Kiwis take home top board game award
Two New Zealanders have taken home one of the top prizes in the Spiel de Jahres, an annual awards event considered the Oscars of the board game world.
Kiwis Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray have won the Expert Game Award for their game called Endeavor Deep Sea.
The game has players representing an institute of oceanographers doing research and conservation work.
Players can compete competitively for a score or cooperatively, which is where the trend for expert games has been heading.
Endeavour Deep Sea has players representing an institute of oceanographers doing research and conservation work.
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de Visser told Checkpoint he and Gray had been working on the game for a while before it reached its award-winning form.
"[We] were part of a board game group in Wellington and we sort of put our heads together and said well, let's get something published.
"Our first game was called Endeavour, which Endeavour Deep Sea is sort of based on, and that was in 2009."
After following the competition for a number of years, de Visser said it was great to receive the award.
"It's a pretty big deal for me. I've been very interested in sort of this style of board game and paying attention to this sort of specific award for a number of years."
Previous winners of the award have been launched into the spotlight, with players across the globe.
"One of early winners that New Zealanders might know is Catan, which was one of the big German games that kind of started this sort of trend in this style of game."
The style of game, de Visser said, is co-operative, something that has seen an uptake in players recently.
"The trend recently has been for co-operative games; they're a bit more modern than Monopoly.
"There's usually a small number of players and they used to be very competitive, but now there's more of a trend to co-operative games."
Currently de Visser said he and Gray are not earning a living from making board games. They are working in computer game design, but have high hopes for the future.
"For us, it's been a side hustle, but back then I thought, oh, we probably couldn't make a living from it, but there are now New Zealanders... making a living with it."
He said there has been a resurgence in board games in the last few years.
"I think that's partly a sort of response to how common computer use is that people like to sit around the table and do something a bit more directly hands on."
Currently Endeavour Deep Sea is available to buy or order from various hobby and board game shops, as well as a deluxe version which is available on Kickstarter to people who make a pledge.
