"Getting a Vietnamese game -to- Essen was never really the goal - getting it there ready to sell is."
JinxO designer Martin Ang's victory underscores the growing internationality of the venerable German board games award, which until last year's success for Hishashi Hayashi's Bomb Busters had never been won by an Asian designer.
This year's As d'Or sees Flip 7, Rebirth and Toy Battle fighting it out for the main prize, with Arcs, Civolution and Ants competing for the expert game award.
A long list of more than 20 titles has been whittled down to six challengers for the complex game category for this year: Galactic Cruise, Luthier, Shackleton Base, Speakeasy, Thebai and Thesauros, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.
Five finalists have been unveiled in the latest board game designer of the year contest held by Lucca Comics & Games, one of Europe's biggest comics and tabletop gaming festivals.
Umataka, a worker placement game centred around hunter-gatherers making traditional pottery in ancient Japan, has been named game of the year in the latest Golden Box Board Game Awards.
A 17-year-old German children's game has won this year's Japan Boardgame Prize, almost two decades after it picked up a recommendation in the kids segment of the much lauded Spiel des Jahres competition.
Forest Shuffle has added to its triumph in the German language Deutscher Spiele Preis last month by winning the Gouden Ludo Flemish family game of the year award.
The Porters, a board game exploring the struggle of early 20th Century Black Canadian railway workers to overcome racism and organise unions, has become the second winner of the Zenobia Award - a contest aimed at lifting up game designers from marginalised groups.
Woodcraft, the woodworking eurogame designed by Vladimír Suchý and Ross Arnold, has scooped the Gouden Ludo Flemish expert game of the year prize.
