Meeples Choice Award Winners Announced

The Meeples Choice Awards, given each year by the members of the board game discussion group Spielfrieks, have been announced. These awards recognize great games published in 2007. (The awards are presented about halfway through the following calendar year so that games released near the end of a year have a fair shot at winning.) The members of Spielfrieks first choose 25 finalists, then three winners. The winners of the 2007 Meeples Choice Award are:

• Race for the Galaxy (designed by Tom Lehmann, published by Rio Grande Games)
• Agricola (designed by Uwe Rosenberg, published by Z-Man Games and Lookout Games)
• Brass (designed by Martin Wallace, published by Warfrog)

All three are superior strategy games, well deserving of this recognition. However, I was somewhat disappointed that my personal pick as the best game released last year, 1960: The Making of the President, did not earn one of the three spots. (It finished sixth in the voting, also behind Thebes and Notre Dame.)

By the way, a "meeple" is a wooden pawn shaped like a person. The term was popularized after the release of the game Carcassonne, which features many meeples.

^{Image courtesy of Rio Grande Games}