Each year some of the most prestigious gaming organizations in the world hand out their annual awards, honoring the best games of the year, including card games. Awards include the Games 100, International Gamers Awards, Mensa Mind Games, Spiel des Jahres, and more. The following are some of the card games that have received awards in the recent past, along with the awards they won.

You have 10 days in Africa -- touring by plane, car, and on foot. Chart your course from start to finish using destination and transportation tiles. With a little luck and clever planning, you just might outwit your fellow travelers. The first traveler to make connections for a ten day journey wins the game. Mensa Mind Games 2004

Let the journey begin! You have 10 Days in the USA - touring by plane, car and on foot. Chart your course from start to finish using destination and transportation tiles. With a little luck and clever planning, you just might outwit your fellow travelers! The first traveler to make connections for a ten-day journey wins the game. Mensa Mind Games 2004

Notable Events and Individuals from Politics, Science, Business, and Popular Culture. Explore the past with this unique fast-paced card game! More than 300 historical facts fuel this exciting journey as players travel forward and backward through the 20th century. Complete with 100 colorful oversized cards, and an easy-to-use time travel indicator to keep track of game play--the 20th Century Time Travel Card Game will bring the whole family to the table to play and join the fun. 2005 Games 100 Nominee

Players compete to build temples on the five building sites displayed on the board. The players must build the temples level by level, using cards played on their side of the board adjacent to the building sites. The cards represent the different tribes that lived in the area at the time of Babel. Each tribe has special powers, which the players may use during their turns if they have control of the tribe. The player who scores the most building points is the winner! 2002 Games 100 Winner

Bohnanza makes bean farming fun! Each player starts with two or three bean fields and a handful of bean cards to plant in those fields. Through clever trading, players build up their bean farms while trying not to help the other players too much. In the end, the player who has the best farm earns the most gold and is the winner! This already expanded game has 11 bean varieties which is enough for seven players, yet also works great for as few as two. 1999 Games 100 Winner, 1997 Spiel Des Jahres Nominee

In Borderline - USA, you will learn geography while having fun! Play any state card you have that borders the previous card that was just played. Get rid of your cards first and you are the winner! Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award", Parents' Choice Classic

Chez Geek is the fast-paced satirical card game of apartment life! Take it to a party, a bar, or your favorite cafe. Your friends become your roommates as you each try to get enough Slack to overcome the stress of your job. You can get points for sleeping, watching TV, and nookie. Got money from home? Buy beer and CDs, and invite your friends over to Chez Geek! 2001 Games 100 Nominee

Cranium Cadoo delivers outrageous fun with a variety of activities that give everyone a chance to shine! Kids work together and on their own to act, sculpt, draw, and solve puzzles, using the secret decoder mask to reveal secret words and hidden answers. The first player to get four in a row wins! Whether they're sculpting a chocolate-chip cookie out of Cranium Clay or racing around the house to find something they can balance on their elbow, kids will be thinking, creating, and laughing out loud with Cadoo. They may even discover talents they didn't know they had! Toy Industry Game of the Year Award, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award"

The Duo Card Game is fast and furious fun for the whole family! Each card has three different features - colors, symbols and numbers. Cards played must match 2 out of 3 features. Duo also includes semi-wild and wild cards for added fun! Mensa Mind Games 1995

Fluxx is the card game with ever-changing rules! Play begins with the Basic Rules card in the center of the table. Game play progresses following the Basic Rules, and new rules are adapted as they appear. The game continues until someone meets the most recently played goal. Though it sounds complicated it's really quite simple! Mensa Mind Games 1999

Each of the players fancies himself an engineer of the HellRail, conducting the souls of sinners to their torturous abodes in the great Inferno. But, only one of them will triumph and be spared eternal atrocity. Why not enliven your own gathering? One could argue that HellRail is both a card game and a board game. The cards contain sinners (loads), brimstone (fuel), and track, allowing the cards to be played any of three ways. Each player has a wooden train marker which he uses to mark his progress on the board. The cards form the track connecting the different levels of hell to the front gate and each other. The player's train is formed of sinners which require the expenditure of brimstone to move. 2001 Games 100 Winner

