It’s been an amazing year for me game wise. I’ve played over 143 games, with 460 plus plays. Which just leaves me speechless. If I hadn’t been keeping track of my plays I’d never have guessed that high a number.

Regular readers will know I’m partial to jumping on bandwagons. Well this time of year you can’t miss the mass of top ten lists, and game of year posts/videos. So who am I not to go with the flow, shout “me too” and have my own poor attempt at click bait. Who knows I could get into the heady heights of more than thirty views.

My click bait attempt comes in the form of the first Whitespider1066 Game of the Year 2016 Award Ceremony.

So like all good year end award ceromonies I’ve got different catergories, however I’ve streamlined these down to four categories.

First up are the games that really captured their theme.

The contenders for Most Thematic Game of 2016 are:

• Karmaka
• Pandemic Iberia

My Most Thematic Game of 2016 is…

Karmaka. This game just oozes it’s theme. The mechanics just re-enforce the theme of karma. The lovely art work, especially on the score board scream karma. I don’t think I’ve played a game this strongly themed.

Next up are the games that just look stunning, from the art, to the graphical design, to the components used. These games really do prove you should judge a book by its cover.

The contenders for Best Looking Game of 2016 are:

• Scythe
• Hit Z Road
• Pandemic Iberia

My Best Looking Game of 2016 is…

I’m going with Hit Z Road. This light weight Zombie game is just stunning. It’s kind of retro thrown together graphic design and art is beautiful, and really sets up the theme.

For this next award of Best Kickstarter Project to qualify the game had to be delivered in 2016.

The contenders for Best Kickstarter Project 2016 are:

• The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction
• Ages
• Thief’s Market
• Tiny Epic western
• The Others
• Hero Realms

My Best Kickstarter Project 2016 is…

The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction. It’s basically it’s bigger worker placement brother but in a smaller quicker card game format. The deluxe Kickstarter edition with its wooden tokens and box really do this game justice.

Now for the main event…

So as I said back at the start of November I will be picking my game of the year from my list of game of the month winners. There was a slight hiccup with the list, because I didn’t start announcing a game of the month until April. Which means I will have to chose a game of the month for January, February and March looking back at my log of plays for those months.

Here is the complete list of my game of the month winners:

• January – Seasons
• February – Bomb Squad Academy
• March – Eminent Domain
• April – Scoville
• May – Bohemian Villages
• June – The Voyages of Marco Polo, Guilds of London, The Great Heartland Hauling Co. and Imhotep
• July – 7 Wonders Duel
• August – The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction
• September – Istanbul with all the expansions
• October – Escape from Colditz
• November – Scythe
• December – Pandemic Iberia

As you can see this is a pretty strong list. In June I wasn’t able to make a decision and copped out and chose four! It was nearly a decision I copied again in November. 

But a decision has to be made. And I think I know which game it’s going to be.

So my game of 2016 is…

Scythe.

 It had to be. All I can say is the hype was true. This is a wonderful game. Stonemeir Games just keep hitting the ball out of the park. 

Scythe ticks all the boxes. Beautiful artwork, great components, amazing game play, asynchronous factions, replay ability. 

I really do look forward to playing Scythe. The expansion that’s two new factions will be with me any day now. The board expansion is also on its way. Two excuses as if I really needed them to play Scythe again. This game is truly epic.

So there you have my click bait awards. I hope they were of some interest.