KeyForge, Root and Rising Sun nominated at 2019’s Origins Awards

The nominations for this year’s Origins Awards have been announced, highlighting the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design’s shortlist of the best games of the past year.

The Origins Awards have been given out as part of the US convention since 1975, and have previously included recent winners such as Gloomhaven and Scythe.

The awards are broken up into multiple categories spanning board games, card games, miniatures and even accessories, with the winner of each voted for by Academy members. A separate fan-favourite winner in each category is decided by visitors to the Origins Game Fair in June.

Leading the nominations for the best board game of the last year is asymmetrical woodland warfare hit Root, joined by Eric Lang’s Blood Rage spiritual successor Rising Sun.

Other board games to make the shortlist include the revamped version of Martin Wallace’s Brass: Birmingham, app-enhanced mystery game Chronicles of Crime, monster-hunting deduction game Cryptid, gorgeous pastoral title Everdell, Sushi Go! creator Phil Walker-Harding’s marble machine Gizmos, hefty sci-fi strategy experience Pulsar 2849 and dice-chucking Machi Koro-a-like Space Base.

In the card games category, As d’Or winner and Spiel des Jahres runner-up The Mind goes up against licensed spin-offs Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger and Dark Souls: The Card Game, plus Disney game Villainous, inventive deck game Maiden’s Quest and two games from Fluxx designer Andrew Looney: Anatomy Fluxx and Get the MacGuffin.

KeyForge: Call of the Archons, the ‘unique deck game’ from Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, is a notable absence from the card game shortlist, instead falling into the realm of collectible games alongside the latest expansions for long-running titles such as Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Pokémon TCG, Heroclix and Dragon Ball Super, plus collectible dice game Star Wars: Destiny, Cardfight Vanguard Unite! and both games released by British studio Playfusion: Lightseekers and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Champions, which similarly combine physical cards with mobile apps.

The miniatures category sees two relaunched Games Workshop games – Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team and Necromunda – face off against newcomers Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, A Song of Ice and Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game and Star Wars: Legion, plus Mantic’s Kings of War: Vanguard.

Nominated roleplaying games range from sci-fi spin-offs Flash Gordon and Star Trek Adventures to Free League’s fantasy throwback Forbidden Lands and two games from veteran designer Monte Cook, Numenera and Invisible Sun, as well as the latest edition of gothic RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. A separate category highlights notable roleplaying supplements, including Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for Dungeons & Dragons and last year’s expanded version of seminal Call of Cthulhu campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep, whose co-creator Larry DiTillio passed away earlier this year.

The full list of nominees can be found on the Origins site, with winners due to be announced on June 15th.