The winner has just been announced as Alan Moon’s Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder, in what was the shortest Diana Jones Award ceremony yet (probably so the celebrating can commence). Runners-up were the other shortlisted nominees, Code of Unaris by Goldleaf Games and Dogs in the Vineyard by Lumpley Games. Steve was on hand for the announcement, and he’ll have an update soon with photos, so check back later.
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Might be nice if you’d bothered to credit Alan Moon, who designed the game.
Anyway, I’m off to reread 1984 by Penguin Books while listening to EMI Records’ ‘OK Computer’, and then I’ll sneak out this evening to watch Star Wars by 20th Century Fox.
Hi James,
Yes, I should have credited Alan Moon, and will add that now. I didn’t go into great detail on it because, well, we’ve all been hearing about Ticket to Ride for over a year now due to its Spiel de Jahres and Origins awards. Wasn’t the Diana Jones Award conceived as something to fill in what was overlooked by other awards?
The Diana Jones Award was founded to be an award based on merit, judged by a pan-disciplinary group of industry longtimers, to recognise excellence in gaming in whatever form and at whatever scale we find it. Past nominees have included D&D3e, Mage Knight, and the entire Scandinavian gaming community. It is not the Diana Jones Award for Boutique RPGs.
Fair enough. I cannot, and would not, dispute the merit of Ticket to Ride‘s design. And yes, I remember quite well that abstract concepts like the Scandinavian gaming community have been nominated in the past. I simply remember hearing a mission statement at a Diana Jones ceremony few years back that was to the effect of “this award will help fill in the gaps sometimes ignored by other award ceremonies”, and was surprised that such a prize-winning game (great or not) was being nominated. I mean no offense to Days of Wonder, Alan Moon, or any of the Diana Jones committee.