Arcs, the hybrid trick-taking wargame from Root and Oath designer Cole Wehrle, has won game of the year in the ioGioco Awards, which were created in 2021 to celebrate Italian-language board games and their designers.

Paolo Mori was named game designer of the year after demonstrating his huge range through designs including Toy Battle, Altay: Dawn of Civilization, Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars and the second edition of Blitzkreig.

Bryan Bornmueller’s The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game triumphed in the light and family games category, the new edition of Richard Borg’s Memoir ’44 won best wargame, while children’s game of the year went to Marc and Catherine André’s design Splendor Kids.

This year’s award for best aesthetic and production quality went to Michele Morosini’s The Breach, published by Ludus Magnus Studio, while best two-player game went to Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini’s design Toy Battle.

Nominees are picked by the editorial staff at Italian tabletop gaming magazine ioGioco from all of the titles published in Italy in the previous year, with the winners decided by public vote via the magazine’s website.

ioGioco said the tabletop gaming sector continues to prove “particularly vibrant”, with the market in Italy seeing a 27% rise in value last year compared to 2024 according to data from research company Circana.

Trading card games were a huge driver of that figure, the research shows, with sales of tabletop games outside of that category growing 3% year-on-year. More than new 800 titles were released in the country last year, ioGioco added.

Last year’s ioGioco game of the year award was won by fantasy deckbuilding and strategy game Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, which was designed by Andrea Colletti, Diego Fonseca and Marco Montanaro.

ioGioco Awards 2025 – full results

BOARD GAME

Winner: Arcs, designed by Cole Wehrle – published in Italy by MS Edizioni
Ants, Renato Ciervo, Andrea Robbiani
Bomb Busters, Hisashi Hayashi
The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, Matt Leacock
Star Wars – Battle of Hoth, Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot

GAME DESIGNER

Winner: Paolo Mori
Gregory Grard
Hisashi Hayashi
Reiner Knizia
Matt Leacock

LIGHT & FAMILY GAME

Winner: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game, Bryan Bornmueller – Asmodee Italia
Bomb Busters, Hisashi Hayashi
Castle Combo, Grégory Grard, Mathieu Roussel
Cities, Steve Finn, Phil Walker-Harding
Flip 7, Eric Olsen

WARGAME

Winner: Memoir’ 44 (New Edition), Richard Borg – Asmodee Italia
Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Paolo Mori, Alessandro Zucchini
Pocket Air War: Definitive Edition, Carlo Amaddeo
An Impossible War: The First Carlist War in the North, 1834-1838, David Gómez Relloso
Wunderwaffen, Walter Obert)

CHILDREN’S GAME

Winner: Splendor Kids, Marc André, Catherine André – Asmodee Italia
Jurassic Valley, Davide Panizza
My Puzzle Adventure: Ochre Land, Antonin Boccara, Romaric Galonnier, Fabrice Lamouille, Mathilde Malburet
Redwoods, Gary Kim, Yohan Goh, Hope S Hwang
Opération Noisettes, Emilie Soleil, Jérôme Soleil

AESTHETIC AND PRODUCTION QUALITY

Winner: The Breach, Michele Morosini – Ludus Magnus Studio
Cyclades: Legendary Edition, Bruno Cathala, Ludovic Maublanc
Galactic Cruise, TK King, Dennis Northcott, Koltin Thompson
Koi, Rosaria Battiato, Massimo Borzì, Martino Chiacchiera
Runar, Diego Fonseca)

AESTHETIC AND PRODUCTION QUALITY – ROLE-PLAYING GAME

Winner: Mörk Borg, Pelle Nilsson, J Yamil – Need Games
Daggerheart
Elder Mythos, Laura Fontanella, Marta Palvarini
Magus et Oraculum – New Edition, Momatoes, Oscar Biffi
Pilgrims of the Murk Dome, Pelle Nilsson, J Yamil

SOLITAIRE GAME

Winner: Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, Joe Klipfel, Nikki Valens – Asmodee Italia
Final Girl Season 2, Evan Derrick, AJ Porfirio
Hispania, Miguel Marqués
Too Many Bones, Josh J Carlson, Adam Carlson
Voidfall, Nigel Buckle, Dávid Turczi

TWO-PLAYER GAME

Winner: Toy Battle, Paolo Mori, Alessandro Zucchini – Asmodee Italia
Duel for Cardia, Faouzi Boughida, Mathieu Rivero
Agent Avenue, Christian Kudahl, Laura Kudahl
Memoir’ 44 – New Edition, Richard Borg
Zenith, Grégory Grard, Mathieu Roussel

