NZGA Awards for 2009:
There were a wide variety of quality games entered for the inaugural 2009 NZGA Awards.
We are pleased to announce the following winners:
New Game of the Year 2009 - The New Zealand Investment Game by Frank Newman
Teacher’s Choice Award 2009 - The Amazing Moa Hunt Game by IQideas
Children’s Choice Award 2009 - The Amazing Mammoth Hunt by IQideas
Thanks to our independent panels of judges who assessed the games entered for these awards.
Press Release:
New Zealand Games Association Award Winners 2009 – making Christmas shopping for savvy parents easy!
The New Zealand Games Association is proud to announce the winners of their inaugural board game design awards for 2009.
The awards fall into 3 categories; The New Game of the Year Award, The Teacher’s Choice Award, and The Children’s Choice Award. To be eligible for entry the board game had to be designed by a New Zealander and to be available nationally throughout the country in 2009.
The Judging panel included students and teachers from a cross-section of New Zealand schools and regions. It also included two celebrity judges, Jim Mora and Judith Dobson (both avid family game players), plus highly respected educational and child psychologist Lynne Beresford.
The New Game of the Year 2009 was awarded to Frank Newman’s, New Zealand Investment Game (www.pursuit.co.nz), a game that simulates investment markets and allows players to invest money and accumulate wealth through the safety of a board game, while learning valuable lessons which can be applied in real life. Aside for inventing board games, Frank Newman is the highly acclaimed author of such books as ‘Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag’, and ‘Making Money on the New Zealand Sharemarket’.
The Teachers Choice Award 2009 was awarded to local game development company IQideas for The Amazing Moa Hunt Game (www.IQideas.com). The Amazing Moa Hunt was the first in a range of New Zealand specific board games from IQideas, which also includes The Amazing Mammoth Hunt, another winner for the 2009 competition taking out the Children’s Choice Award 2009. This franchise of games from IQideas was one of the strongest selling amongst all board games in New Zealand over the last 12 months. The Amazing Mammoth Hunt has also won a number of international awards, including the USA’s Teachers Choice Award 2008, and the USA’s National Parenting Centre Award 2008.
The New Zealand Games Association was established earlier this year to foster and support innovation in board game design and development in New Zealand. David Allis, Association Chairman said in a comment “The quality of the entries in this first awards round shows that New Zealand designers have the talent and innovation to take on the top board game companies in the world … we have an opportunity to develop games locally that are specific to the New Zealand market. That’s something that the large international game manufacturers are simply never going to be capable of. I think the New Zealand public will really respond to that.”
For further comment, please contact David Allis (Chairman NZ Games Association) on mobile: 021-655-485 or phone: +64-9-445-1296
