GOTY for Board Game

I'm pretty new to the hobby and since the annual excitement for "Video" GOTY is approaching. I was wondering...

Is there any publication out there doing something similar during the year-end thing like Giant Bomb?

I'm not counting proper awards like Spiel des Jahres and that kind of stuff.

I mean, there's Shut up and sit down, Dice Tower, and some other Youtube peeps.

Boardgamegeek.com will probably have a nice collection of user lists and proper "publication" lists to sort through.

Board Game Geek will have a bunch of lists.

Rahdo on YouTube will usually have one late December/Early January

I imagine Gloomhaven will be the #1 for most people

It's Gloomhaven though.

@captnkamikaze: @captain_insano: Is Gloomhaven that good? Dark Souls was the last time I spent that much on a board game and I'm loathe to do it again so soon.

Dice Tower crew just put up their lists if you want one in video form.

http://www.dicetower.com/game-video/top-10-games-2017

Without a dedicated 3 people to sit down and play GloomHaven with me, I'm not even considering putting money into it. Which is sad cause it looks like the kinda game I would happily spend that kinda cash on. If it were half the price I might even do it despite not having a dedicated group to play it with.

As it is, the group I'm with is less 'board game club' and more 'now adult high-school friends who get together every so often' which means BIG group sizes. (7+) Which is great!..but it means the number of games we play gets sharply reduced, which is meh.

That said..I think our game of the year is still Avalon, despite it not being new. That is by far the easiest one to pick up and play. Even for someone like me, who is absolutely awful at it. As for games released this year..yah. Might be better to check communities (BGG etc) where a lot of people buy a lot of board-games each year. Me and Mine do, but not 'the newest ones as soon as they release', not on purpose anyhow. And nothing that translates well to the more tradition 3-6 player range.

That said if you've never played Avalon, its great.

I played my copy of Gloomhaven solo for the first time the other day. I can see why it is highly regarded. The gameplay is far smoother than something like Mage Knight, but still deep enough to offer challenge. The game has a ridiculous amount of content for what you get. I’ll need to spend more time with it but can see where the praise is coming from.

My copy of Gloomhaven arrived a week ago, but I've been spending all my time putting together the Broken Token insert for it, and now I need to punch out all the tiles and get all the pieces organized. My game group won't be able to meet this week, so I won't be able to play it until after Christmas unless I just run a quick solo mission to see how it plays

@bollard: It's crazy good. I do not regret a single buck spent on it.

Can this also just be a general "hey check out this cool game" thread? If so I would like to give a shout out to Smash Up. The two expansions released this year, "What Were We Thinking" and "Big in Japan", were great and added some fun factions to an already amazing game.