The Awards

2023-2024 Winners

Over the course of May-September 2024, 11 judges read through 104 submissions from 78 creators.

These are the 20 winners.

A tableau of several objects: sprigs of several green plants, an animal skull, several Rider-Waite tarot cards, an old-fashioned red pen, and a game book of "The Almanac of Sanguine Paths." The cover of the book is green and yellow, with a wolf in the bottom left corner looking back over its shoulder toward the viewer.

The Almanac of Sanguine Paths

Writer/Designer/Artist/Layout: Rori Montford
Editor: Sarah Madsen

Border Riding

Author: Jo Reid
Illustrator: Eli Spencer

An illustrated landscape of trees against a white backdrop. Amid the trees is a walled town with plumes of smoke rising from building chimneys. In front of the town a ride holds a banner and a horn as they sit atop a galloping white horse. The text "Border Riding" rests above the town.
The image is largely in a black-and-white woodcut style. Two hands come in from the top corners, each with a pinky finger extended. A yellow thread wraps around both pinkies, connects in a knot, and turns into the dashed yellow boundary line found in the middle of a paved asphalt road. Text in the bottom middle of the image reads "Bound".

Bound

Writer, Designer, Illustrator: Kaden Ramstack

Budding

Designers: Michelle Y. Kim, Agatha Cheng

An illustrated pink branch with pink flowers sits against a lighter pink background. Text above the branch: "Budding". Text below the branch: "A Good Society hack by Michelle Y. Kim and Agatha Cheng".
An illustration of a human with long dark hair that is suspended in the air plays a flute. They wear a decorative hat with several points. A cicada flies above their head and the illustration has stylized cicadas along the bottom border. Text above the image: "Ecological Science Fantasy RPG Cloud Empress"

Cloud Empress

Designer/Graphic designer/Layout: watt

ECO MOFOS!!

Writer/Layout/Designer: David Blandy

An illustration of two humans in the fetal position are in front of an enormous ant head. Plant tendrils reach in from the bottom and sides of the image as though grasping for the people. Text in the bottom left corner: "ECO MOFOS"
Three mockups of the games fill the image. One is "THIS MAZE WILL BE BIG ENOUGH TO LIVE IN SOMEDAY", another is "L0ST K1NGD0M", and the third is "RUN ON VENTACORP". The background is a colorful pixel art landscape, with some stairs and plants visible in the bottom right corner. Text in the bottom left corner: "FORGOTTEN PALACES"

Forgotten Palaces

Designer: Anna Anthropy
Illustrator: Jacob Potterfield
Cover photographer: Foone Turing

GLYPH

Concept/Design: Anthony Ferguson, Avah Crowe, Clarke Weir, Dave Wilson, & Zakk Appleyard
Writers: Zakk Appleyard, Dave Wilson
Artists/Layout: Clarke Weir, Dave Wilson
Editor: Anthony Ferguson

A black and white cover image with nested circles and hexagons forming an arcane-seeming pattern. Additional runes are included (whether invented or used in real world alchemical symbology is unclear). Text on the left side of the image: "GLYPH"
A black and white line drawing of a bald man with white skin, dark sideburns, and a dark mustache. An industrial landscape with smokestacks stretches out behind him. Text in the bottom right corner: "Hoss, Tim Obermueller, Logan Dean, Art by Bordercholly"

Hoss

Writers: Tim Obermueller, Logan Dean
Artist: Bordercholly

In Other Waters: Tidebreak

Writers/Designers/Artists: Gareth Damian Martin, Lone Archivist

The viewer looks up toward a blue sky with white clouds from beneath the water. Two spaceships fly in the sky, one large with four engines and one much smaller with a single engine. In the center of the image is a creature that resembles a manta ray but with a body that is mostly transparent and lacking a tail. The center of its body and head are solid yellow. Text at the bottom: "In Other Waters: Tidebreak"
An image done all in reds, purples, yellows, and whites of a with with a tall pointed hat riding a motorcycle with a cat on the back. The license plate reads "XO8WTCH". The road they are riding on has a low stone wall, behind which is a little town on the shore of a body of water. Text in the top left corner: "Koriko, a magical year"

Koriko: A Magical Year

Writer/Designer/Layout: Jack Harrison
Illustrator: Deb JJ Lee

La Desbandá 1937

Designer: Pablo López

A photograph of maps, pages of text, books, and dice lying on a cracked beige surface. In the center of the picture is the game of of "La Desbandá 1937", a photograph of a dirt road winding into a semicricle of dark trees.
An illustration in a woodcut style of four animals (rooster, cat, dog, and donkey) against a black background.