Hiss is the colorful snake-making tile game! Is that a snake I see slithering across the table at me? Build snakes by matching colors from head to tail. Long snakes, short snakes, purple, yellow and rainbow snakes. Finish a snake and add it to your snake pit. The player with the most snakes at the end of the game wins! Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award"

Loot is the plundering pirate card game! Set sail for an exciting adventure of strategy and skullduggery in this captivating card game. Storm your opponent's merchant ships and seize valuable treasure, but watch your back matey - plundering pirates are out to capture your ships as well! The player with the most loot rules the high seas. Mensa Mind Games 2005

Maya Madness is the mysterious numbers card game! Adventure back to the ancient world of Maya numerology in this intriguing game of mystery and mathematics. Add and subtract the right combination of cards to claim your secret number token. Play a wild jaguar to help you reach your goal. But be careful - one misstep and you plunge into the underworld of negative numbers! The first player to collect five tokens wins. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award"

In the Mummy Rummy Card Game players excavate the cards they need to complete the ancient Egyptian artifacts! Cards with partial images are combined to create a complete picture of an Egyptian treasure. Includes 30 Double Image Cards, 15 Single Image Cards, Full Color Instructions, and an Egyptian Treasures Guide. National Parenting "Honors Award", Parent's Choice "Gold Award"

My Word! is a word game that plays like a party game! As soon as the My Word! letter cards are laid on the table, all of the players quickly search for words among the cards. The first player to call out a word using at least three cards wins those cards. Fast and fun, My Word! appeals to lovers of word games, and party games alike! 2002 Games 100 Nominee

Each morning, Odin, the father of the Gods, sends his two ravens: Hugin and Mugin out into the world to watch over the land. The players try to help the feathered spies along their way over the various lands of the northern hemisphere. To move the ravens, the players must play appropriate flight cards from their hands. They may also get help directly from Odin. With skillful use of the cards, a player can move his raven quickly over the land. 2004 Games 100 Nominee

Parlay is an entertaining card game for those who enjoy the challenge of word games and the excitement of poker! Parlay combines the creative challenge of a word game with the fast pace, suspense, and variety of poker. Game play includes an element of risk and bluff, but no wagering is required and no players are eliminated, which makes Parlay a very family friendly way to play poker. The cards come as a standard, 52 count, poker-sized deck which are unique and artistically stylized. Each card contains a letter and number value. Games Magazine Best Word Game 2007

Paris, on the eve of the French Revolution... The Queens necklace is missing -- and soon enough her neck may follow! From the slums, where purse-snatchers and courtesans work their respective trades, to the inner salons of the Louvre, where confessors, royal astrologers, musketeers and court favorites mingle and scheme in hushed conversations -- the position of the Kings jeweler has suddenly become a lot more dangerous! Players take the roles of Royal Jewelers who vie to sell rare jewels to the Queen and her court. 2004 Games 100 Winner

The challenge of Quiddler is to arrange your entire hand into words! Draw and discard in turn, while trying to use those high point letters - but don't get caught with them uncombined! Quiddler is fast paced because you can play using everyday words. A bonus is given for the most words in each round (so short words can help you win), as well as for the longest word. There are 8 rounds in the game. It starts with 3 cards, progresses to 4, and so on, up to 10 cards. Players draw and discard until someone has combined their entire hand into words using two or more cards per word. Once a player goes out, everyone else gets one last chance to draw and put down the words they have made. 2000 Games 100 Nominee, Mensa Mind Game 1999

Qwitch is the quick switch card game! Letters and numbers can go up or down, and can switch at any time with the Switch Dice. Be the first player to play all your cards and you win! Games 100, Parent's Choice "Silver Honor"

