British board game publisher Alley Cat Games has triumphed in this year’s Diamant d’Or – a prize focused on championing heavier eurogames – after pivoting its strategy several years ago to experiment with crowdfunding more complex designs.

The Toni López-designed dice manipulation game fought off big name titles including Galactic Cruise and Luthier to win the 2026 Diamant d’Or, which was created more than a decade ago to celebrate complex euros the organisers felt were being overlooked by more mainstream board game awards.

Richard Breese’s latest design in his Key series, Keyside, took second place in this year award, while Ants, an ant colony expansion title from frequent Diamant d’Or finalist Cranio Creations, came third.

Speaking to BoardGameWire, Alley Cat Games director Caezar Al-Jassar said the team was “ecstatic” with the win, adding, “we have worked hard for three years to bring Ada’s Dream to gamers and have been blown away by the positive response from our backers and supporters”.

He said, “Ada’s Dream is the most complex game we’ve ever produced. A few years ago we noticed that the trend for Kickstarter games was leaning to heavier and more complex games than we were producing, and so we pivoted to explore creating more games like this.

“This meant a lot of extra work to produce the final game and we are incredibly pleased to see that work has paid off, and that Ada is being celebrated by the Diamant d’Or committee.”

Ada’s Dream was Alley Cat’s most successful crowdfunding campaign in terms of the total raised, having picked up almost £200,000 from more than 3,300 backers.

Its heavier titles in recent years have included Autobahn, Arborea and Baghdad: The City of Peace, while the company continues to put out lighter weight designs such as Timber Town and small-box offerings like Barbecubes, Tic Tac Trek and 2026 release Bookshelf, which Al-Jassar designed.

The Diamant d’Or win comes just under a year after Alley Cat announced during its Kickstarter campaign for Baghdad that it would cease producing retail editions of its crowdfunded titles “for the foreseeable future”, amid rising competition on shop shelves and uncertainty around US tariffs.

A statement from the company at the time said,” It is getting harder for Kickstarter games to succeed, both on Kickstarter and in particular at retail stores after the campaign.

“This, coupled with rising costs and the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, has led us to look at ways of streamlining the business to ensure that we don’t have so much money tied up in stock. We’d much rather invest this money in making more great games!”

Al-Jassar told BoardGameWire, “Considering that these titles are more expensive to produce, ship, and store than smaller more retail friendly games, we kept the decision to move away from retail distribution of our Kickstarter games.”

A small number of copies of Ada’s Dream were briefly available through the Alley Cat website from February 5, but those available to US and European customers have already sold out.

Al-Jassar said, “The initial webstore sales were some stock not needed for fulfilment. However, as there are still backers that did not complete their Pledge Managers, we will be keeping a supply in storage until a set number of months after the end of fulfilment to ensure all backers have the opportunity to receive their copy.

“Regarding future plans for Ada’s Dream, we won’t be producing a print run for retail distribution but may have some more copies available once enough time has passed after fulfilment, and are exploring a future Kickstarter campaign with an expansion and reprint that we hope to launch in early 2027.”

The 2026 Diamant d’Or

WINNER: Ada’s Dream, designed by Toni López (Published by Alley Cat Games)

Second place: Keyside, by Richard Breese and David Turczi (HUCH!, R&D Games)

Third place: Ants, by Renato Ciervo and Andrea Robbiani (Cranio Creations)

Other finalists:

Galactic Cruise, by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thompson (Kinson Key Games)

Luthier, by Dave Beck and Abe Burson (Paverson Games)

Philarmonix, by Faris Suhaimi (Archona Games)

Recall, by Helge Meissner, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Kjetil Svendsen and Anna Wermlund (Alion – by Dr Ø)

Sweet Lands, by Totsuca Chuo (Uchibacoya)

The post Alley Cat Games’ pivot to producing more high-complexity designs rewarded with Diamant d’Or win for Ada’s Dream first appeared on .

Less is more for French board game publisher Super Meeple, which says its strategy of keeping a tight rein on the number of complex titles it releases each year is paying off in an industry rife with overproduction.

