The variety of France’s board game publishing industry has been underscored by the newly-announced nominees of this year’s As d\u2019Or, the country’s highest-profile board game prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Captain Flip<\/a>, designed by Paolo Mori and Remo Conzadori, Maxime Rambourg’s deckbuilder For A Crown<\/a>, and Odin<\/a> from design trio Yohan Goh, Hope Hwang and Gary Kim are battling it out for this year’s general Game of the Year prize, which is focused on the best games accessible to the greatest number of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennerspiel des Jahres winner<\/a> Daybreak<\/a>, citybuilding eurogame Kutn\u00e1 Hora<\/a> and Sankor\u00e9<\/a> – themed around the prestigious 14th-century university in Timbuktu – go head to head in the Expert Game category, while the nominees for the \u201cIniti\u00e9\u201d category, which targets regular board games players ready for more challenging mechanisms, comprise Behind<\/a>, Harmonies<\/a> and Kronologic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across those titles and the three nominees in the children’s game category, Super Meeple and board game giant Asmodee are the only publishers that were nominated last year<\/a> to appear in the 2025 awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French board game publishing major Hachette, the publisher of 2024’s Initi\u00e9 category winner Faraway through its Catch Up Games subsidiary, picked up no nominations this year, and there was also no space for well-known publishers in the country such as Matagot, Blue Orange and Iello – although the latter is the French distributor of two of the nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Super Meeple’s nomination for Sankor\u00e9 in this year’s awards follows its win for La Famiglia last year, while Asmodee picked up two nods through its Repos Productions and Libellud studios for For A Crown and Harmonies respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PlayPunk, the publisher launched in 2023<\/a>\u00a0by 7 Wonders\u00a0and\u00a0Takenoko designer Antoine Bauza<\/a> and\u00a0Repos Productions\u00a0co-founder\u00a0Thomas Provoost, adds to its Spiel des Jahres nomination for Captain Flip<\/a> last year with the As d’Or game of the year nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other French publishers to pick up nominations in this year’s awards include KYF Edition, Origames, LOKI and Auzou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year’s As d’Or game of the year prize was won by light card game Trio, designed by Kaya Miyano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year’s winners are set to be announced on February 27, the day before France’s biggest board game festival, the Festival International des Jeux in Cannes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n