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We’re delighted to announce that thanks to you – our incredible Bardsung fans, Bardsung won an ENNIE for Best Production Values!
We’re humbled and thrilled you guys love Bardsung just as much as we do. With the hard work and passion of our team, and your invaluable support, we brought an amazing world to life… Together! And the story isn’t over just yet.
Bardsung received the Silver Award for this category, created to recognise “the best production values, from graphic design and layout, editing, paper, binding; all the factors that combine to create the look and feel of the product.”
Sherwin Matthews, Lead Developer for Bardsung had this to say, “I'm immensely proud of not only Bardsung, but of the team that worked so very hard on the project. For our game to have been so warmly received by our wonderful community, and for that to have been recognized by an ENNIE is incredible, and humbling all at once. A heartfelt and personal thank you from me for your passion and enthusiasm—WE ARE BARDSUNG!”
Hang on… What actually ARE the ENNIES?
The ENNIES are an annual award ceremony created in 2001, now taking place each year at the world’s biggest tabletop convention, GenCon. These awards have grown from their initial purpose – to celebrate the achievements of tabletop RPGs and the publishers and products that support them – to present awards across the tabletop industry as a whole.
In their own words, the ENNIEs “are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENNIES give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples’ choice award, and the final winners are voted upon online by the gaming public.”
Why Bardsung?
You might as well tell us! You voted for it after all…
Ok, for the uninitiated, Bardsung: Legend of the Ancient Forge is a cooperative dungeon explorer board game for 1-5 players. Players start with a single tile, building out a branching, labyrinthine dungeon of dangerous enemies, wandering monsters, challenging puzzles, and valuable treasure.
Any award is nice, but we’re particularly delighted to receive an award for Best Production Values. It’s no secret that Bardsung brings new meaning to the phrase ‘big box game’: it’s crammed full of minis, game tiles, rules, and supplementary materials. And we’ll admit, it’s not cheap! Not compared to simpler, smaller board games, that is.
And that’s because we want to bring you the very best tabletop experience we can. We didn’t want to compromise on materials, development time, or anything else when creating Bardsung. In fact, we don’t do that with any of our games.
So, winning an award for Best Production Values shows that, while Bardsung may not be cheap… This big box game – containing 68 detailed minis (with 32 different enemy sculpts, 5 heroes, and an enormous Demon boss mini on a 120mm base!), over 900 Cards, a full set of roleplaying dice, 20 combinable dungeon tiles, a custom GameTrayz insert, full rulebook, and a separate adventure book… Phew! – is undoubtedly great value!
About the 2022 ENNIES Judges
Amelia Antrim
I am a podcaster and game enthusiast. I am one of the co-hosts of Character Creation Cast, a show that explores a variety of RPG systems through the lens of character creation. Each month we sit down with designers, podcasters, and game enthusiasts and run through the process of character creation in a game, and talk about what that process tells us about the game itself, our roles as players, and even about games in general.
Di
Hi, I‘m Di! I’m a TRPG streamer/vtuber, wrote for Gnomestew (a GM-advice blog), and rabble-rouse on Twitter @dicequeenDi. As a tabletop rpg streamer I talk about design and how to improve the game, the experience, and GMing techniques. I’m highly analytical and have been dealing with tabletop rpgs for 14 years—GMing from the beginning
Salim Hakima
I am a freelance game designer and filmmaker. I have made a few board games at SCAD that I plan on publishing at some point in the future. I am most active on twitter where I retweet and support other ttrpg projects, writers, and artists. This will be my second time as a judge and I review all the submissions. There is a lot more creativity out there and I would love to review more of it.
Christopher Gath
I‘ve been gaming for decades and always am on the lookout for the new and creative games and books people are publishing. I’ve been an ENNIE Judge before so I understand as well as anyone what it takes to be successful. I run games online, at conventions and gamedays, and volunteer my time running RPGs for teens at the local library. During the Pandemic I’ve taken to engaging people online by talking about my favorite RPG books and that has been a fun experience.
Christian aka "Shiny"
I am a long time lover of TTRPGs and my life effectively revolves around them. One of the main things we do for fun at our house is listen to TTRPG podcasts, plan/create stuff for new games and play any fun games we can get our hands on!
