Award-Winning Board Games

Each year some of the most prestigious gaming organizations in the world hand out their annual awards, honoring the best board games of the year, in categories such as abstract games, strategy games, war games, family games, party games, word games, and many more. The following are the awards we list here at Board Game Central. Click thru for the complete game lists, as well as archives of previous years winners.

Each year since 1980, GAMES Magazine has published a Buyer's Guide to Games in their year-end holiday issue. The article lists and reviews one hundred games each year, and is therefore known as the "Games 100". The list features the very best games published in the last year.

The International Gamers Awards were created to recognize outstanding games and designers, as well as the companies that publish them. The awards are truly international in scope, with committee members representing countries throughout the world. The goal of the IGAs is to truly select the 'best of the best' in two categories: General Strategy Games and Historical Simulation Games. The hope is that this will lead to greater exposure for these wonderful games to more and more people and help spread the word of the "wonderful world of gaming" on a global scale.

Each year, the Mensa Mind Games event is held somewhere in the United States. Mensa members are invited to play and judge the games which have been submitted to compete for the award. The five most popular games based on originality, game play, aesthetics, play value, and clarity of instructions receive the distinction, an award coveted among game manufacturers, and a symbol of quality for game players around the world.

The German Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) is perhaps the world's most prestigious game award. Founded in 1978 by a group of German game critics to promote awareness and to increase the cultural value of games, the award recognizes outstanding games based on originality, playability, and educational value of the game idea; organization, clarity and understandability of rules; packing and layout of the gameboard and the game rules; and functionality and overall quality of the game materials included.