Rats are high, cats are low... low-down and cool, that is! Put on your poker face, then draw, swap, and sneak a peek to get rid of rats and make way for the cats. The player with the lowest score wins. Rat-a-Tat Cat is a fun card game that requires quick counting skills and keen timing. It teaches math concepts, like greater than and less than. As they learn the strategy for the game, kids will also begin to develop an intuitive sense of probability. Mensa Mind Games 1996

Puerto Rico's golden age returns -- through you! Players travel now to the capital city of this beautiful island. Who will build the most important buildings? Players build palaces, poor houses, silver smelters, gold mines, and many others -- each with its own special features. The cleverest player will build well and win! Players choose roles which can help all players, but the choosing player gets a special privilege with the role chosen. Players build buildings, produce and sell goods, and so on. 2004 Spiel Des Jahres Nominee, 2004 International Gamers Awards Nominee

The object of the game is to identify "sets" of three cards. Each card is unique in its four features: number (1, 2, or 3); symbol (diamond, squiggle, or oval); shading (solid, striped, or open); and color (red, green, or purple). A "set" consists of three cards on which every feature is either the same on all of the cards, or different on all of the cards. Mensa Mind Games 1991

Flip and stack this clever loaf of cards to build slamwiches and double deckers! But watch out-you'll have to catch the thief and stop the muncher from stealing a stack of cards. The first player to collect all the cards wins. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award", Parent's Choice Seal of Approval

A pair of letters is released from the Letter Getter. Individual players or teams think of a word that has at least five letters using the beginning and ending letters from the Letter Getter. The first player or team to shout out a correct answer collects both tiles. The winner is the person or team with the most letter tiles after all 36 pairs have been used. Mensa Mind Games 2002

There's a moose loose in the kitchen and another in the bathroom! In this silly matching card game, the goal is to keep the moose out of your house, while at the same time giving them to your opponents. Use a door to close off empty rooms or if you're lucky, plant a moose trap to keep those loveable but uninvited visitors away! The player with the fewest moose at the end wins. Includes 58 cards and instructions. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award"

Calling all detectives! A gang of thieves has just been nabbed, but only three members actually committed the crime. Using keen eyes, quick thinking and deduction, try to figure out who's part of the guilty trio. Was it Loose-Eye Lenny, Kid Cassidy and Pencil Top? Or was it Louie St. Louis, Jonny Cortex and No Neck Nick? The first to name the right three suspects is the master sleuth. Includes 35 suspect cards, 20 number tokens, and instructions. For 2 to 6 players ages 8 and up. Oppenheim Toy Portfolio "Best Toy Award"

Too Many Cooks is the crazy cookin' card game! During play, each chef secretly picks a different soup to make and races to finish it first. It's hot competition in the kitchen as everyone tries to make their soups without too many crazy ingredients. But with only one pot, who knows what you'll end up with! Be the first to complete the soup by playing enough cards to fill the pot and win the coveted gourmet stars. The more your soup tastes like the recipe you're trying to make, the more stars you collect! 2003 Games 100 Nominee

Over 100 years ago, the noble experiment that was the United States exploded into Civil War. The fight was about control of the government, it was about slavery, and the war would shape the hopes and dreams of generations. Years later, the proud veterans recalled, they had fought for two reasons: Victory & Honor. And now once again, the battle lines are drawn, and the troops deployed. But can you provide the skill and strategy necessary for winning? Find out in Victory & Honor. In the game, players attempt to capture tricks and score points for the generals and soldiers captured in battle. But there's a catch. Play doesn't go directly around the table and three tricks are contested at once! Indeed, a card laid at the start can, with skill and a bit of luck, turn into the trump card that turns defeat into stunning victory. 2005 Games 100 Winner

In Xactika you are dealt a hand of eight cards. You bid two, having thought it was a weak hand. However, when the others bid zero you realize your hand is stronger than you thought and you don't get any points if you go over your bid. Should you play a high card and call a weak suit to draw out their low cards, or play a low card and call a strong suit to get yourself out of the lead? With each card having four suits on it - and eight cards in a hand - there are many choices, but remember, beware the last card! 2003 Games 100 Nominee