Convention season was very intense in 2024, with GamingTrend attending more tabletop cons than any other year prior. In fact, we went to so many conventions this year we still have content to publish on our Youtube channel from Origins and Gen Con (so keep your eyes peeled!). Needless to say, we’ve been very busy! Unfortunately, our Best of Gen Con Awards piece kept of being put on the back-burner, which is why you are reading this in late November instead of early September. While this definitely isn’t the timeliest we’ve ever been, the fact remains that everything we gave awards to this year is STILL AWESOME! If anything, you, the reader, may actually appreciate this more, since some of these wonderful games are only just now hitting your local game store (or about to). Without further adieu, I present GamingTrend’s Best of Gen Con winners for 2024 (better late than never edition):
Best box to use as part of a Wile E. Coyote trap- The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era
During our Gen Con preview podcast, we speculated that Chip Theory’s pedigree with Too Many Bones would make their Elder Scrolls dungeon crawl a safe bet. Based on our demo, they proved us right: the jailbreak scenario solved the onboarding issue, and we’re all excited to try out the race, class and skill build mashups that’ll make each campaign unique. The result is just short of 30 pounds of Elder Scrolls themed goodness.
Best Gen Con game launch- Gnome Hollow
What a trip Gnome Hollow has been! From our first preview at GAMA Expo 2023 we knew the game and its designer Ammon Anderson were special, and this year at the Op booth the rest of the world got to finally find out just how special it is! Between selling out at the biggest convention in the US and being named game of the month at Barnes & Noble, Gnome Hollow is already a big hit. Don’t be surprised if you see this one on some GOTY lists in a few months…
Best prototype we can’t wait to play again- Gone to Gaia
When you’ve got tight combat designed by up-and-comer Quinn Brander integrated with a real story by Isaac Vega’s Rose Gauntlet, you’re already looking at a recipe for success. Add in a dash of rougelite semi-random builds and permadeath, and we’re drooling! Stay tuned to Gamingtrend for more on this campaign driven game!
Best game for Marvel comic nerds- Comic Hunters
When we busted out Comic Hunters back at the Airbnb, and every game we’ve played since we got home from Gen Con, our EIC Mike Dunn had at least three comments on the quality of an issue a particular card represented. Any time a piece of media gives someone the space to share and celebrate a part of themselves with people, that’s inarguably awesome. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the game is pretty good, too.
Best new expansion- Age Contrived: Folklore and Pilgrimage
Bellows Intent’s upcoming expansion for Age Contrived doesn’t look to turn the game on its head, simply add more gorgeously produced content for fans of an already deep and gorgeous game. As fans of the base game (and expect a review soon), we are eager to take the 2 new characters and two new game modules for a spin, as well as curious as to how it shifts the focus from the gods to the mortals that worship them. Honestly, it’s looking like it’s just what it needed to be.
Best paper money- Rock hard 1977
We may be guilty of component snobbery here at GT. We’ve got at least 3 full sets of Iron Clays with the home team; who knows the last time we’ve even used cardboard tokens for money. We’ll actually use Rock Hard’s paper money, though, which has the texture and weight of real bills, right down to little doodles and imperfections. The whole game looks to be of a similar quality, and designer and ex-Runaway Jackie Fox is a wizard and an absolute delight on top.
Best game likely to end up on GOTY lists- Arcs
It took a few plays of the base game, mini expansion Leaders & Lore, and a campaign before it loosened its grip on our brains. Anything that we aren’t reviewing (yet) that takes over our gaming lives like that obviously has merits. Don’t be surprised if you hear more about Arcs from us soon…
Best company ethos- Modiphius
When we scheduled an interview with Chris, co-founder of Modiphius, we expected to hear about the new games they had in the works and talk about some design inspiration. What we did not expect was to have an in depth conversation with a down to earth gamer that values the player as much as they do success. It was refreshing to talk with an industry leader that cares so much about the players and is actively doing things to increase access to games, like offering their lines of miniatures as STL files while others are locking models behind expensive faction boxes and limited release cycles. Chris’s passion for the games Modiphius makes was easy to feel and their lineup of IPs like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Disc World, and Mass Effect is hard to beat right now. By far the best conversation we had all week.
Best chair to preside over a TPK in- Deluxe Dragon Chair
From the moment we saw it at Origins, we knew the Deluxe Dragon Chair was something special. As comfortable as it is regal, this throne of games is also designed to work at the game table without causing your back to ache. There is no surer way for a GM to command respect from their players!
Best beloved name in games brought back from the dead-Mayfair
An era ended in 2018 when Asmodee bought Mayfair Games only to spin off Catan into its own studio and shutter up the rest of the once proud brand. The trademark shield logo is back, however, under the guidance of Mr B Games’ Sean Brown as a part of Webbed Sphere, Inc. This new incarnation is working to bring back some old classics as well as bringing over new European treats to US shelves, just like the original did back in the day!
Best new entry in a series- Undaunted 2200: Callisto
All of the Undaunted games have tweaked the basic deckbuilding skirmish formula in their way, but none to the extent of Callisto, with its new setting, wildly asymmetric factions, and inclusion of d8 and d12 for elevation has got to be the biggest change in a single title (not to mention the shift from historical combat to science fiction). We can’t wait to get it to the table!
