This week, the Spiel des Jahres Award nominations were announced.  There are three awards, a children’s game award (Kinderspiel des Jahres) and the two that interest us more, the “Advanced” or “Expert” Kennerspiel des Jahres and the main award, the Spiel des Jahres (which is often interpreted as the “Family Game” award).  This year there are three nominees in each category:

• Kinderspiel des Jahres
  Leo Muss Zum Friseur (aka Leo) by Leo Colovini
  Mmm! by Reiner Knizia
  Stone Age Junior (aka My First Stone Age) by Marco Teubner
• Kennerspiel des Jahres
  Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King by Alexander Pfister & Andreas Pelikan
  Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 by  Matt Leacock & Rob Daviau
  T.I.M.E Stories by Manuel Rozoy
• Spiel des Jahres
  Codenames by Vlaada Chvátil
  Imhotep by Phil Walker-Harding
  Karuba by Rüdiger Dorn

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the possible winners of these awards and we felt there wasn’t really an obvious winner this year; now the nominations have been announced it is clear why we felt that way.  Our group are not huge fans of the “social deduction” games that have become popular of late, and since three of the six nominations in the two categories of interest to us are of this type, they are not games we have focussed on.  That said, we are very, very fond of Isle of Skye, and Karuba got its first outing last week and probably deserves another go.  Imhotep was only only released a few months ago and hasn’t yet made it to the table, but otherwise it looks like this year will be a fairly quiet one from our point of view.

– Image from spieldesjahres.de