Like many gaming sites, the Cardboard Republic has compiled various Game Of The Year lists over the years. However, the process was always done somewhat informally, mostly because we simply felt we never had enough time to be as thorough as we wanted. As we learned by trial and error, trying to throw together comprehensive lists of interesting, innovative, and high quality games from those released across an entire year proved especially difficult to have ready during typical end of year madness. We often had to skip including games released later in the year because we simply didn’t have the time or resources to check them out in time. Even if they were available, finding the time to try them out was always against us too as we scrambled to have things ready before the ball dropped on the new year.

So, after last year, we decided to do things right. We opted to take our time, forgo trying to rush our efforts, and finally formalize our annual award handling.

The result of those retooled efforts is what we are happily announcing here today, with The Laurels Of The Republic! These awards will showcase what we feel were some of the best games of their respective categories the board gaming world put forth over the last year.

Rather than creating a simple Top Ten List or breaking our nominees down along more traditional categories found elsewhere, The Laurels tie in directly with our gamer archetype approach of how we look at and review games. Each of these six play styles cater to a specific philosophy when it comes to what someone generally desires of a gaming experience, and we wanted to highlight games based on those preferences. (If you aren’t sure where your archetypes fall, we have a handy quiz to take!) As a result, we have created not one, not two, but six different 2015 lists to share with you all.

Starting tomorrow, March 1st, we will be unveiling the first of these, containing the nominees, an honorable mention, and of course, the coveted winner for one of the archetypes. After that, we’ll be releasing between one and two categories a week for the remainder of the month. We definitely hope you tune in each time to see who made the finalists, but let’s just say there may also be some extra incentives lined up to watch for when they hit.

It’s been a lot of work putting these together, but it’s also been a lot of fun, and we’re really excited to share them with you. Who’ll take the gold? Stay tuned to find out!

As a quick technical note, we thought some may be curious as to how we determined cutoff criteria for game eligibility of a given year, which boils down to availability. Our two rules are:

• For Kickstarter games, the game’s date for consideration is based on when it starts being shipped to US backers and is irrespective of when the campaign itself started or ended. Only fulfillment matters. If backers start receiving their copies in January 2015, then it’s eligible for 2015.
• For all traditionally published games, the game’s eligibility starts from when it becomes available in the US via wide-scale or direct distribution during that calendar year. In practical terms, this means many 2015 Essen releases won’t be eligible until the 2016 award cycle, and many games only available via import or a single website may not be eligible at all.