How Board Game Quest Organizes Game Ratings and Awards

Board Game Quest organizes its ratings and awards as two separate discovery tools rather than a single scoring system. “Games by Rating” is a browse-by-score entry point in the Game Reviews menu, while the “Board Game Quest Awards” page sits under the About/Contact area and presents the site’s award recognition. Neither page, as described in the available site material, publishes a public rubric that converts a review score into an award decision. Use the rating browse when you want to shortlist games by score, and read the full review plus the awards page when you need to understand why a game was recognized.

What “Games by Rating” does

“Games by Rating” appears in the site’s Game Reviews navigation, alongside Recent Game Reviews, Game Previews, and Digital Board Game Reviews. Its function is organizational: it lets a reader approach reviews by score instead of by publication date or title.

The site material does not specify the rating scale, the number of rating bands, or whether every reviewed game is assigned a rating. Treat the page as a filter for finding reviews, not as a standalone verdict. A score shown there is a pointer back to the review that produced it.

How to use it in practice

1. Open the Game Reviews section and select “Games by Rating.”
2. Choose the rating band that matches your tolerance—for example, a high band if you want candidates for a purchase, a middle band if you are exploring a genre.
3. Open the linked review for any candidate and check the reviewer’s stated reasons, player count, and play-time comments.
4. Cross-check the game against a relevant list, such as a Top 10 list or a “Which … Should You Play?” quiz, before deciding.

Expected result: a shortlist of games with reviews you can actually read, rather than a ranked leaderboard. Common snag: a rating band can mix very different games—a light filler and a heavy strategy title may share a score—so the score alone will not tell you whether a game fits your group.

Where the awards live and what they signal

The “Board Game Quest Awards” link is grouped with Contact Us and About Us, not with the review categories. That placement matters: the awards are presented as an editorial identity page, separate from the rolling review feed.

The available material does not list award categories, eligibility rules, voting procedures, or a year-by-year winners archive. So the awards page should be read as recognition the site has chosen to highlight, not as a certification with published criteria. If a specific award claim matters to your decision, verify it on that page rather than inferring it from a review score.

How reviews, lists, and awards relate

The site’s content types serve different jobs:

A review is the primary evidence: it carries a named reviewer and a date, as with Scales of Fate (Bailey Dunn, Oct 28, 2026) or Nemesis Retaliation (Tony Mastrangeli, Oct 27, 2026). Lists and quizzes are secondary filters that group games by theme or audience. Awards are a third layer that signals the site’s own picks. None of these layers is described as automatically derived from another, so do not assume a high rating guarantees an award or that an award implies a specific score.

A practical way to decide

Use the layers in this order:

• Start with a list or quiz if you have a theme, player count, or franchise in mind.
• Move to “Games by Rating” if you want to scan by score within a genre.
• Read the full review for any game you are seriously considering; check the reviewer’s stated criticisms, not just the number.
• Check the awards page only if recognition by this site is part of your criteria.

For example, if you are choosing a two-player game, the Scales of Fate review’s opening argument about “impossible” two-player design is more useful than its score alone, because it tells you what the reviewer values. Pair that with a themed list or quiz to widen the shortlist, then return to individual reviews.

Limits to keep in mind

The site material does not document the rating scale, the award criteria, or whether ratings and awards are linked. It also does not state that browsing or reading requires an account, and no pricing or access restrictions are described. Treat the ratings as a navigation aid and the reviews as the substantive source; where a claim about awards matters, confirm it on the awards page itself.