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Best Australian Game - Judging Panel for 2008 awards
The Judging Panel for the 2008 Best Australian Game award consists of:
Fraser McHarg (Chair)
Fraser
McHarg has been interested in games all his life. He has early memories
of playing 500 with his Nanna and Chess with his father - and of trying
to convince his sister to play anything at all. These days, he plays
games with his wife and children as well as with friends.
Fraser was involved with roleplaying games conventions for many years and played Bridge until the arrival of his first child, but these days prefers to play boardgames. Fraser also contributes reviews and comments on a major internet boardgame site and writes a regular column for the "Gone Gaming" blog, now at Boardgame News. He is a co-founder of the Gamers@Dockers boardgames club and has been active in promoting boardgaming in his local community.
Fraser and his wife met at a Games convention, which he feels bodes well for their eventual retirement.
Duncan Gibson
Duncan Gibson's board gaming experience started early with 70s family favourites such as Hey,Hey, Witch Way and The Ghost Game and rapidly progressed to Australian publisher, Jedko's wargames of Fortress Europa & Russian Campaign.
At age 12 Duncan showed competitive spirit when he decided to memorise every question in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit. This led to neighbourhood championships which were only beaten when his parents bought the dreaded Baby Boomer and Silver Screen Editions.
In the early 90s Duncan reformed the Melbourne University Games Club and dabbled in collectable card games and roleplaying as well as mainstream games and wargames. Like others he welcomed the addition of new sleek strategy games from Europe.
Duncan now happily travels to anywhere in a 200km radius to play games of all types, but with a particular love of games which are clever, strategic, historical, relaxing, fun or social. In otherwords, any game at all.
Gregor McNish
Gregor McNish was supposed to be an 18th century laird, involved in contemplative games of chess by correspondence with other peers of the realm. Alas, by an accident of birth, he ended up as a normal person, playing normal childhood games like Monopoly, Life, Risk, and card games of all sorts.He was swept up for a time in the wondrous creative possibilities afforded by Dungeons and Dragons, before heading in to productive adulthood.
With his discovery of the world of modern boardgames, Gregor has become an avid gamer again. He belongs to 2 Melbourne boardgaming groups, and is always delighted to try a new game.
With two young children, he doesn't have as much time to play games as he would like, and is looking forward to they day they are old enough to do more than chew on the pieces. Gregor still can't play chess.
Phil Reakes
Phil is a software analyst by day and a mathematics student by night. Like many Australian kids, he grew up playing five hundred with his family, and miniatures games with his friends.
His favourite game is go, and he is a member of the Sydney Go Club. He also enjoys other traditional games such as backgammon, mancala, and mahjong. In his spare time, Phil is designing a board game about the battle of Gallipoli.
Richard Vickery
Richard
Vickery was lucky to grow up in a family where most nights featured
a game after dinner. This developed into a lifelong love of games of
all sorts. Richard was President of the Sydney University Games Club
(currently called SUTekh) while an undergraduate, and has reviewed games
for several magazines.
Richard now has his own family of two young children with which to explore the world of games. The interest his children's school friends showed in playing boardgames led him to organise a Brain Fun Games Day at the local School to share the fun with other families.
Richard also has a life as an academic working in the field of medical science and brain function. He has successfully integrated game-like elements into some of his classes to try and engage his students more fully into the learning activities.