Almost every time we’ve played Azul, the topic of conversation has moved on to the Spiel des Jahres and how it would be a travesty if it did not receive at least a nomination. It was with this in mind that we read the Spiel des Jahres nominations when they were announced this morning.  There are three nominees in each of the three awards:  a children’s game award (Kinderspiel des Jahres), the “Advanced” or “Expert” Kennerspiel des Jahres, and the main Spiel des Jahres (often interpreted as the “Family Game” award).  In addition, for the first time since 2010, there is also a special award for Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 by Matt Leacock & Rob Daviau, reflecting Pandemic, Forbidden Island and Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 that were all nominated, but failed to win a prize, and have had a significant influence on cooperative and legacy games as a whole.  The other nominees are:

• Kinderspiel des Jahres
  Emojito! by Urtis Šulinskas
  Funkelschatz (aka Dragon’s Breath) by Lena & Günter Burkhardt
  Panic Mansion (aka Shaky Manor) by Asger Harding Granerud & Daniel Skjold Pedersen

• Kennerspiel des Jahres
  Ganz Schön Clever by Wolfgang Warsch
  Heaven & Ale by Michael Kiesling and Andreas Schmidt
  Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg by Wolfgang Warsch

• Spiel des Jahres
  Azul by Michael Kiesling
  Luxor by Rüdiger Dorn
  The Mind by Wolfgang Warsch

Firstly, more than half of the nominees were designed by either Wolfgang Warsch, or Michael Kiesling, so huge congratulations to them.  In our view, Azul richly deserves it’s nomination and it would be no surprise if it ultimately wins the award.  Of the other two nominations for the “red pöppel”, The Mind has received quite a lot of attention, and is a bit like a cross between Hanabi and The Game (both of which have been acknowledged by the Jury in the past, in 2013 and 2015 respectively).  Luxor has a good pedigree as it is designed by Rüdiger Dorn (also designer of The Traders of Genoa, Goa, Istanbul, and one of our group favourites, Las Vegas), but it is a bit more of an unknown as it has only just come out.  Usually the Kennerspiel Prize winners are a good fit to our group, but this year they are also largely unknown to us, so there is clearly a lot to discover before the winners are announced in Berlin on 23^rd July (Kinderspiel des Jahres winners will be announced in Hamburg on 11^th June).

– Image from spieldesjahres.de