Games tackling subjects ranging from the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests to the 30-year holdout of Japanese WW2 soldier Hiroo Onoda have been named as finalists in this year’s Summit Award, which aims to recognise historical game designs which have attracted new players or introduced new subjects or perspectives to the hobby.

Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Chicago ‘68, Molly House and Onoda will compete for the fifth edition of the award, which is run by the San Diego Historical Games Convention – an organisation which aims to create a diverse and supportive gaming community dedicated to playing, discussing, designing, and promoting historically-based board games.

Molly House’s nomination continues an extensive awards run for the Jo Kelly and Cole Wehrle design, which won the Complex Games category at this year’s American Tabletop Awards and was also shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming and best heavy strategy game at this year’s Origins Awards.

The game puts players in the roles of the gender-defying mollies of early 18th century London, attempting to build community and joy while facing persecution by the Society for the Reformation of Manners.

Chicago ‘68, designed by Yoni Goldstein and published by the Dietz Foundation, was the most-selected title during the Summit Award’s public nomination process this summer.

The game explores the protests and police response surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention, dividing players between Establishment and Demonstrator factions including the mayor’s office, Chicago Police Department, Yippies and National Mobilization Committee To End The War In Vietnam.

Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, designed by Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini and published by Ingenioso Hidalgo, uses four different battlefield maps to recreate engagements from the Napoleonic Wars in sessions lasting between 60 and 120 minutes.

The fourth finalist is Francisco “Pako” Gradaille’s Onoda, a 25-minute solo game published by Salt & Pepper Games which explores the experiences of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who continued guerrilla warfare on the Philippine island of Lubang until 1974. Judges praised the unusual subject and the way the game asks players to engage with Onoda’s story and decisions.

SDHist also named two honourable mentions in this year’s awards: GMT Games’ The Bell of Treason: 1938 Munich Crisis in Czechoslovakia, designed by Petr Mojžíš, and Absurdist Productions’ Winter Rabbit, designed by William Thompson.

Winter Rabbit, which draws on traditional Cherokee animal stories and was created as a counterpoint to common colonial themes in games, was runner-up in the 2021 Zenobia Award and won the Light Strategy category at this year’s Origins Awards.

The Summit Award considers games across five criteria – ease of teaching, ease of play, uniqueness of topic, novelty of approach and effectiveness as a historical game.

Its previous winners were Fred Serval’s Red Flag Over Paris in 2022, Tory Brown’s Votes for Women in 2023, Alex Knight’s Land and Freedom in 2024 and Dave Neale and David Thompson’s War Story: Occupied France last year.

SDHist, which was launched mainly as a local wargaming group in 2015, is led by wargaming experts including Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection designer Harold Buchanan.

The organisation’s board and board of advisors selected three of this year’s finalists following the public nomination process, which put Chicago ‘68 on the shortlist.

The same groups will select the winner, which is set to be announced at the SDHist Summit convention in San Diego in November.

The post From 1968 Chicago protests to queer life in Georgian London: Summit Award continues to celebrate designs that broaden historical gaming first appeared on .

Tabletop gaming’s most eclectic prize, the Diana Jones Award, has unveiled the latest clutch of finalists for its annual celebration of excellence in the field of gaming.

Price Johnson, the new CEO of Gloomhaven publisher Cephalofair, is among the five finalists for this year’s award, as are miniatures game Trench Crusade and Minnesota-based game retailer Mischief Toy Store.

They are joined by Jo Kelly and Cole Wehrle’s board game Molly House, which explores the joy and fear experienced by gender-defying Londoners in 18th century society, and Rob Wieland, a much-loved TTRPG designer and journalist who died last October aged 47.

Price Johnson’s nomination comes less than two months after the long-time Cephalofair COO was promoted to CEO at the publisher – with Isaac Childres, the company founder and designer of its runaway successes Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, stepping back to focus exclusively on game design at the company.

Johnson has been a high-profile voice in campaigning against tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump over the last year, aiming to highlight the heavy financial burden it has placed on tabletop game publishers – many of which rely on Chinese manufacturing for their titles.

The Diana Jones nominations committee praised that work, saying Johnson’s appearance on multiple national news outlets, “consistently and clearly explained how the tariffs posed an existential danger to many companies in the adventure gaming industry”.

Mischief Toy Store in the Twin Cities was also selected for its involvement in a lawsuit against the US tariffs last year, as well as its work battling activity from anti-immigration ICE agents.

The committee said that hours after criticizing ICE in a TV interview the store was targeted with a surprise audit, but resisted turning over their employee records to DHS.

It added, “They have been printing ICE OUT posters to distribute as fast as they can and have organized a network of 3D printing hobbyists to distribute thousands of ICE whistles.

“Amid the chaos in Minnesota, they had to suspend online ordering, and their website directed folks to support local immigrant rights organizations instead. They work hard to make space at the gaming table for everyone.”

Trench Crusade, which focuses on an alternate 1914 in which humans have been battling the forces of hell for 800 years, was picked out by the committee as “a triumph of community and creativity”.

The Factory Fortress-published title was built around initial sketches and lore created by artist Mike Franchina, who later teamed up with sculptor James Sherriff and game designer Tuomas Pirinen to design the game.

Diana Jones’ nominations committee described Rob Wieland as “a relentless advocate and promoter for the entire tabletop gaming community for years”.

It said, “He served as a mentor to countless others, and he brought the industry to wider and greater awareness through his work with Forbes and other publications.

“In addition, he regularly hosted on-stage sessions of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen at conventions to raise money for charity.”

The 2026 Diana Jones Award ceremony will be held in Indianapolis on July 29 at its annual gathering of tabletop games industry professionals, marking the unofficial kick-off of Gen Con.

The award aims to celebrates “everything that’s the best about gaming”, with previous winners across the award’s 26-year run having included Blood Rage designer Eric Lang, Nigerian games industry publisher and evangelist NIBCARD, and the entire ‘actual play’ movement of people livestreaming and podcasting roleplaying games.

Last year’s award resulted in a tie between Daybreak, the climate change-themed board game designed by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace, and Rose Estes, an early TSR employee who went on to write the Endless Quest series of choose-your-own-adventure game books.

The original Diana Jones award trophy was a clear lucite pyramid containing the burned remains of an Indiana Jones roleplaying game from the 1980s – one element of which spelled ‘Diana Jones’ after the preceding letters were burned away.

That trophy was lost in the post six years ago during the traditional handover from one winner to another, never to be recovered – but a replacement trophy has now been created by the organisation.

The Diana Jones Award also runs a separate emerging designer programme prize, which aims to help up-and-coming creators via a $6,500 prize package that includes an all-expenses trip to Gen Con.

The post Cephalofair CEO, Molly House, Trench Crusade among finalists for 2026 Diana Jones Award first appeared on .

Das Pfingstwochenende war dieses Jahr für mich von einem gemeinsamen Spieletreffen des Beeple-Netzwerks geprägt. Trotz des sonnigen und warmen Wetters schlossen wir uns ein und spielten ausgiebig lang, breit und durch viele Komplexitätsstufen hindurch zusammen Spiele. Diese Eindrücke möchte ich hier kurz teilen. Vor allem weil ich nicht weiß, ob ich sie noch parat haben […]

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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.

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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.