BOARD GAME EXPANSION

Winner: The White Castle – Matcha, Sheila Santos, Israel Cendrero – Devir
Dune: Imperium – Bloodlines, Phil Amylon, Andy Clautice, Paul Dennen, Caleb Vance
Food Chain Magnate: The Ketchup Mechanism & Other Ideas, Jeroen Doumen, Joris Wiersinga
Talisman: Nemesis – Call of the Hunt, Craig Van Ness
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition – Thunder’s Edge, Dane Beltrami, James Kniffen

ROLE-PLAYING GAME

Winner: Daggerheart – Acheron Games
DIE: The Roleplaying Game, Kieron Gillen
Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game, Matt Forbeck, Marty Forbeck
Triangle Agency, Caleb Zane Huett, Sean Ireland
Wilderfeast, Federico Corbetta Caci, KC Shi

ROLE-PLAYING GAME SUPPLEMENT

Winner: The One Ring: Realms of the Three Rings, Michele Garbuggio, Marco Maggi, Francesco Nepitello, Gabriele Quaglia – Need Games
Dolmenwood Campaign Book
Dungeons & Dragons 5.5e: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Outgunned Adventure, Simone Formicola, Riccardo Sirignano
Tal’Dorei Reborn, James JHaeck, Matthew Mercer, Hannah Rose

GAMEBOOK

Winner: Un altro passo nella neve, Manuele Giuliano – Ingenioso Hidalgo
15 Mondi da Cana, Stefano Tartarotti
Chi è stato? 1 – La Casa degli Automi, Michele Buonanno
Fiabe Oscure 2 – Aurora, Valentina Ceciliato
The Freedom Finders – Beak Your Chains, Emily Conolan

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The American arm of high IQ society Mensa has unveiled the latest crop of board games winning its Mensa Select seal, which are voted on by hundreds of organisation members during an annual four-day gaming marathon.

Alex Cutler and Peter C Hayward both saw two of their creations win the seal this year, including their co-design Critter Kitchen, Hayward’s Things in Rings and Cutler’s A Place for All My Books – which he co-created with Michael Mihealsick.

Things in Rings publisher Allplay also saw its title Twinkle Twinkle, designed by Ammon Anderson, pick up a Select seal, while other winners this year included Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset’s Fromage, Yoann Levet’s Got Five and Tomáš Holek design Galileo Galilei.

Entries to the annual Mensa Mind Games are judged on aesthetics, instructions, originality, play appeal and play value, Mensa says, with the award aiming to highlight games that are original in concept, challenging and well-designed.

Not all games released during the past year are eligible for the award, however – entries carry a fee of several hundred dollars each, and games up for consideration need to have an average play time of 90 minutes or less.

Barnes & Noble and other major retailers have previously given special consideration to games bearing the Mensa Select seal, while winning games are also featured by American Mensa’s official online retailers and on its website.

Fromage is the most decorated of this year’s seal winners, having previously won the Origins Award for best light strategy game, as well as picking up nominations for medium game of the year, most innovative game and best artwork in the 2024 Golden Geek Awards.

Things in Rings was previously nominated in both the Golden Geeks and Origins Awards in the best party game category.

Last year’s Mensa Select seal winners included Agueda: City of Umbrellas, Diatoms, Hutan, In the Footsteps of Marie Curie and Farms Race: Deluxe Edition.

This year’s Mensa Select seal winners in full:

• A Place for All My Books – designed by Alex Cutler and Michael Mihealsick (published by Smirk & Dagger Games)
• Critter Kitchen – Alex Cutler and Peter C Hayward (Cardboard Alchemy)
• Fromage – Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset (R2i Games)
• Galileo Galilei – Tomáš Holek (Capstone Games)
• Got Five – Yoann Levet (Blue Orange Games)
• Things in Rings – Peter C Hayward (Allplay)
• Twinkle Twinkle – Ammon Anderson (Allplay)

The post High-IQ society Mensa reveals its top board games after annual four-day judging marathon first appeared on .

Another year has passed, and it's once more time to announce the winner of Tabletop Games Blog's highly sought-after and extremely prestigious Top Table Award of 2025. The top slot for this year will join the hall of fame alongside previous years' board games that made it to the number 1 spot on the podium. The winner of the 2025 award will be in the company of Charms, Enemy Anemone, Pax Pamir: Second Edition and others.

The post Top Table Award 2025 (Saturday Review) appeared first on Tabletop Games Blog.

This feels strange. I’m usually late with my yearly list, taking my sweet time until January or February to catch up on all of the noteworthy releases. This was a quieter year. Some would say weaker than most. There are still several standout titles, and it did prove a bit of a struggle to narrow…

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