Arcs wins big in 2024 Golden Geek Awards, SETI brings home pair of prizes

Arcs, the hybrid trick-taking wargame from Root and Oath designer Cole Wehrle, has won a trio of awards in this year’s Golden Geek Awards, with fellow space-themed game SETI notching up a pair of wins.

Wehrle’s design triumphed in the Wargame, Innovative and Best Expansion categories in the 2024 Golden Geeks, which are nominated and voted on by BoardGameGeek users.

Leder Games-published Arcs also picked up runner-up nods in the Artwork and Heavy Game of the Year categories – the latter of which was won by Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI.

SETI – one of a trio of designs from Holek as he burst onto the scene last year – was also named the winner of the best thematic game category, and was a runner-up behind Arcs for most innovative game.

Arcs’ performance this year recalls that of Wehrle’s breakout hit Root in the 2018 Golden Geeks, in which the woodland-themed asymmetric strategy game collected four awards, including the now defunct Board Game of the Year title.

Writing on BlueSky, Wehrle said of the award wins, “The whole team here at Leder is over the moon. I’m so glad the game has found a community on BGG and elsewhere and we’re very grateful for the recognition.

“As a personal aside, I’ll say I was especially happy to win the wargame award. I’ve been playing wargames all of my life and that category is often dominated by established systems (Undaunted or COIN or what-have-you). It’s rare for a new kind of game to break in.

“Arcs may not be a historical game but its core systems are deeply steeped in questions of operational tempo and risk assessment. The game has deep roots in conflict modeling. This was a strong year for wargames, but I’m glad Arcs stood out.

“The reception of the game more generally has been tremendously encouraging. Making these sorts of games is not easy. They are deeply complex projects on the back-end and incredibly risky (even compared to other large tabletop projects).

“Which is just to say, we see you all out there. The love you all invest in these games makes it easier for us to keep doing what we do. I can’t wait to see what we cook up next.”

Flip 7, which styles itself as ‘The Greatest Card Game of All Time’, won the best party game award in this year’s contest, and was runner up the Light Game of the Year category behind Castle Combo.

Designer Eric Olsen told BoardGameWire he was most proud of his ‘upside down number deck’ idea in the press-your-luck card game – where the deck has a single 1 card, two 2s, three 3s, etc – which he said he came up with after realising that no one really cared about low cards in the game.

He said, “Why does the game have mass appeal? I can’t speak for everyone else. For me, the bottom line is that the game is fun. It’s fun win or lose. There’s a little adrenalin rush as the next card is flipped. People tell me it’s a little addictive. Also, it’s easy to learn and any number of players can play without breaking the game.

“I knew the game was solid. It was playtested hundreds of times for almost two years. I had high hopes because I knew David Blanchard and Tony Serebriany at [publisher] The OP and The OP’s stellar track record with family and party games. Still – I never anticipated the insane rocket ride that Flip 7 has been on this year.

“The game was inspired by a card game my friend Rod made up back in high school. Happy to say Rod was one of my crucial playtesters for Flip 7 and has been one of my biggest supporters on this amazing game journey.”

Other awards wins in this year’s Golden Geeks included Harmonies picking up Medium Game of the Year, Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth taking Best 2-Player Game, Unconscious Mind winning Best Artwork Presentation, The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game bringing home the Best Co-operative Game trophy, and Slay The Spire: The Board Game winning the Best Solo Game category.

Antoine Bauza, the co-designer of Lord of the Rings: Duel with Bruno Cathala, told BoardGameWire, “We did work a lot on this spinoff!

“I think that it is objectively better than his big brother. More accessible, more tense, more thematic. But the important point is that the two games are different enough to exist and to meet expectations of diffrent kinds of players.”

Bryan Bornmueller, the designer of The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game, told BoardGameWire, “As a user of BoardGameGeek since 2003 it is an amazing honor for Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game to win a Golden Geek Award and be recognized by the community.

“The game would not be nearly as good as it is without the hard work of Taylor Reiner the developer, Elaine Ryan and Sam Shimota’s amazing artwork, Matt Fantastic and Blaise Sewell’s graphic design, and the whole team in the early days at Office Dog: Bree Woodward, Lupe Gonzalez, Luke Peterschmidt, Jay Hernishin and Randy Ramuglia.

“I should also thank the amazing community of trick-taking game designers and fans who keep this historic genre of games thriving. I’ve loved trick-taking games for decades and have long wanted to try and make one that was true to the genre but also fit with a theme.

“…from the earliest playtests I could tell that people were responding incredibly well to the core concept. Who doesn’t want to play a hand of cards and be Gandalf at the same time?

