Earlier this fall, we announced a little contest asking board game designers for their best Nano Game. We were surprised to receive 29 different games from designers around the US and the world. In early December, we whittled down those pitches to 15 Finalists across 3 categories. You can read more about those finalists here. We have spent the last few weeks playing through the finalists and are ready to announce them here.
We would first like to thank all the judges that took time out of their lives to whittle down the entries and then play the finalists and help us determine the winners. We couldn’t have done it without them.
Josh Edwards
Benjamin Begeal
Jason Tagmire
Todd Walsh
Mike Mullins
Jay Treat
Doug Levandowski
Daniel Newman
Chip Beauvais
Nat Levan
Benny Sperling
John Du Bois
And now onto the winners:
Cards Only
Zen Garden
Jason Meyers
Zen Garden is a 9 card 2 player co-op where you’re trying to deduce the win condition while also meeting it. Some of our judges were already thinking up solo and other variant while playing, showing the versatility of the game space that Jason has built.
Small Fry
Chase Through The Kraken Field
Achim Zien
Anything Goes
Skyscrappers
Rob Cramer
Rob designed a small little card stacking game with a twist! His game for 3-5 players, players will be picking cards simultaneously and stacking them on top of a tower, hopefully keeping it standing. Players could be placing cards on their own, or they could be working with the other players to stack a single card on the tower.
Congrats to the winners and thank you to all of the designers that submitted.