Super Meeple, which releases its own designs as well as localising major titles such as Ark Nova and Gaia Project, says it is planning a “downward trend” for the number of games it releases each year in order to help each title stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

The publisher said that of the nine games it released last year, excluding expansions and sequels, only one was a “failure” – civilization builder Beyond the Horizon, the follow-up to Dennis K Chan’s highly regarded 2020 release Beyond the Sun.

It added that its biggest success of 2025 was “undoubtedly” fantasy animal reserve game Wondrous Creatures, while the rest of its releases were “in line with our overall expectations”.

The company said in an annual review post on Facebook, “Everything mentioned here is obviously based on our experience, and perhaps others have a different perspective, but the observation is pretty much the same everywhere, namely that overproduction automatically leads to a decrease in the percentage of successful games.

“We are mostly responsible for overproduction: from authors who want to be signed to buyers who want something new, not to mention publishers who need to produce and shops/distributors who need to meet buyer demand.

“Some can afford to be less involved in this overproduction, with a few games in their catalogue that are huge successes. Of course, they are more relaxed and can afford to slow down their releases.

“However, this foundation is generally, if not always, supported by family games; games with ‘infinite’ sales potential. Unfortunately, this is not the case for us, except perhaps for Kronologic and Expeditions.

“But the pool of buyers for big games is very limited, and even if it were to grow each year (which we hope it will!), it would still be insufficient to keep a company running. Nevertheless, we are aware of this overproduction and try to limit the number of releases as much as possible.

“Excluding expansions, we released seven games in 2024 and nine in 2025. We plan to release nine in 2026, as we do not want to exceed ten per year, two in edition and seven or eight in localisation.

“The trend will be downward as much as possible, working as hard as we can on each game and crossing our fingers that they will be successful.”

Super Meeple added that while it was fortunate to have games that always sell well, such as its lighter range of Kronologic murder mystery titles and zoo-building heavyweight Ark Nova, it was seeing a slight slowdown in what it called ‘long sellers’, big sellers such as Gaia Project, Trickerion and Obsession which it described as “pillars” of its catalogue.

It said, “We still intend to keep them available in our catalogue, as new players of slightly heavier games like these need to know about them!”

Early last year Super Meeple said it planned to step up its own direct sales after struggling to get individual retailers to stock more than a handful of copies of each of its heavier games through 2024.

The new system for some of Super Meeple’s expert titles involves running more pre-orders on its own site for those games, which it says could increase its margin to up to €20 per game.

It also hoped to “strengthen engagement” with retailers by allowing them to pre-order during a commitment period defined by the distributor, with any remaining games sold through its own online store or other online marketplaces and unavailable for restocking by shops.

Super Meeple said that Galactic Cruise, the first and only game to go through that system last year, sold out of all 3,000 copies – 300 through web pre-orders, 600 to partners outside France and the remaining 2,100 to stores.

It said, “This is obviously excellent news and proves that the vast majority of shops have understood our philosophy and made a greater commitment, so… thank you!

“This scenario will undoubtedly not be repeated for every game, but this initial success shows that the solution can work.”

The publisher said it planned to repeat the process this year for its localisation of World Order, the follow up to multi-award-winning economic class warfare simulator Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory.

Super Meeple’s other releases this year are set to include Tikal Legend, Mythologies, Revenant, Life of Amazonia and Ayar, and the third instalment of Kronologic, Babylon 2500.

The post “We released nine games in 2025 and only one was a flop”: French publisher Super Meeple on how avoiding overproduction is proving a recipe for success first appeared on .

The German branch of high IQ society Mensa has changed up its long-running board game award to focus entirely on complex, expert-level titles, scrapping its prizes for shorter family games and two-player designs.

Mensa in Deutschland has awarded the MinD Spielepreis since 2009, and has operated a ‘shorter games’ category for more than a decade and lighter two-player games prize since 2019.

But this year’s award will return to just a single category, pitting six expert-level games against each other in order to fill what the organisers see as a gap in the industry.

Jochen Tierbach, who has been organising the MinD Game Award for 16 years, said, “There are already various awards and prizes for family and connoisseur games.