Best drawing game that is still fun for people that can actually draw- Caution Signs
Classics like Pictionary and Telestrations seem to work better the less drawing skill the players have, where the fun is squarely focused on how impossible it is to guess from a handful of derpy sketches and the well drawn stuff is just plain boring. Caution Signs manages to avoid that by imposing a much shorter timer (20 seconds), not much time for detail and actually perfect for drawing gestures (Gesture drawing is the act of laying down the rhythm, action and form lines that make up the pose of a character or subject.). It’s incredibly gratifying for the guesser to intuit the correct answer from just a handful of lines on the board.
Best hobby product- Lethal shadows Paint Weaver
Airbrushing has been around for decades, yet even in the age of “look it up on google” remains an arcane practice with a high cost of entry. That is, until Lethal Shadows came onto the scene with their ultra portable airbrush set, the Paint Weaver. Boasting a rechargeable compressor that fits in the palm of your hand, and a better than average airbrush made explicitly for painting minis, the Paint Weaver gives hobbyists a great kit to explore new heights of creativity.
Best games designed to bring more players into the hobby- Japanime games
Obviously we’re all pretty deep in the paint for tabletop gaming, but the hobby remains rather niche. Japanime’s current lineup seeks to help remedy that by being accessible for those weebs so we can show more people how amazing the space is nowadays. Be sure to check out Oshi Push, Glitter Hearts, and Queerz! For a look at how Japanime is bringing gaming to a wildly diverse fanbase of anime lovers!
Best post-convention curveball – Stormlight TTRPG becomes Cosmere TTRPG
There are two types of people, those that are fans of Brandon Sanderson and those that have not heard of him yet. We’re happy to count ourselves in the first group and could not be more excited for Brotherwise Games and the Stormlight TTRPG. The opportunity to throw on Shard Plate and take to the skies as a Wind Runner or charge the chasms with a bridge crew and tell our own stories in Brandon’s amazing worlds is an experience that any TTRPG fan should take a look at. What we didn’t expect was the surprise broadening of the game to include the more expansive Cosmere settings, not just Stormlight. The 55k backers on the record setting Kickstarter seem to agree.
Best new roll and move- Molly house
Co-designer Cole Wehrle is a master of manipulating mechanics in a way to put his players in the headspace of his games’ subjects without their knowledge. While his work at Leder Games on games such as Root and Arcs has been hit after hit, it’s the games he’s been self publishing with brother Drew under the Wehrlegig Games banner that have hit hardest for us. We’ve taken a few looks at Molly House before this, but when they announced earlier this year they were going to overhaul the player movement mechanic and make the game a roll and move, a mechanic that is often derided in the hobby space these days, you could almost hear a collective gasp. He’s earned our trust that rolling the dice on the move from worker placement to roll and move was the way to go, and his collaboration with new designer Jo Kelly is shaping up to be something very special.
Best charity event that features a bunch of people acting like animals
It is always a joy to chat with voice actor, game player, and all-around sweetheart Anjali Bhimani, and this year we got to sit down with her in person to hear about her charity event that combines actual play with pets. This awesome fundraising event took place in late August (but you can still donate and help Petco Love find homes for loving pets here: https://tiltify.com/@sweeetanj/the-puppy-roll-dd-live-for-petco-love?origin=dashboard), but you can still watch to see if someone calls Matt Mercer a “good boy”.
Best thing we couldn’t talk about yet- Unmatched: Muhammad Ali vs Bruce Lee
At the end of our meeting with Restoration Games this year, we got a tiny little sneak peek at something that we had to swear to keep secret- the return of Bruce Lee to Unmatched (the original expansion is still fetching quite a premium on the secondary market), but paired with another legendary fighter, none other than Muhammed Ali! We were going to be much more cheeky about this award, but since we took so long to post, we were beat to the punch (heh) by Restoration themselves, who announced the new set back in September for a 2025 release.
Best game that exposes uncomfortable truths about the past- Burn the Fort
“Colonizers have built a military fortress and are waging a brutal invasion of your lands. Can you prevent their wagons from bringing supplies to the fort and burn it to the ground before the train reaches the Golden Spike?” Burn the Fort is a game about resistance, betrayal, and ultimately the failure of indigenous tribes to stave off the colonization of their lands. Historical based games have long glorified specific battles or conflicts, it is refreshing to see a game tackle a moment in time in an honest way that makes players think about the real-life impacts of the theme, exposing perspectives that were never taught in the history books.
Best game that gave us hope we’ll meet aliens someday- SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
CGE has been doing some really fun stuff with Euros these days (See Kutna Hora), and SETI looks like it’s continuing that streak with intriguing gameplay, a great theme, and awesome table presence. While the theme is mostly set in the reality of hard science of space exploration, it’s when your probes start getting finding other planets that the twist happens, with each randomly selected alien discovered in the game brings with it a whole new batch of rules and puzzles to solve.
Best indie TTRPG- Shadowdark
Kelsey Dionne’s grimdark “old-school fantasy adventure game with modern design” hit big this year, wracking up four Ennies (the preeminent awards for TTRPGS) at Gen Con, including Product of The Year. We’d been hearing about this little gem of a game in the months prior, and when we finally got to check it out we came away very impressed! Look for more coverage of Shadowdark in the coming months from GamingTrend!
And that’s it for this year’s awards! You can check out all of our Gen Con coverage here on the site or if you like watching videos more, hit up our Tabletop Playlist on our Youtube Channel! Next year we’ll be more timely with this, we promise!
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