WAR STORY: OCCUPIED FRANCE wins 2025 Summit Award and Bobby Nunes Memorial Award Announced
We have been covering the annual award given by the San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHistCon) since the convention announced its first award in 2022.
What is the Summit Award? As SDHist puts it in their press release, the Summit Award aims to “recognize a historical board game published in the preceding year that most broadened the hobby through the ease of teaching, ease of play, uniqueness of topic, novelty of approach, and/or effectiveness as a historical game.”
This week, the members of the SDHist Board and SDHist Advisory Board announced that the 2025 Summit Award winner (for games published in 2024) is War Story: Occupied France. From the press release:
War Story: Occupied France is designed by Dave Neale and David Thompson and published by Osprey Games. It features art from Kwanchai Moriya and development from Rhys ap Gwyn and Jordan Wheeler.
War Story: Occupied France is a 45-60 minute (for an individual mission) cooperative narrative game for one to six players. It captures the stakes and tension of espionage and resistance warfare in France during World War II. It features three replayable story missions that challenge players to exploit the specialties of their chosen agents to uncover information, enlist allies, and obtain weaponry.
The judges praised War Story: Occupied France for its unusual and innovative mechanics, fresh approach to a well-covered topic, ease of teaching, uniqueness of play, approachability, and feel for the importance of every individual counter.
The other three finalists, selected by members of the SDHist Board and SDHist Advisory Board in August, were (in alphabetical order) Operation Bøllebank (designed by Nicola Saggini with art by Nils Johannson, published by SNAFU Design, recipient of the most public nominations), GHQ (designed by Kurt Vonnegut, published by Geoff Engelstein and Mars International), and Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290-1398 (designed by Cory Graham, Mathieu Johnson, Aman Matthews, and Saverio Spagnolie, published by GMT Games). GHQ was selected as this year’s second-place winner, with judges praising Engelstein’s work developing and presenting Vonnegut’s game, the way the design invites players to engage with it, and the way the community has adopted and played with that finished design.
The judges also offered praise for honorable mention selections A Gest of Robin Hood (designed by Fred Serval, published by GMT Games) and Arabian Struggle (designed by Nick Porter and Tim Uden, published by Catastrophe Games).
In other news from SDHistCon, the committee chose Amabel Holland’s video essay “Vonnegut’s Board Game: Preservation, Annotation, Context” as the recipient of the 2025 Bobby Nunes Memorial Award. From the press release: This award, launched last year in memory of our colleague and friend, Robert “Bobby Factor” Nunes, seeks to recognize exceptional gaming media published in the prior calendar year that reflects Bobby’s enthusiasm for and interest in discussing important cultural issues within the historical gaming hobby. It accompanies SDHist’s Summit Award, presented each year to a game that has broadened the historical gaming hobby.
If you have always an interest in historical games, and you want to try your hand, look at the impressive list of games recognized by the Summit Award, all of which are approachable for newcomers to this genre. The winner of the 2022 Summit Award (for games published in 2021) was Red Flag Over Paris, designed by Fred Serval and published by GMT Games, with the 2023 Summit Award going to Votes For Women, a game designed by Tory Brown and published by Fort Circle Games. Last year, the 2024 Summit Award went to Land and Freedom, designed by Alex Knight, published by Blue Panther LLC.
The Summit Award will return in 2026, with games published in 2025 under consideration for that award. A call for public submissions will go out in the summer of 2026. More information can be found on the Summit Award page on the SDHistCon website or you can contact Andrew Bucholtz with the SDHistCon directly.
All photos courtesy of Osprey Games.
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo