From 1968 Chicago protests to queer life in Georgian London: Summit Award continues to celebrate designs that broaden historical gaming

Games tackling subjects ranging from the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests to the 30-year holdout of Japanese WW2 soldier Hiroo Onoda have been named as finalists in this year’s Summit Award, which aims to recognise historical game designs which have attracted new players or introduced new subjects or perspectives to the hobby.

Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Chicago ‘68, Molly House and Onoda will compete for the fifth edition of the award, which is run by the San Diego Historical Games Convention – an organisation which aims to create a diverse and supportive gaming community dedicated to playing, discussing, designing, and promoting historically-based board games.

Molly House’s nomination continues an extensive awards run for the Jo Kelly and Cole Wehrle design, which won the Complex Games category at this year’s American Tabletop Awards and was also shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming and best heavy strategy game at this year’s Origins Awards.

The game puts players in the roles of the gender-defying mollies of early 18th century London, attempting to build community and joy while facing persecution by the Society for the Reformation of Manners.

Chicago ‘68, designed by Yoni Goldstein and published by the Dietz Foundation, was the most-selected title during the Summit Award’s public nomination process this summer.

The game explores the protests and police response surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention, dividing players between Establishment and Demonstrator factions including the mayor’s office, Chicago Police Department, Yippies and National Mobilization Committee To End The War In Vietnam.

Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, designed by Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini and published by Ingenioso Hidalgo, uses four different battlefield maps to recreate engagements from the Napoleonic Wars in sessions lasting between 60 and 120 minutes.

The fourth finalist is Francisco “Pako” Gradaille’s Onoda, a 25-minute solo game published by Salt & Pepper Games which explores the experiences of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who continued guerrilla warfare on the Philippine island of Lubang until 1974. Judges praised the unusual subject and the way the game asks players to engage with Onoda’s story and decisions.

SDHist also named two honourable mentions in this year’s awards: GMT Games’ The Bell of Treason: 1938 Munich Crisis in Czechoslovakia, designed by Petr Mojžíš, and Absurdist Productions’ Winter Rabbit, designed by William Thompson.

Winter Rabbit, which draws on traditional Cherokee animal stories and was created as a counterpoint to common colonial themes in games, was runner-up in the 2021 Zenobia Award and won the Light Strategy category at this year’s Origins Awards.

The Summit Award considers games across five criteria – ease of teaching, ease of play, uniqueness of topic, novelty of approach and effectiveness as a historical game.

Its previous winners were Fred Serval’s Red Flag Over Paris in 2022, Tory Brown’s Votes for Women in 2023, Alex Knight’s Land and Freedom in 2024 and Dave Neale and David Thompson’s War Story: Occupied France last year.

SDHist, which was launched mainly as a local wargaming group in 2015, is led by wargaming experts including Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection designer Harold Buchanan.

The organisation’s board and board of advisors selected three of this year’s finalists following the public nomination process, which put Chicago ‘68 on the shortlist.

The same groups will select the winner, which is set to be announced at the SDHist Summit convention in San Diego in November.