PREMIO ARCHIMEDE 2025, organized by studiogiochi, is focused on the design of unpublished board games.
The competition, dedicated to the great Alex Randolph who was its president for the first 7 editions, has so far allowed more than 60 authors to crown their dream of seeing their game published. Participation (single or group) is open to all, with no limit of residence or age. Participating games must be sent in by March 31, 2025.
The final ceremony will take place indicatively in September 2025 in Venice thanks to the collaboration of the City of Venice within a broader framework of initiatives aimed at spreading the culture of the gaming culture, also as an effective means of preventing the rampant gambling disorders.
Thanks to the support of the publishers, the winners will be awarded a total advance of 3,500 euros on future royalties accrued from the publication of their games.
In addition to Premio Archimede, the jury will assign other awards, trophies and category prizes such as:
- Sebastiano Izzo Special Mention to the game that Sebastiano Izzo, who was an unforgettable ” fellow gamer” that we love to remember at each edition, would have liked the most.
- Cartamundi Trophy for the best card game. Thanks to Cartamundi’s support, an additional advance of 500 euros will be awarded on future royalties.
- Scienza in Gioco Trophy to the best science themed game with educational and informative purposes, assigned by the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR-IFN).
- SAZ Italia Trophy for the Italian author who will have best distinguished himself through his proposals. To the winner a free one-day admission to IdeaG Parma.
Premio Archimede is recognized by UISP (“Unione Italiana Sport per Tutti” Italian Union of Sport for All) for its socio-cultural and aggregation and inclusion value; in fact, it is an activity with a playful-recreational character and promoting the right to play, for everyone and all ages.
Premio Archimede is collaborating with Spielwarenmesse and the Bavarian Games Archive as part of the Games Inventors Convention in the context of the annual Nuremberg trade fair, a gathering for game authors from around the world, publishers and agencies.
Download the announcement of the Archimedes Prize 2025 from the Download menu, top left.
MORE, BETTER, AND READY-TO-TEST GAMES!
Again this year, Premio Archimede will have a structure designed to increase the quality and number of games admitted to the finals, increasing their chances of publication.
The selection and development process. The selection jury will test and evaluate each game, proceeding in order of arrival (the earlier the prototype arrives, the earlier it will be reviewed). At the end of the evaluation, the author will receive an evaluation sheet that can have one of the following verdicts:
a) NOT ADMITTED TO THE FINALS: If it is deemed that the game does not have sufficient potential, it will not be admitted to the finals and the authors will immediately resume ownership of all rights. They can also immediately request the return of the prototype, which will be done at their own expense.
b) ADMITTED TO THE FINALS: If the game is admitted directly to the final stages, prompt notice will be given to the authors and the rights of option will be triggered.
c) IN DEVELOPEMENT:: This verdict appears in the event that the jury thinks the game is interesting, but not yet at a sufficiently high level to enter the finals. In that case, authors can try to implement the jury’s suggestions by entering a development phase. Authors should be careful to send in any updated versions of their games, which will then be reevaluated. This phase will proceed even after March 31, 2025, because the development is NOT tied to the application deadline and can be continued in the following months. Games that have reached a level of quality deemed satisfactory after this process will fall under case (b), the others under case (a). In any case, the fine-tuning of the prototypes can take quite some time, so we suggest that authors register and send their games as soon as possible.
The finals. In Venice, during the week prior to the awar- ding of the prizes, all the finalist games (as many as possible) will be tested, retested and voted on by the final jury, composed of editors from many of the world’s leading publishing houses. At the final cere- mony, the winners of Premio Archimede 2025 and of the collateral prizes will finally be announced.
Publication. Through this approach, those games that make it to the finals will have a very high probability of being published and thus find their way to the marketing stage. To facilitate and speed up the choices of the various publishers, the authors of the finalist games will also be asked to send multiple copies of their prototype.
CNR-IFN will also organize the fifth edition of the FOTONICA IN GIOCO competition, open to all Italian high school students, aiming at realizing an original board game with educational or informative purposes (www.fotonicaingioco.it). The classes that will produce the three best projects will take part in the closing ceremony, which will be held simultaneously with the Premio Archimede.