“But for expert games, the really tough ones, there is no such thing in Germany yet. And we feel that the industry wants it.”

A long list of more than 20 titles has been whittled down to six challengers for this year: Galactic Cruise, Luthier, Shackleton Base, Speakeasy, Thebai and Thesauros, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.

The organisers will now take the next ten months to persuade as many Mensans as possible to play the titles and rate them out of 10 for ‘challenge factor’ and ‘replayability’. The winner is set to be announced on November 10.

Last year’s MinD award for complex games saw Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI add to its array of prizes, while Simone Luciani and Dávid Turczi’s Nucleum triumphed in 2024.

The last holder of the MinD shorter game award is 2025 Spiel des Jahres winner Bomb Busters, while 2024 SdJ champion Sky Team was the final winner of the best two-player game prize.

Other board game awards focusing specifically on heavier titles include France’s Diamant d’Or, which was launched more than a decade ago to champion complex eurogames the organisers felt were being overlooked by more mainstream board game awards.

The US branch of Mensa also runs an annual board game award, Mensa Select, which is voted on by members following a now traditional four-day gaming marathon.

MinD Spielepreis finalists 2026

Galactic Cruise, by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thompson (published in Germany by PD Verlag)
MinD committee notes: “In Galactic Cruise, players build a luxurious cruise company for space travel and organise ships, staff and wealthy customers.

“The game impresses with its strong thematic interconnection, a hidden deployment mechanism to determine the order of actions, and challenging resource planning.”

Luthier, by Dave Back and Abe Burson (Funtails)
“Luthier puts players in the role of instrument makers who, thanks to generous patrons, equip famous musicians throughout the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods and compete for the chair of various instrument groups in the orchestra.

Shackleton Base, by Fabio Lopiano and Nestore Mangone (Giant Roc)
“In Shackleton Base, players build a permanent base at the south pole of the moon, using executives who bring a slight asymmetry to the game.

“Three of seven selectable corporations with special abilities and several interlocking scoring options provide strategic depth and high variety.”

Speakeasy, by Vital Lacerda (Skellig Games)
“Speakeasy is set during Prohibition in Manhattan, where players open illegal bars, nightclubs and casinos in different districts and supply them with stolen or moonshine alcohol.

“The appeal of the game lies in the indirect interaction through territory control, competition for lucrative locations and the constant risk of attracting too much attention.”

Thebai, by Dávid Turczi (Pegasus Spiele)
“Thebai is a tightly interwoven optimisation game in which population or hoplite cubes are placed on your own estate or on the shared game board to rebuild the Kadmeia of Thebai.

“Resources must be gathered for assignments while trying to promote population to the council or promote hoplites to army commanders in order to successfully repel attacks on the city.”

Thesauros, by Cedric Millet (Elznir Games)
“In Thesauros, players first search for and then recover sunken treasures in order to ultimately sell them to a museum at a profit.

“Budget planning several rounds in advance requires strategic foresight and a carefully balanced mix of long-term exploration plans, short-term financing requirements, and disruptive manoeuvres against or by the competition.”

The post “We feel that the industry wants it”: German Mensa switches long-running board game award away from lighter titles to focus on expert games first appeared on .

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Remember way back at the beginning of the year when we took some bets on what we thought the games of the year were gonna be? Well, all those good and bad decisions are back to help or haunt us, as we tally up where things stand with the end of the year results. Before we find a winner, we talk about Wriggle Roulette, Whale Street, and Scales of Fate.

If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.

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Timecodes:

04:45 – Wriggle Roulette
11:32 – Whale Street
19:12 – Scales of Fate
29:45 – Anticipation auction results

Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.

The post BGB Podcast #349 – Anticipation Auction 2025: And the Winner Is… appeared first on Board Game Barrage.

In dieser Kategorie gibt es Aktuelles der drei Kategorien Mäh! (News), Herde (Neuzugänge) und Grasen (Ersteindrücke). Für November 2025 mit der Spielemesse Hamburg, aktuellen Auszeichnungen, The Voynich Puzzle, Aquaria, Galactic Cruise, Disney Lorcana und Calupum.