Welcome to 2024! It is that time of the year again - a time for awards and accolades. In the past I have presented one award - the Game of the Year - and I will award this again this year, but will also be adding in a few others. I will be considering two publishing years of games but all of the rankings that determine the winners happened in 2023:

  • Game of the Year Awards - Games published in 2022 and ranked in 2023 are considered for this award. This allows the hotness bump to shrink some and, mainly, to allow for all games in a given year to have the same amount of time to be ranked.
  • Hotness Awards - Games published in 2023 and ranked in 2023 are considered for this award. Knowing what games are hot (the ones people are really excited about) is also deserving of an award. These games will still have a chance to win the Game of the Year the following year.

Each of these categories will have 3 recipients: Most Popular, New Edition, and New Game:

  • Most Popular - Games from a given publishing year that were ranked the most times in 2023.
  • New Edition - Games where most of the work was developing an existing game (tinkering with rules, presentation, etc.) into a new edition.
  • New Game - Games that were both mechanically designed and developed from the ground up or from a basic framework.

Now that everyone is utterly confused, lets move on to the awards.

Hotness Awards - Class of 2023

2023 Most Popular

Earth

Earth

Of all the games published in 2023 this one was on people's minds and lists the most - over 3000 times - showing up on 22% of lists. It isn't the highest ranked but it does seem to be getting the most attention which is never a bad sign.

2023 New Edition Hotness

The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition

The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition

Not only is this the hotness for the new edition category, it was also the highest ranked game in 2023 and it currently sits at number 4 on the All-time list. People still love this game as 3 different editions show up in the rankings for 2023.

2023 New Game Hotness

Voidfall

Voidfall

A Mindclash 4X-ish game I've had my eye on. Voidfall comes in as the highest ranked new game published in 2023. Let's see how it fares next year as it competes for the Game of the Year Award.

Game of the Year Awards - Class of 2022

2022 Most Popular

Heat Pedal to the Metal

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Heat has a head start on all other games published in 2022 - it was ranked over 4000 times during 2023. I love me a good racing game so I will be checking this one out.

2022 New Edition of the Year

Everdell The Complete Collection

Everdell: The Complete Collection

This big box of fun combines all of the greatness that is Everdell into one box. It also currently sits at number 8 on the All-time list making it the highest ranked game on that list from 2022.

2022 Game of the Year

Frosthaven

Frosthaven

It is hard to argue with a box as big and heavy as the one Frosthaven occupies. People love the "Haven" games even if it is hard for most of us to finish their stories. A worthy game to win the 2022 Game of the Year. Congrats, you giant box of cardboard, you!