The nominations for the 2025 Spiel des Jahres Awards have just been announced.  Although there are now other lots of other awards (including the recently announced Golden Geek Awards), this is still the most prestigious award in board gaming and certainly the one that carries the most weight when it comes to casual gamers.  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 or “Red Poppel”.  The nominees for this year’s awards have been announced as:

• Kinderspiel des Jahres
  Cascadia Junior by Fertessa Allyse & Randy Flynn
  Die Mäusebande (aka Le Clan des Souris) by Christophe Lauras
  Topp die Torte by Wolfgang Warsch

• Kennerspiel des Jahres
  Endeavor: Die Tiefsee (aka Endeavor: Deep Sea) by Carl de Vissser
  & Laurent Escoffier
  Faraway by Johannes Goupy & Corentin Lebrat
  Neuland (aka Looot) by Charles Chevalier & Laurent Escoffier

• Spiel des Jahres
  Bomb Busters by Hisashi Hayashi
  Flip 7 by Eric Olsen
  Krakel Orakel by Die 7 Bazis

In recent years, there has been a shift in both the family and expert awards, away from traditional Euro-style board to lighter, more innovative games.  Gone are the days of El Grande, Tikal and The Settlers of Catan (all winners from the 1990s) with recent winners including MicroMacro: Crime City (from 2021) Pictures (from 2020), Challengers! (from 2023).  It may be that there has been a concerted effort to “freshen” the brand and subvert the conventional idea of what a board game is.  Last year’s winners, were Sky Team and Daybreak which were unusual in that both are cooperative games with Sky Team also being a two-player game (unusual for a “family game”).

– Image by BGG Contributor JuiceNeutron

In addition to the nominees, there are always a number of recommendations, which in this year include Castle Combo and Cities.  The Spiel des Jahres Awards are still the industry’s headline award and therefore are of great significance; it will be interesting to see which direction the awards go in this year when they are announced on Sunday 13^th July in Berlin.

– Image from spiel-des-jahres.de