“While I could tell that folks enjoyed the game from the beginning, I am still amazed at the reception it has received in such a short period of time.

“I am very proud of the story touches I was able to work into the mechanics of the game, with relatively few rules. For example, the ramifications of giving Gandalf an extra card means he know more than he is letting on, and has more options available than anyone else.”

Dire Wolf Digital continued to dominate the Board Game App category, taking the top prize with Dune Imperium and a runner-up spot with Clank!.

The publisher has now won the category three times in the past five years, following triumphs for Root in 2020 and Everdell in 2022.

Scott Martins, who left his role as head of Sony Online Entertainment’s Denver studio to found Dire Wolf Digital in 2010, told BoardGameWire, “We’re honored for Dune: Imperium Digital to be recognized (with Clank! Digital as runner-up!) in the Board Game App category, joining our digital adaptations of Root and Everdell from the past few years.

“We’ve got some great partners who entrust us to adapt some great games into the digital format, and it’s an amazing feeling to have the hard work that goes into them appreciated by fans.

“We started as a digital studio (it’s in the name!) so we’re lucky to have that diversity in our portfolio. With tabletop game publishers facing so much economic uncertainty from the shifting landscape of tariffs, the digital side of our hobby is feeling more important than ever.

“We all make games because we want to share them with players, and we expect publishers to continue to explore digital options for adapting and distributing their work.”

Matthew Dunstan and Rory Muldoon from Postmark Games continued their huge success in the Best Print and Play Game category with a win for 52 Realms: Adventures – the third year in a row one of their games has won the award.

Muldoon said on BlueSky following the win, “To be honest, I’m just pleased people like the game. When Matt and I started making it, we weren’t sure if it would resonate with folks, so seeing it win an award is a great confidence boost. A huge thanks to everyone that voted!”

Best Podcast this year went to Liz Davidson’s Beyond Solitaire, which has spent almost 200 episodes exploring gaming history, historical games and their cultural significance with a string of guest interviewees.

Davidson, a long-time classics teacher who was hired as solo games specialist by Root publisher Leder Games last year, launched the podcast during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 “because I wanted an excuse to talk to people”.

She told BoardGameWire, “Obviously, I am excited and proud to win a Golden Geek – my podcast is my passion project and it feels great to see it recognized. But what delights me even more is that a win for Beyond Solitaire also means a win for historical gaming.

“It’s a clear sign that our community is connecting with the rest of the hobby more than ever before, and that people really do want to hear conversations about games, history, and culture.

“My favorite episode so far this season is Episode 189 with Ada Palmer. She runs a Renaissance history class at UChicago – my alma mater! – in which students LARP a papal election and the following war, but we cover a lot more than that.”

The 2024 Golden Geek Awards in full:

2-Player Game
Winner – The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth
Runner Up – Kelp: Shark vs Octopus
Runner Up – A Gest of Robin Hood

Artwork Presentation
Winner – Unconscious Mind
Runner Up – Harmonies
Runner Up – Arcs

Cooperative Game
Winner – The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
Runner Up – Slay the Spire: The Board Game
Runner Up – Bomb Busters

Expansion
Winner – Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion
Runner Up – Heat: Heavy Rain
Runner Up – Forest Shuffle: Alpine

Innovative
Winner – Arcs
Runner Up – Fromage
Runner Up – SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Light GOTY
Winner – Castle Combo
Runner Up – Flip 7
Runner Up – Captain Flip

Medium GOTY
Winner – Harmonies
Runner Up – The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth
Runner Up – Endeavor: Deep Sea

Heavy GOTY
Winner – SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Runner Up – Arcs
Runner Up – Civolution

Party Game
Winner – Flip 7
Runner Up – The Gang
Runner Up – Things in Rings

Print Play
Winner – 52 Realms: Adventures
Runner Up – Rome: Fate of an Empire
Runner Up – Forage: A 9 card solitaire game

Solo Game
Winner – Slay the Spire: The Board Game
Runner Up – Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs
Runner Up – Imperium: Horizons

Thematic Game
Winner – SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Runner Up – Let’s Go! To Japan
Runner Up – The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

Wargame
Winner – Arcs
Runner Up – A Gest of Robin Hood
Runner Up – Dune: War for Arrakis

Best Podcast
Winner – Beyond Solitaire
Runner Up – Board Game Hot Takes
Runner Up – Space-Biff! Space-Cast!

Best Board Game App
Winner – Dune: Imperium
Runner Up – Codenames (2024)
Runner Up – Clank!