Lucca Games Awards 2025 details Board Game Designer of the Year finalists

Lucca Comics & Games – in collaborationw ith SAZ Italia – has detailed the five finalists for its Board Game Designer of the Year award.

The winner will be announced and awarded during the official ceremony at the Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini, as part of the festival taking place from October 29th to November 2nd.

For the 2025 edition, the jury is composed of President Fabio Cambiaghi and members Paolo Cupola (former President of the Game of the Year award), Harald Schrapers (President of Spiel des Jahres), Flaminia Brasini (delegate of SAZ Italia), and Simone Luciani, the inaugural winner of the award.

The five finalists (in alphabetical order) are:

• Matthew Dunstan: 52 Realms: Adventures (2024); Next Station: Paris (2024); Happy Home (2024); Waypoints (2023); Pioneer Rails (2023); Perspectives (2023); Prey Another Day (2023).
• Grégory Grard: Zenith (2025); Castle Combo (2024); Festival (2024); In the Footsteps of Darwin (2023); Cross Clues: Sample Pack (2023).
• Tomáš Holek: Tea Garden (2024); SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2024); Galileo Galilei (2024).
• Ryan Laukat: Creature Caravan (2024); Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies (2023).
• Paolo Mori: Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars (2025); Battalion: War of the Ancients (2024); Captain Flip (2024); Altay: Dawn of Civilization (2024); Match of the Century (2023); Archeos Society (2023).

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