Scythe, Codenames and Stone Age Junior lead 2017 As d’Or award nominations

The nominations are in for this year’s As d’Or (that’s ‘Golden Ace’ to you non-French speakers out there) awards, and it’s clearly been another bumper year for the tabletop.

Ten games have made the shortlist for three categories, divided into titles for ‘everyone’, ‘children’ and ‘experts’.

Heading up the everyone nominees is Vlaada Chvatil’s 2015 Spiel des Jahres winner Codenames, which will go head-to-head with Japanese item-guessing game Imagine, Bruno Cathala’s mashup of dominos and Carcassonne in tile-layer Kingdomino, and the upcoming Unlock series of escape-the-room puzzle games from Space Cowboys.

Over in the kids’ category is Animouv, a game of lining up animal cards designed by Nedergaard Martin Andersen; stick-picking dexterity effort Kikou Cuckoo (Go Cuckoo! in English); and Stone Age Junior, Marco Teubner’s winner of the 2016 Kinderspiel des Jahres.

Lastly, the three contenders for the expert division are arguable front-runner Scythe from Jamey Stegmaier, Monolith’s co-op adaptation of Conan and sci-fi deckbuilder Star Realms.

The winners will be awarded at the Festival International des Jeux, taking place in Cannes on February 23rd.