their score by keeping wrong guesses out of the Dead Letter Office.
Matt Golec and Arun Mehra live in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. Arun is a foodie who works in international computing, while Matt writes, teaches, and is co-designer of the board game Penny Press.
Third Place - Cumulus by Jeff Grisenthwaite
Cumulus is a family strategy game in which you're competing to be the best cloud by raining just the right amounts where it's needed. But be careful not to flood, and never rain on the parade! To succeed, you'll need to try to predict how the other clouds will influence the weather. Cumulus features 3D rain gauges that you fill with glass droplets. 2-5 players, ages 8+, can play in 30 minutes.
Jeff lives with his lovely wife, two boys and two cats in the suburbs of Chicago. He’s been dabbling in game design as a hobby his whole life, but got serious about it in the last year or so, winning The Board Game Workshop's 2022 Medium category with Medieval Hustle, earning a Finalist spot with Cardboard Edison with Positano, and signing his first game with a publisher. Jeff hosts weekly virtual playtesting on Monday nights with Break My Game.
Medium
First Place - Feed the World Eater by Dean Mo
Feed the World Eater is a light-medium weight card game for 2-8 players ages 10+ that plays in 30-45 mins. Bid for new cards to build your team's deck, then destroy that deck to win... but nobody knows exactly what others have bid. The game can be setup and taught in 5 minutes, but was designed to have crunchy decisions through actions that have potentially conflicting consequences - your decisions have direct implications for everyone else so finding that perfect balance is key to victory!
Dean lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, two cats, and a son on the way. Games of all kinds have been a part of his life since childhood, from humble creations of rocks and imagination to the luxury of tabletop and video games. Once an aspiring novelist, Dean now works in tech consulting and (re)started board game design as a creative outlet in 2022. He is fascinated by the way physical games create interactive experiences that bring people together in a different way to other forms of games. You can connect with Dean about any of his game designs, feedback, or for help with your own goals at the Bored Games Lab Discord: https://discord.gg/Xnmn9cE4
Second Place - Queen Bees by Jay Bendixen
You’re a bee part of the hive trying to make it big. Every season you are picking the flowers you want to visit and when the time comes, you need to decide if you are going to be a worker bee and gather more honey for a small payment or are you going to be a queen bee and sell that flavour honey for a price – it’s simple beeconomics!
Jay is an Australian based advertising writer & director, who enjoys the endless puzzle of creating games that offer thematic and fun experiences which are simple to learn. Queen Bees is Jay’s second design to have the honour of being pitched in the finals of this competition - with his first design ‘Surf’s Up!’ (previously called Stoked) now due for retail release in 2024. You will be able to find more of his upcoming game designs at www.littlebriefcase.com
Third Place - Tricky Treats by Pedro Ometto
Tricky Treats is a game for 2 to 4 players in which you represent a group of kids trick-or-treating in a neighbourhood. Layer transparent cards to create the best costumes for your group and visit the houses that will give you the best sweets! Find the right houses to trick and your victory will be even sweeter!
Pedro Ometto is an Opera singer by trade, and he spends most of his free time designing games. In other words, he’s constantly using his creativity to find new ways to earn very little money. Born in Brazil, Pedro currently lives with his wife Emily in Leipzig, Germany. He claims that the reason he wanted to move to Germany was the Classical Music scene, but Emily argues that it was the board game industry. She’s wrong though.
Heavy
First Place - Deal! by Chaz Littlejohn & Chris Georgen
In Deal!, you are a politician leading one of six Senate factions in a world inspired by the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. To succeed, you must balance your faction’s legislative goals with the constraints of public approval, the priorities of donors, the ups and downs of the economy and the plots and schemes of your esteemed colleagues. Can you use your charm and political savvy to forge a winning coalition and pass your legislative agenda, or will you be thwarted by political gridlock? The choices are yours to make in Deal!.
Deal! was created by Chaz and Chris, two friends who have been playing tabletop games together since middle school. One day, Chris came to Chaz with the idea for a game about legislative gridlock and Chaz was intrigued by the challenge. The two kicked around concepts for the game for another seven years before tabling their first prototype in 2021. Chaz works as a software developer in Washington, DC and Chris is UX designer based out of Milwaukee, WI.
Second Place - Lunar Venture by Andrew Beynon
Lunar Venture is an economic, tile placement, blind bidding, pickup and deliver game for 2-5 players that takes 90-120 minutes to play. This near future science fiction game will take you to the darkest craters at the poles of the Moon to extract the ice that exists there. Water is such a valuable resource for space exploration because if split into its constituent parts, Oxygen and Hydrogen, it can be sold as rocket fuel. So spend as little money as possible to go earlier in turn order while acquiring the most fuel and selling at the best price to under cut your competitors, ensuring you make the most money.
Andrew is a veteran games programmer, living in the UK with his wife and two kids. When he's not introducing and then fixing his own crash bugs or playing or designing board games, he's knee deep in mud at the allotment trying to grow vegetables. If anyone wants a pumpkin please contact him, he has far too many. Andrew can be reached at whosgoisitanyway@gmail.com.
Third Place - Stewards of the Land by Ron Unger
Stewards of the Land is a 60-90 minute board game in which 2-4 players or teams, ages 12 and up, learn to strike a balance among different land uses while also providing corridors for wildlife connectivity. The year is 2050 and several regions of the world have become too dry, too salty, or too altered to live in. You and your fellow players have been invited to determine a successful plan to revitalize the land in your region. Can you cooperate and compete at the same time to win the game? Be careful what you choose — fate may intervene in unexpected ways!
Ron Unger is a restoration ecologist and land conservation planner with a lifelong interest in playing board games. Ron has a bachelors degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Potsdam and a masters degree in ecology from the University of California at Davis. Ron served with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Landscape Conservation Planning Program, California Department of Water Resources, The Nature Conservancy National Stewardship Team, regional and international environmental consulting firms, and in a variety of other jobs from laborer to business owner and vocational teacher. He is currently volunteering extensively in the community, mentoring, trekking, writing a children’s book, and developing Stewards of the Land, a strategic land-use planning board game. Ron likes to help individuals and communities thrive and he hopes to help foster a balanced environmental stewardship ethic in our society. He is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-unger-ecologist.