The San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHist) is proud to announce the winner of the fourth annual Summit Award. 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. The 2025 Summit Award winner (for games published in 2024) is War Story: Occupied France.
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 winner of the 2025 Summit Award was determined by members of the SDHist Board and SDHist Advisory Board. 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.
War Story: Occupied France was one of four Summit Award finalists announced this August following a public call for nominations over a period of months. 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).
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 spring or summer of 2026. More information can be found on the Summit Award page on the SDHistCon website.
Alongside the Summit Award, SDHist also launched a Bobby Nunes Memorial Award in 2024 to recognize exceptional gaming media published in the previous calendar year. The four finalists for that award this year were announced in August. The winner will be announced shortly.
2022’s inaugural Summit Award (for games published in 2021) went to Red Flag Over Paris. 2023’s Summit Award (for games published in 2022) went to Votes For Women. 2024’s Summit Award (for games published in 2023) went to Land and Freedom, with designer Alex Knight recently writing about what that award meant to him.
About The Summit Award: The Summit Award is an opportunity for the SDHist team to recognize the positive impact of a game that broadens the historical gaming hobby by drawing in more players or by introducing a new and unique subject or perspective. Our ultimate hope is that the Summit Award helps foster a discussion amongst players, designers and publishers about new ways to broaden the hobby through teaching, play, topic, and approach.
Games are judged on five criteria: Ease of Teaching, Ease of Play, Novelty/Uniqueness of Topic, Novelty of Approach, and Effectiveness as a historical game. More details on the award and eligibility guidelines can be found here.
About SDHist: The mission of SDHist is to create a diverse and supportive gaming community dedicated to playing, discussing, designing, and promoting historically-based board games. Through this commitment, SDHist seeks to serve both the existing historical board gaming community as well as grow it through the addition of new voices and perspectives.
This is done through physical conventions (including the SDHistCon Summit in San Diego in November and the SDHistCon East convention at the U.S. Naval War College in Providence, RI in August), online conventions, the Conflicts of Interest magazine and Conflicts of Interest Online articles, the Summit Award, and more. SDHist is run by a volunteer board, and also has an advisory board composed of prominent members of the gaming community.
For more information on the Summit Award, please contact SDHist board member and press liaison Andrew Bucholtz. His contact information is here.