The Japan Boardgame Prize is an annual award sponsored by U-more, an organization whose goal is to spread the culture of board games in Japan. There are two different awards each year and the winners for 2023 were recently announced. Before I give the results, let me explain how the two awards work.
The “U-more award” is chosen by a jury from the organization and is aimed at more introductory games. The games tend to be the weight of SdJ winners, although they are sometimes a little heavier. The award was temporarily suspended in 2020, following the outbreak of Covid–this is the first year since then that it has been awarded.
The “Voting award” is just that: an award based on the picks from the general public, who can vote for their favorites on the U-more website and events sponsored by the organization in Japan. These games run the gamut as far as weight is concerned, as you can see from the last few winners (Codenames, Kingdomino, Terraforming Mars, L.L.A.M.A., It’s a Wonderful World, Lost Ruins of Arnak, and Ark Nova)–it’s just the game the voters like the best.
This year, the voters chose Challengers!, which beat out runner-up Darwin’s Journey by a significant margin. This is the fourth significant award for Challengers!. Its biggest honor was taking the Kennerspiel last year, but it also won the As d’Or Initiate award and was one of the three winners of the Meeples Choice Awards. Darwin’s has now received nominations in four awards, but has yet to win any of them. The next two spots in the voter’s list went to Earth and Revive.
The U-more jury chose Akropolis. Akropolis also won the General As d’Or earlier and has been nominated numerous other times. The other two nominated games in this category are Challengers! and Super Mega Lucky Box.
The top 10 finishers for the Voting award (and their point count) and the three nominated games for the U-more are given below, together with their designers. Congratulations to the winners!
VOTING AWARD
- Challengers! (Johannes Krenner, Markus Slawitscheck) – 156
- Darwin’s Journey (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – 74
- Earth (Maxime Tardif) – 57
- Revive (Kristian Ostby, Eilif Svensson, Helge Meissner, Anna Wermlund) – 56
- Nanatoridori (Toshiki Arao) – 47
- Sea Salt & Paper (Bruno Cathala, Theo Riviere) – 46
- Heat: Pedal to the Medal (Asger Granerud, Daniel Pedersen) – 45
- Turing Machine (Yoann Level, Fabien Gridel) – 44
- Glittering Jewels – 43
- Super Mega Lucky Box (Phil Walker-Harding) – 40
U-MORE AWARD
Winner: Akropolis (Jules Messaud)
Nominated: Challengers! (Johannes Krenner, Markus Slawitscheck)
Nominated: Super Mega Luck Box (Phil Walker-Harding)
