The Wisdom of the Hypermind BoardGamers - Favorite Games of 2009!
We had a great time at our 3rd Anniversary Party last night, and as part of the festivities, we completed our voting for our favorite games of the year. Now, just to be clear, these aren't supposed to be games newly released in 2009, but are games that we as a group played at least once throughout the year. You can check out the ballot for a list of all the eligible games.
But anyway, here's how the voting turned out: Favorite Filler: No Thanks!
Favorite Gateway Game: Carcassonne
Most Thematic Game: Bang!
Coolest Game Mechanics: Tobago
Favorite game of the Year: Tribune: Primus Inter Pares
Complete voting results can be found here.
Overall, I'm very happy with this list. I'm a little disappointed that something more original didn't take Gateway Game, but it pretty much makes sense that the "big three" gateway games (Ticket to Ride, Settlers, and now Carcassonne) have won in our three years of existence. I was thrilled to see the new-release Tobago take coolest mechanics for its neat deductive map-building. And I was very happy that my personal game of the year for 2009, Tribune, also took the Favorite Game of the Year for the Hypermind BoardGamers.
And just for the sake of giving a semi-complete report, here are the lists of our most-played and best-rated games from 2009:
You can also check out these other files for even more information:
- 2009 Game Night Statistics
- Year Three Report!
- 2008 Report and Favorite Games of the Year
- 2007 Report and Favorite Games of the Year
Posted by Chris Norwood at 1/20/2010 4:46 PM 
Categories: Hypermind BoardGamers, Awards
Tags: Games I Don't Care About Fillers Bang! Tribune Tobago
Categories: Hypermind BoardGamers, Awards
Tags: Games I Don't Care About Fillers Bang! Tribune Tobago
Nice report Chris! I do wish you would have mentioned the “Hall of Fame” games. Had they not been “not eligible” for voting I would have listed four of them in my Year-End survey as follows:
Race for the Galaxy as Favorite Filler, Settlers of Catan as Favorite Gateway Game, Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition and Agricola as choices for Most Thematic Game and Favorite Game of the Year.
So with the choices given I can see how the voting turned out the way it did. I’m good with Carcassonne as favorite gateway, Bang! as most thematic (well some what), Tobago as coolest game mechanics (although I question how it made the Games Played in 2009 list when we didn’t play it as a group until 1-4-10… Hmmmm), Tribune: Primus Inter Pares as favorite game of the year was a good choice in many ways, however No Thanks! as favorite filler well I’ll just have to say “No thanks! how about a game of RACE.”
The Hall of Fame games were listed on the ballot, so I didn't think that I needed to mention them again here. And you are quite wrong about Tobago, because if you'll check the statistics for 2009, you'll see that it was played twice on 12/19. The report was written on 1/4, but the games happened firmly in 2009.
I'm glad to be corrected on Tobago because I agree it does have some cool game mechanics. However, the ballot Tag did not take me to the ballot but instead to the voting results. BTW how does a game get into the Hall of Fame list? Lastly, A BIG THANKS for all you do Chris from me, I really do appreciate all of your hard work and so enjoy the write ups from the Hypermind game-night and most of your thoughts on and about gaming... well except those of late on RftG and TI3
A game makes our HoF by winning one of the year-end votes. So this year Carcassonne, Tribune, No Thanks!, Tobago (despite being only a couple of months old), and Bang! will be "retired" from future voting.
Yeah, while I was glad to see Tobago win the "Coolest Mechanics" award, I hate that it won't be available in the future for "Favorite Gateway Game". But the rules is the rules, and I can't make exceptions just because I like a game...