2018 – Diamond Climber Board Game Award Winners

When I started Meeple Mountain 4 years ago I was looking up to other media outlets like The Dice Tower, BoardGameGeek, and GeekDad. In addition to producing compelling content, and having a great community of supporters, each of them had a singular board game award related to their brand. Dice Tower had the Dice Tower award, BoardGameGeek had the Golden Geek. and GeekDad had the Golden Bot.

I wanted the same thing for Meeple Mountain…without realizing just how much time and effort goes into playing the games, reviewing the games, compiling lists of nominees, removing titles from the list that just didn’t make the cut, and more. Now that Meeple Mountain has nearly 30 writers, we’re finally in a place where we can produce a relevant, meaningful, and diverse set of winners in 12 different categories.

So without further ado please join me in congratulating the winners of the inaugural 2018 Diamond Climber board game awards.

Best Reprint
Best Artwork
Best Coop Game
Best Filler Game
Best Kickstarter
Best Family Game
Best Expansion
Best RPG
Best Euro Game
Best Thematic Game
Best Gateway Game
Game of the Year

Best Reprint

	Meeple Mountain Winner Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar Fan Favorite Winner Brass: Lancashire
	Best Reprint Nominees Container The Estates Brass: Lancashire Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small – Big Box Dominant Species Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar

Best Artwork

	Meeple Mountain Winner Root Fan Favorite Winner Root
	Best Artwork Nominees Brass: Lancashire/Birmingham Treasure Island Root Sunset Over Water Everdell

Best Coop Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner Chronicles of Crime Fan Favorite Winner Pandemic: Fall of Rome
	Best Coop Game Nominees The Mind Codenames: Harry Potter Chronicles of Crime Pandemic: Fall of Rome

Best Filler Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner The Mind Fan Favorite Winner The Mind
	Best Filler Game Nominees The Mind Drop It Welcome To… Scarabya Ticket to Ride: New York Kariba Ganz Schön Clever

Best Kickstarter

	Meeple Mountain Winner Chronicles of Crime Fan Favorite Winner Root
	Best Kickstarter Game Nominees Brass: Birmingham Monster Slaughter Lords of Hellas Who Goes There Chronicles of Crime Root

Best Family Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner Drop It Fan Favorite Winner Reef
	Best Family Game Nominees Fireball Island: Curse of Vul-Kar Drop It Hippo Scarabya Eco-Links

Best Expansion

	Meeple Mountain Winner Root: The Riverfolk Expansion Fan Favorite Winner Scythe: The Rise of Fenris
	Best Expansion Nominees T.I.M.E. Stories: Brotherhood of the Coast Vikings Gone Wild: Masters of Elements Roll Player: Monsters and Minions King’s Forge: Gold Root: The Riverfolk Expansion

Best RPG

	Meeple Mountain Winner Kids on Bikes Fan Favorite Winner Overlight
	Best RPG Nominees Weave Overlight Invisible Sun Star Crossed Kids on Bikes

Best Euro Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner Coimbra Fan Favorite Winner Coimbra
	Best Euro Game Nominees Key Flow Architects of the West Kingdom Newton Carpe Diem Coimbra

Best Thematic Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner Who Goes There? Fan Favorite Winner Scythe: Rise of Fenris
	Best Thematic Game Nominees Detective: Modern Crime Who Goes There? Nyctophobia Shadows in the Forest

Best Gateway Game

	Meeple Mountain Winner Reef Fan Favorite Winner Reef
	Best Gateway Game Nominees Reef Ticket to Ride: New York Scarabya Majesty for the Realm Gunkimono Villainous

Game of the Year

	Meeple Mountain Winner Root Fan Favorite Winner Rising Sun
	Game of the Year Nominees Root Gizmos Ganz Schön Clever The Mind Chronicles of Crime KeyForge: Call of the Archon Key Flow Architects of the West Kingdom Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar Rising Sun

Congratulations again to all the winners. Join us again in 2020 where we’ll cover the best board games that 2019 produced! Thanks to everyone in the Meeple Mountain writing team that contributed input and votes (especially Andrew Plassard), and all of you who took part in our open voting. Finally, a huge thank you to Than Gibson for contributing the illustration which at the very core of our award graphic, the Diamond Climber himself.

We’ll be publishing an article soon which discusses the approach we took to running the awards, voting, and data collection. If you’re interested in the data itself, here are the 2018 staff votes and the 2018 fan votes.