Gloomhaven, Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 and Azul lead this year’s Origins Awards nominees

The nominations for this year’s Origins Awards have been revealed.

The long-running US prizes, handed out at the eponymous summer convention since 1975, are selected by members of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design, who last year named Scythe as their Board Game of the Year. This year’s winners will be announced on June 16th.

Leading the shortlist for board games are Gloomhaven and the second season of Pandemic Legacy, followed closely by The Captain is Dead, Dice Forge, The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Near and Far, Raiders of the North Sea, Tak: A Beautiful Game, Sagrada and Santorini.

Over in the card game category, 5-Minute Dungeon, Aeon’s End, Custom Heroes, Ex Libris, The Fox in the Forest, Hero Realms, Honshu, Jump Drive, The Lost Expedition and One Deck Dungeon make up the nominees, with collectible efforts battling it out in their own group, including games such as Cardfight Vanguard, DC Dice Masters, Final Fantasy TCG, Marvel HeroClix, Pokémon and Star Wars: Destiny.

Acclaimed tile-layer Azul heads up the family games list, joined by Bunny Kingdom, Downforce, Dropmix, Hotshots, Mountains of Madness, Sagrada and Viral, plus two Codenames variants: the two-player Duet and Disney spin-off.

Only four games make up the shortlist of miniatures games, including last year’s winner Warhammer 40,000: Eighth Edition, which is joined by Blood & Plunder, Runewars and The Walking Dead: All Out War.

Roleplaying games and RPG supplements are split into two different categories, with the former giving nods to Adventures in Middle-earth, Blades in the Dark, Blue Rose’s second edition, Cthulhu Confidential, The Dark Eye, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen’s third edition (designed by regular TTG contributor James Wallis), My Little Pony RPG Tails of Equestria, Monsterhearts 2, Puppetland, Starfinder, Traveller and Vurt.

Origins also selects its favourite gaming accessory of the year – you can find the remaining nominees over on the awards' website.