7 Wonders Architects wins 2022 As d’Or board game award
Dune Imperium wins expert award.
7 Wonders Architects, the spin-off board game about civilisation building, has won the 2022 As d’Or award for Game of the Year.
Beating out the competition of storytelling game Cartaventura: Lhasa – by Thomas Dupont and Arnaud Ladagnous – and Airu and Toshiki Sato’s Happy City, 7 Wonders Architects, a board game by the creator of the original 7 Wonders, Antoine Bauza, was handed the As d’Or Game of the Year 2022 award. (Thanks to Reddit user d6bels.) Reserved for family-friendly board games designed to be accessible to a wider audience, the As d’Or Game of the Year award has previously been given to the co-op deduction game Micro Macro: Crime City – which has players working together to solve crimes using the illustrated map of a city – and the hidden role card game Oriflamme.
7 Wonders Architects is a beginner board game for two to seven players that takes place in a nebulas time in history wherein various famous civilisations are all vying for power and renown. Each player takes on the role of a civilisation – getting their own unique ability – and must attempt to build their own wonder and collect as many points as possible. On their turn, players are able to take a card from the deck to their left, their right or from the middle. Whilst the top card on the left and right decks is sat faceup, the cards in the middle remain facedown. When players have chosen their card, they immediately play it and gain its benefits.
Cards in 7 Wonders Architects can give players the resources they need to build their wonder, victory points, scientific advancement or shields for battle. Collecting three of the same science card will enable players to take a special ability card. If three horn cards are taken, then a battle is fought and the player with the most shields compared to their opponents will gain points. Whichever player has the most points by the time someone has completed their wonder is named the game’s winner.
The As d’Or winner for Best Children’s Game 2022 was Bubble Stories (Matthew Dunstan), which took the award over Justin DeWitt’s My First Castle Panic and Pin Pon! by Julie Bregeot.
Dune Imperium, a deckbuilding game by Paul Dennen and based on the popular sci-fi novels by Frank Herbert, was given the award for Best Expert Game 2022, winning against rival deckbuilding game Lost Ruins of Arnak (Elwen and Min) and Iki, a board game designed by Koota Yamada about a market in the Edo period of Japan.
The award for the newly created Insider category – which is intended for board games that sit between the beginner As d’Or Game of the Year and Expert Game categories – was handed to Living Forest by Aske Christiansen. The forest-themed board game beat out Nouvelles ContRées by Germain Winzenschtark and the fantasy co-op board game by Antoine Bauza and John Grümph, Oltréé.
The announcement of the 2022 As d’Or Awards signaled the start of the FIJ 2022 Game Fair, which is held in Cannes, France.