BoardGameGeek has announced the 2022 Golden Geek board game award winners, with titles like Heat: Pedal to the Metal and Cat in the Box taking multiple categories. The tabletop gaming forum shared the results via its website on May 8.
The Golden Geek Awards is a community-led awards scheme that aims to highlight the best board games of a given year. Members signed up to BoardGameGeek can vote to nominate a game or select it to win an award. The Golden Geeks will reportedly be awarded at BGG’s Dallas convention, BGG.Con, which is currently set to take place in November.
This year’s Golden Geek Awards had 15 categories. Here are the winners for each Golden Geek Award:
- Best two-player board game – Splendor Duel
- Best artwork / presentation – Flamecraft
- Best coop board game – Return to Dark Tower
- Best expansion – Dune Imperium: Rise of Ix
- Most innovative game – Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
- Light game of the year – Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
- Medium game of the year – Heat: Pedal to the Metal
- Heavy game of the year – Carnegie
- Best party board game – Ready Set Bet
- Best print-and-play – Aquamarine
- Best solo board game – Turing Machine
- Best thematic game – Heat: Pedal to the Metal
- Best wargame – Undaunted: Stalingrad
- Best podcast – This Game is Broken
- Best board game app – Everdell
While many of the winners also appeared as runner-ups in other categories, there are some board games that came close but never clinched the prize. After receiving more nominations than any other game, Blood on the Clocktower received a runner-up accolation for best party game, along with Long Shot: The Dice Game.
Wingspan Asia lost the two-player game crown, and Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood was a runner-up in the cooperative game category. ISS Vanguard, which also received multiple cross-category nominations, was the second co-op runner-up.
BoardGameGeek is generally a pretty reliable place to find the best board games. The overall rankings for individual games are also community led and are closely followed. The biggest shift in rankings of late was the moment Brass Birmingham stole BGG’s number one spot from Gloomhaven, a game that had topped the forum for five years.
You can see the full list of winners and runner-ups on the BoardGameGeek website.