Flip 7 continues awards run with Origin Award victory, Fromage and Endeavor: Deep Sea also among winners -

Press your luck card-flipping game Flip 7 has added another award to its collection by being crowned best party game at this year’s Origin Award competition, one of board gaming’s longest-running prizes voted on by industry professionals.

The Eric Olsen design fought off competition from titles including Peter C Hayward’s Things in Rings and Ito by Mitsuru Nakamura – who also goes by the moniker 326 – to scoop the award, adding to its Golden Geek Award for best party game from earlier this year.

Flip 7 is one of the three finalists for this year’s much-coveted Spiel des Jahres award, alongside Bomb Busters and Krakel Orakel, which will be announced in October, and has also picked up nominations for best party game and best new designer in the Dice Tower Awards, set to be announced at Gen Con on August 7.

The game has been top of BoardGameGeek’s weekly bestsellers chart for more than 10 weeks, fighting off competition from other strong sellers this year including Harmonies and Sky Team.

Designer Eric Olsen told BoardGameWire last month, “I knew the game was solid. It was playtested hundreds of times for almost two years. I had high hopes because I knew David Blanchard and Tony Serebriany at [publisher] The OP and The OP’s stellar track record with family and party games. Still – I never anticipated the insane rocket ride that Flip 7 has been on this year.”

Marine research eurogame Endeavor: Deep Sea – a nominee for this year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres – took home the prize for best heavy game at this year’s Origin Awards, which were announced on June 21 at the Origins Game Fair.

That win came in a hotly-contested category, which featured competition from Cole Wehrle’s much-discussed trick-taking and space strategy design Arcs, Tomáš Holek’s popular solar system exploration game SETI and Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala’s big-selling Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth.

Endeavor, designed by Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray, also picked up this year’s Sustainability Award for its environmentally conscious themes and production.

The game is entirely made from biodegradable Forest Stewardship Council-certified materials, aside from its Game Trayz inserts, which are crafted from bagasse, a dry pulpy fibrous material that remains after crushing sugarcane stalks to extract their juice.

Publisher Burnt Island Games also persuaded its factory, Bang Wee Industries, to switch over to FSC materials for its other productions, and Burnt Island added that it aimed to minimise its carbon footprint during distribution.

Other winners included Fromage, designed by Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset, in the light strategy game category, Marvel United: Multiverse from Andrea Chiarvesio and Eric Lang as best solo/co-op game and Seaside from Bryan Burgoyne as best gateway game.

The new-look awards, which are organised by non-profit trade organization GAMA, have been in heavy flux over the past few years, going from 10 categories in 2019 to 24 last year, and significantly shaking up the make-up of those categories from year to year.

GAMA shrunk the awards back down to 12 categories this year, with no room for new segments introduced in 2024 to better represent GAMA’s growing expansion beyond just retailers, publishers and wholesalers.

Categories cut from the list this year include Best Media Production, Best Game Related Writing and Best 2D artwork, although the miniatures segment has been expanded from two categories to three this time around, covering games, the miniatures themselves, and paint and accessories.

But the overall number of nominated games competing across the reduced categories this year soared by more than 50%, from 79 to 120.

A total of 50 board games fought it out this year across five categories, with co-op and solo games being pulled together into a single award, while other awards celebrated fixed and randomised constructable games such as Magic: The Gathering, miniatures games and individual miniatures, and RPG titles and supplements.

GAMA also revealed its hall of fame entrants this year, awarded – like the Origins Awards – by its division the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design.

AAGAD describes itself as “a peer based network of gaming industry professionals whose mission is to promote innovation and excellence in design and production of games and game related materials”.

Individuals inducted into the hall of fame this year include Qwirkle designer Susan McKinley-Ross, Castles of Burgundy creator Stefan Feld and Ryo Mizuno, the Japanese writer behind the Record of Lodoss War.

Vlaada Chvátil design Codenames and R&R Games’ charades-like game Time’s Up have also been inducted to the hall of fame this year.

Mike Pondsmith, the founder of R Talsorian Games and creator of the Cyberpunk RPG, received this year’s Rick Loomis Service Award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and lifelong contributions to the tabletop gaming community.

The Full List of Winners for the 48th Origin Award Competition

Co-Op / Solo Game

Marvel United: Multiverse – CMON (Asmodee)

Designers: Andrea Chiarvesio and Eric Lang

Gateway Game

Seaside – Hachette Boardgames USA

Designer: Bryan Burgoyne

Party Game

Flip 7 – The Op

Designer: Eric Olsen

Heavy Strategy Game

Endeavor: Deep Sea – Burnt Island Games / KTBG