Contest Granollers (Spain)

The contest is organized by Oriol Comas i Coma, a game designer and writer from Barcelona, and is part of the annual jugarXjugar games fair in Granollers. This is the fourth time in which Oriol has run the contest, which has attracted a steadily increasing numbers of designs each year: 32 in 2007, 57 in 2008, and 73 in 2009. The small (but growing) Spanish publisher nestorgames has already published several of those designs, while the 2008 finalist was published by the French company Cocktail Games as 22 Pommes.

And, I am happy to (belatedly) report, Jukers! also made it through to the shortlist of the Granollers contest, along with 12 others games by designers from Spain, France and Luxembourg, selected from 185 submissions. The winner and runner-up were BZZZ by Juan Carlos Pérez and Curia by Toni Giménez, and many hearty congrats to both of them!

Amanita
Alain Ollier (La Roche Noire, France)
2 to 5 players
A family game, fast, set in a forest where they are the best mushrooms and mushroom pickers of that fit. Little by little you know what you end up finding not always be mushrooms!

Bora Bora
Ludovic Gimet (Saint Just of Avray, France)
2 players
A fascinating mix of majority game and play connection with an unusual and effective mechanism: the adversary compensate for the chips do you get when you occupy territories.

Bzzz
Juan Carlos Perez (Terrace)
3 to 5 players
Game familiar, simple and with different strategies, set in a hive full of bees that make honey. They know how important it is to go for the best flowers for pollen, and arrive before the other bees.

Curia
Toni Gimenez (Barcelona)
3 to 5 players
Mix of majority game of cards with powers and auction entitled to veto a game where you need to beg favors Roman senators. Are you ready to go, because they are not always quite honest.

Dorix
Loïc Lamy (Aurignac, France)
2 players
Small abstract game (played on a board of 4x4 squares), where rise towers of chips to make them fall on the boxes that you have been to win. With a little though: not all chips are the color of the column you want.

Jukers!
Brett Gilbert (Cambridge, UK)
3 to 4 players
Card game where you do not know until the end if wildcards will help you win or lose the game. In addition, each based on all players can try to decide who wins.

Myth
George Rossich (Caldes de Malavella)
2 to 4 players
Abstract game where the chips are two long cords and boxes for a key can only happen once. As you knot the board was doing little. Loses who can not make a knot.

Náufragos
Alberto Spread (Torremolinos, Málaga)
1 to 4 players
Cooperative game total. Some castaways arrive on an island (desert?) To survive and have to worry about fires, have wood, finding what to eat, going to the jungle ... Everything costs more energy than we have.

Four monkeys
Toni Serradesanferm (Granollers)
2 to 4 players
NASA looking for a really smart monkey to send it to Mars. Needless to say the players are aspiring to work monkeys. They must demonstrate that they can find certain combinations of buttons. And do it fast.

Quick
Alain Orban (NANDRIN, Belgium)
2 to 6 players
A game of visual fast. Must relate some signs written in a code does not easily identifiable to find what corresponds to what cap bottle wine. Frantic.

San Toribio
Peter James Cano (La Nucia, Alicante)
6 to 12 players
In a small Caribbean island, a revolutionary movement took power. But the new opposition thinks they are not as revolutionary as they say. I try to boycott all the reforms raised.

Star Conquest
José Carlos de Diego (Zaragoza)
2 to 3 players
Set of political and economic factions bastonades ships between the opponent's Alpha Centauri system. Your consuls should get going faster than the other planets to explore and find minerals.

Wall Street
Nicolas Lieber (Luxembourg)
2 to 4 players
Pure auction game. It looks easy until you see some special cards you can change everything. In addition, an auction is always difficult to control the excitement of being able to get what you want, although it is too expensive.

The market of Tlatelolco is a play on the Mexican market, simple in appearance but can also be played in a more profound (a game that easily imagine the sale on the shelves of any store). The author, Victor Melo, has had several blogs on the Internet, and writes regularly reviews and opinions on blogs and pages about games.

Civicards, Alberto Corral.
The jury praised the richness of situations that arise in a game, using a few simple rules and game elements, and the fast pace that is installed on the table from the start.

22 blocks, Juan Carlos Perez.
One of those great little games, of which think that in two or three games and you will know everything about him, but you enjoy seeing how each game is completely different.

The other finalists were games:

Der Brotmeister
Gregorio Morales
2 players
A career accelerated with constant lamp, and the obligation to think about what you think your opponent.

Filling
Jorge Gomez Arrausi
3 to 6 players
A quick game in which one must anticipate the movements of others, of each other.

Kaiju
Baldomero Lara
3 to 6 players
Barcelona attack monsters. A crazy and fun escape by land, sea and air.

The mêlée
Victor Bautista & Xavier Bonet
4 to 8 players
In a game of rugby anything goes to intercept an opponent, right?

Nonag
Victor Bautista
2 players
A game with little material but requires much care to do well.

Soccer Taktic
Francesc Corbella
2 players
An exciting playing a football match, with goals, shootout, expulsions ... everything.

Theseu or the labyrinth of Minos
Llistosella Perepau
2 to 8 players
A cooperative game, all against the Minotaur ... and against time, if possible.

Zoraida towers
Diego Ibanez
2 to 5 players
All against all to build the best tower, and all against the mysterious opponent.

Querni
Enrique Fernandez (Murcia)
2 players
A strange and distant variant of the ladies. The goal is not to eat all the pieces of the opponent, but to remove themselves. Of course you also should not remove them from the board, because while they can block the movement of another player.

Tarsis
Antonio Catalán (Barcelona)
3-6 players
A trading game set in ancient Carthage. As usual in trade, one must know to buy low and take full advantage. In addition, one must know what is the good time to buy because there are not enough goods for everyone.
(Game finalist in the Game Design Competition E-2008)

Sabadell 1859
Toni Serradesanferm (Granollers)
3 to 6 players
If I think you think I think you think ... This is the simple and effective mechanism that moves the game. Players are entrepreneurs trying to improve the numbers of your business. To do so, they know what others think.