Spiel des Jahres Nominations 2020

This year, many things are different: the UK Games Expo was postponed and then cancelled and today it was announced that Essen has gone the same way.  The most prestigious awards in board gaming, the Spiel des Jahres are not unaffected either.  The Jury met online and likely some struggled to play the games; the award parties will probably also be affected.

Spiel des Jahres Committee 2020
– Image from SpieldesJahres on twitter.com

The nominations have been announced as usual though.  There are three categories, the Kinderspiel (children’s game) , the Kennerspiel (“expert’s” game) and the most desirable of all, the family award, the Spiel des Jahres.  The nominees for this year’s awards have been announced as:

  • Spiel des Jahres
    Spiel des Jahres 2019My City by Reiner Knizia
    Nova Luna by Uwe Rosenberg and Corné van Moorsel
    Pictures by Daniela and Christian Stöhr

In previous years the group has picked out the eventual winner well in advance even of the nominations, however, last year the games generally seemed to be light, almost party games.  These are not our usual faire, and in recent years, the Kennerpiel des Jahres has been a better fit.  The Kennerspiel nominees are not especially complex games, but are typically a step up from the light family games that are now being nominated for the “Red Poppel”.

– Image by from spiel-des-jahres.de

Last year the winner of the Kennerspiel award was Wingspan which also picked up our own “Golden GOAT” Award at our Un-Christmas Dinner.  With all that has been going on, however, we are unfamiliar with almost all the nominees this time round and likely won’t get the chance to play any of them until after the winners have been announced (20th July in Berlin for the Kennerpiel and Spiel des Jahres Awards; 15th June in Hamburg for the Kinderspiel des Jahres).

Golden GOAT - 2019
– Image by boardGOATS