Last Train to Bremen

Designer/Layout/Art Director: Caro Asercion
Illustrator/Layout Developer: Conner Fawcett
Dramaturg/Editor: Weaver Walker

The Levanté Papers

Organizers: Biscuit Fund Games (Chloe Montgomery and Alyssa Ridley)

On the left side of the image is a scientific illustration of a mimic (a monster imitating a treasure chest) showing its anatomical parts and internal organs. Text on the right: "The Levanté Papers: Unauthorised Essays by Scorned Academics, A Collaboration Lead by Biscuit Fund Games"
A black and white illustration in the style of 18th/19th century US periodicals. A naked woman sits in the bath, covering her breasts with her arms. Another woman sits on the edge of the tub in a long black dress looking at the first woman. Blocky letters that appear to be teetering on the edge of falling on them spell out "Liaison"

Liaison

Designer: Merrilee Bufkin

Lyrical Ludology

Host/Editor: Logan Timmins
Additional Editor: Nimaël
Logo Artist: Manet Jagers

A green grass background with a few people walking on it and one riding a bike. Several red six-sided dice are scattered about as well. Text in the center of the image: "Discuss games with the Lyrical Ludology Podcast" (the O's in Ludology have been replaced by smiling faces looking at each other). Text on the bottom of the image: "Brought to you by Logan Timmins"
A black and white image of a person in draped cloth garments faces away from the viewer, looking at a Southeast-Asian style building with a steep roof and intricate curved lines decorating the upper part of the building facing the viewer. A series of gray lumpen masses with many whorls adorning them (likely an enormous hornet's nest) rises behind the building, spilling over it in places. Text at the top of the image: "Kala Mandala, Adventure, Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya". Text at the bottom of the image: "Munkao"

Stirring the Hornet’s Nest at Het Thamsya

Writer/Artist/Layout: Munkao
Cultural Consultant/Additional Writer: Elizabeth Gimbad
Editor: Brad Kerr

Thousand Year Old Campfire or Old Morris Cave: A Continuous Use Campsite in Mammoth Cave National Park

Designer/Layout/Artist: Tim Hutchings
Editor/Proofreader: E2 Industries

A flow chart, some of its circular nodes only partially visible. The two that are fully visible say "Or maybe" and "You want to get bit all over?". The first points to the second with an arrow.
A black and white woodcut-style image with red accents shows a human hand holding an Ace of Diamons card over a candle. The smoke from the burning card culminates in the suggestion of a face with large curled ram's horns and red eyes. Text in the top left corner: "Wreck This Deck, Becky Annison, A solo journaling game of demon summoning and deck crafting"

Wreck This Deck

Designer/Writer: Becky Annison
Artist/Layout: Elizabeth Lovegrove

Yes, Vandpire

Designer: Jonathon ‘Starshine’ Scribbles

An image that looks as though it is printed on a wrinkled piece of paper. In the center are three people: on the left a woman with light skin, hair in two long brown braids, black-rimmed square glasses, and making a silly face sticking her tongue out; in the center a woman with medium brown skin, long brown hair, a bowl on her head, and a shocked expression; on the right a man with light skin, a dark beard with hair shaved close to the skin, a gray newsboy cap, and a serious expression. Text at the top: "Pepoke Local Theater Inc Presents Yes, Vandpire, Hosted by 'Wacky' Wayne Philips". Text at the bottom: "A night of side-splitting improv action featuring the best performers from the 'Intro to Improv' class And Vampires!!!"