JURY
There will be two separate Juries, who will work in different phases of the competition. During the 1st phase, only the SELECTION JURY will work on the games. Its members are:
Born in Venice in 1964, Leo Colovini begins his ludic adventure at about 12 when he meets Alex Randolph, playing chess in a club of Venice. Passionate about games since ever, he is really struck by the “Master”, and becomes a goer of Randolph’s office. He takes part to the game tests with enthusiasm and never misses a single occasion to show Alex his naive and odd ideas. As time goes by, his ideas start to refine themselves and Leo finally presents to the severe judgement of his “Master” an interesting mechanism for a game, but, even if Randolph tries more than once to put his hands on it, the game doesn’t make it to be published. After one year they realize together Drachenfels, which is Leo’s first published game (Schmidt Spiele). Two years later (1988), again in collaboration with Randolph, it is the time of Inkognito, published by MB, a great success (part of the list of Spiel des Jahres, and winner of the Sonderpreis – the special prize of the critics). After several years Piatnik publishes Die Magische Sieben the first game signed by Colovini as a unique author. In 1993 he signs, together with Dario De Toffoli, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello, the Role Playing Game Lex Arcana (Dal Negro). In 1993 he definitely leaves his job in the bank and begins to work full time for games. In 1994 Die Oster Insel is published by Blatz Spiele: this game also enters in the list of Spiel des Jahres. In the following years, the works with Dario De Toffoli increase until together with Alex Randolph they found Venice Connection. After several years he gets a history degree with a game-thesis about Charlemagne, and many of his games are published: Carolus Magnus in 2000 and Clans in 2003 (Winning Moves) that almost win the Spiel del Jahres by getting one of the three nominations. With his game Leo muss zum Friseur he wins the Deutscher Kinderspiele Preis 2016, gets very close to the victory of the Kinderspiel des Jahres 2016 (being among the three nominated games) and wins the Spiele Hit für Kinder 2016.
One of the best Shogi italian players, he is really passionate about all games created by Alex Randolph. Giuseppe Baggio loves abstract boardgames, but he always enjoys playing any other kind of game.
Well, he loves to play and for this reason he became member of the Premio Archimede Jury.
With studiogiochi he contributed to the realization of the chapters about Shogi (japanese chess), the ones about heterodox chess for the book Il grande libro degli scacchi and he helped out in the proof-reading of many headwords of the Enciclopedia dei giochi by Giampaolo Dossena.
Figlio di Leo Colovini, play-tester, sviluppatore, redattore, traduttore e ora anche autore: non c’è che l’imbarazzo della scelta! Chissà se gli rimarrà tempo per coltivare le sue altre grandi passioni… fare il Mastro Birraio, l’Egittologo o magari rifugiarsi in un bel LARP di quelli tosti?
Born in 1991, he is passionate about every type of games (from boardgames to videogames) but, particularly, of trading card games (before Yu-Gi-Oh!, now Gwent online has become his favourite game).
He graduated in philosophy in Venice, and after the positive experience with Premio Archimede 2016 he entered as a member of the preselection jury of the contest, with the responsability to connect the games (and their authors) with italian and international jurors.
He is at the forefront of testing new games and helping in various projects of the studio.
Born in Dolo (near Venice) in 1968, he has a playful childhood.
In the beginning of the 80’s he gets in touch with the association MultigiocoClub from Mestre, and immediately becomes their “mascot”, being the youngest of the group. He is called from everybody Darietto [little Dario], in order not to get mixed up with the other Dario, “Darione” [big Dario] De Toffoli. Since he has a daughter, many friends call him Zack, but some nostalic ones still call him with the first nickname.
Beeing in touch with De Toffoli becomes a lasting status, and gradually he starts to collaborate with studiogiochi: he runs tournaments, develops boardgames and produces puzzles and other games for the press.
The big jump happens during the editions of the Italian Game Festival: he is responsible for some entire sections. Starting from that moment “Darietto” really understands what he wants to do once he grows up and soon he gets the chance to cross the great sea that separates “saying” from “doing”.
All the rest is topicality: he writes books and collaborates in the creation of games, and especially has a great pleasure presenting new puzzles to people, especially logic and numeric ones.
Suddenly one day he surprises everybody that sees him as a cold calculator by winning an international poetry competition (www.centrostudivignola.it), with his first and last verses ever written.
The Jury will evaluate all the prototypes, keeping in mind the following criteria, in order of importance:
- Publishing potential, i.e. the chances the game has of being considered by a publisher
- Originality of the game’s mechanics
- Playability, balance and functionality of the mechanics
- Fun
- Functionality of the prototype and clarity of the rules
It must be specified that while the quality of the prototype (and, above all, of the rules) weighs little on the overall evaluation of the game, at the same time it is a fundamental condition for a correct playthrough of the game and the enjoyment of all the other features.
The composition of the Final Jury will be announced later.
PARTNER
