Mensa Select winners 1990-2013 by BGG rating
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Every year, American Mensa holds an event in April called Mind Games, at the end of which five games are named Mensa Select. Due to the selection process, "gamer's games" rarely do well. I thought it might be interesting to build a list of past Mensa Select winners sorted by BGG rating to see if any highly rated games (by BGG standards) come up. I started this list after Mind Games in 2006.
The first Mensa Select awards were given in 1990. Originally, a panel of judges selected the games, but in 1996 it was opened up to the membership. What follows is the current process for naming the Mensa Select games. To be considered, a game must be submitted by its publisher. The Mind Games event is held from Friday night to Sunday morning, with a different local Mensa group hosting the event each year (for example, the 2006 event was in Portland, Oregon, and the 2007 event was in Pittsburgh). Within the approximately 40-hour period of the event, each participant evaluates 30 of the games that have been submitted for that year.
With the highly compressed evaluation period, the Mensa Select awards tend to favor games that are quick and easy to learn. And many worthy games are not submitted by their publishers because they are not viewed as "Mensa" games. Given both of these limitations, it's not really surprising that many of the winners are abstract brain-burners or party games that deal with words or trivia. Still, 62 games were submitted and 198 people attended Mind Games in 2006, so it's likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
The following games are not on the list because I was unable to locate them in the BGG database (year of Mensa Select award in parentheses):
Rush Hour (1997) - Solitaire puzzle not the same as the BGG entry
Kram (1998)
Update: The Wiki now contains a page that has all the Mensa Select winners by year:Mensa Select
Update2: There is now a BoardGameGeek family for Mensa Select games: Mensa Select
Update3: The Mensa Select games are now included in the BoardGameGeek "awards" system, and the corresponding award is listed in the Honors section of each winner's game entry
- Edited Sun Apr 21, 2013 5:25 pm
- Posted Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:52 pm
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- 2009
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- 2013
4. Board Game: Forbidden Desert [Average Rating:7.56 Overall Rank:169] [Average Rating:7.56 Unranked]
- 2010
20. Board Game: Forbidden Island [Average Rating:6.96 Overall Rank:333] [Average Rating:6.96 Unranked]
23 comments [Hide]
Now, I don't know if B&N still purchases every Mensa award winner, but I'm sure that other retailers have similar policies. I bet it increases some games' sales by 1000% or more. The buyers just aren't tuned in to BGG.
Mind Games has had over 150 self-proclaimed board-game-loving participant "judges" for about 10 years, and it's growing. Each of the judges has to play and rate 30 randomly assigned games during the weekend. That's a lot of games, but it's fairly easy for the dedicated game lover to do (mostly because there are so many others there to play with). Each judge has to rate each game based on aesthetics, instructions, originality, play appeal, play value, plus overall experience. They then use these ratings to rank the 30 games on their ballot, and then vote.
Some games win for reasons that I just can't grasp, but for the most part I can understand why some games win even though I wouldn't have voted for them. I did vote for Transamerica when it won - I found it quick and fun, aesthetically appealing, very replayable, original, and a variety of people could play. I did not vote for Dominion because I thought that equally matched players were essentially relying on the draw of the right card. I'm obviously in the minority, however, and the majority love it - so it won.
I don't know if that answers your question. Mensa Mind Games is not about finding the most "brainy" games; it's about "brainy" board-game enthusiasts coming together to pick the best games. The games that win are almost always great games, at least to a certain type of game player. Long live diversity.
You totally answered my question!
There are several visible members of BGG that are regular attendees at the event,including John.
Submissions seem to be based on the assumption that MENSA members want educational, word-based or deep analytical abstract strategy games. They pick the best of what's submitted, and generally that's a disappointment here because the designers and manufacturers that court BGG users don't send their stuff to MENSA mind games. When games like Dominion and Forbidden Island do get sent in, they win. I'd suggest more of us send in our games to the competition, since retailers consider it so highly.
If you were to look at the most active subdomain forum here on the 'Geek and make an assumption, it'd be that most of the active users are Wargamers, which not only MENSA, but a large part of the human race in general would not rate highly as a "fun" experience.