Ants beats designs including Galactic Cruise, Speakeasy to win Portugal’s heavyweight-focused Game of the Year award

Ants, the debut release from designers Renato Ciervo and Andrea Robbiani, has scored its first board game award by picking up this year’s Jogo do Ano, the Portuguese game of the year prize.

The worker-management title triumphed amid strong competition from titles including Galactic Cruise – which already has the Dice Tower Awards game of the year and Golden Geek heavy game of the year to its name, and is one of the three finalists for this year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis.

Vital Lacerda design Speakeasy, Dave Beck and Abe Burson’s Luthier and Toni López creation Ada’s Dream were also nominated for the annual prize, which is organised by the non-profit board game association Spiel Portugal.

The Jogo do Ano, which has been presented since 2006, tends to skew towards the heavier end of board gaming, with recent winners including SETI, Nucleum, Barrage and Imperial Struggle.

Spiel Portugal says the type of game it looks for is “strong, spirited, dense, and stimulating”. Each member of the organisation initially selects ten games, with the resulting five finalists played again and scored according to a weighted set of criteria.

Half of the final score is based on what Spiel Portugal calls “time/fun”, with production accounting for 15%, theme, mechanics and replayability each worth 10%, and player interaction making up the remaining 5%.

Ants’ win follows a pair of high-profile award nominations for the design, through both the French As d’Or and the best expert game category of the Nederlandse Spellenprijs.

The title was originally published by Italy-based Cranio Creations, and has since been picked up for localisation by publishers including US-based Capstone Games and Germany’s PD-Verlag.

Ants is the sole design to date from chemist Renato Ciervo, who also works with Italian publishers as a game developer, according to his BoardGameGeek page.

His Ants co-designer, engineer Andrea Robbiani, has subsequently created Maestro – themed around the fierce rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo – and co-designed Timeless Journeys: The Italian Grand Tour with Nestore Mangone.

Ciervo and Robbiani have another unnamed co-design together due to be released next year, according to Robbiani’s BoardGameGeek page.

Jogo do Ano awards 2026

Winner:
Ants – designed by Renato Ciervo and Andrea Robbiani (Published by Cranio Creations)

Nominees:
Ada’s Dream – Toni López (Alley Cat Games)
Galactic Cruise – TK King, Dennis Northcott, Koltin Thompson (Kinson Key Games)
Luthier – Dave Beck and Abe Burson (Paverson Games)
Speakeasy – Vital Lacerda (Eagle-Gryphon Games)