Tag Archives: Mysterium Kids

Deutscher Spiele Preis – 2023

The 2023 Deutscher Spiele Preis awards have been announced at the International Spieltage in Essen.  These recognise the “Best Children’s Game” and a top ten list of the “Best Family and Adult Games”, the results of an open vote by games clubs, gamers and people in the industry.  As annual awards, the games named in the Deutscher Spiele Pris lists often intersect with the winners and nominees of Spiel des Jahres Award, but in many other ways, the awards differ as Spiel des Jahres winners are chosen by a committee with a list of strict criteria whereas the Deutscher Spiele Preis is more a list of the most popular games of the preceding year.

Deutscher Spielepries 2023 Logo
– Image from
spiel-essen.com

This year, the top ten list includes the both the winners and some of the nominees of the Spiel and Kennerspiel des Jahres awards, but the top spot went to the Kennerspiel nominee, Planet Unknown.  Dorfromantic (winner of the Spiel de Jahres) took second place on the list with the car racing game, Heat, taking third place.  Challengers!, winner of the Kennerspiel des Jahres award, featured further down the list as did Marrakesh, Earth, Woodcraft, Next Station: London, HITSTER and Tiletum.  The winner of the best children’s games was Mysterium Kids, which also won the Kinderspiel des Jahres earlier this year. Congratulations to all the award winners.

Planet Unknown
– Adapted from Image by f-p-p-m

Spiel des Jahres Winners – 2023

The 2023 Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) winner has been been announced as the cooperative campaign game, Dorfromantik: The Board Game which is based on the video game of the same name.  Players work together to together to lay hexagonal tiles to create a beautiful landscape trying to make the train track and river as long as possible while also fulfilling the orders of the population.  There is a legacy element where points earned can be used to access new tiles that are hidden in locked boxes, which give new, additional tasks and make higher and higher scores possible.  The game is very simple (as draw a tile, place a tile, fulfill tasks), but the hook is the changing strategy that comes with the expanding pool of tiles.

Dorfromantik: The Board Game
– Adapted by boardGOATS from image
by BGG contributor Rugerfred

The winner of the Kennerspiel des Jahres, the “Expert” or “Connoisseur’s” game was announced at the same time and was Challengers!.  This is a sort of “capture the flag” tournament game where players first draw cards and build a deck, then shuffle and duel against another player.  The winner of the match takes the trophy and points, and at the end, the players with the most points duel in the final to decide the overall winner.  Although this is supposed to be a more advanced, it is not in the same league as previous winners of the Kennerspiel award like Village or Wingspan, or even previous Spiel des Jahres winners like El Grande and Settlers of Catan.

Challengers!
– Image by boardGOATS

The thing to remember though is that these games are intended to be family games and the awards are intended to cater for three different ages of families, those with very small children (Kinderspiel—this year won by Mysterium Kids); those with young children (Spiel des Jahres, or “Red Pöppel”), and those with slightly older children (Kennerspiel des Jahres, sometimes known as the “Grey Pöppel”).  This doesn’t mean these games are not suitable for more dedicated gamers, just that they not the target audience, so they should not be surprised if they are not a great fit.  This situation is not going to change in the near future, as the ultimate purpose of these awards is to sell games and advertise them to the general (German) public.

Dorfromantik: The Board Game
– Image from spiel-des-jahres.de

That said, with the right mindset, anyone can enjoy all these games, and they are some of the best of their type available.  So, as usual, congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

Spiel des Jahres Nominations 2023

This year’s nominations for the three Spiel des Jahres categories were announced last Monday.  This is arguably the most prestigious award in board gaming and, as such, is the one everyone wants to win.  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:

  • Kennerspiel des Jahres
    Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023 - nomineesChallengers! by Johannes Krenner and Markus Slawitscheck
    Iki by Koota Yamada
    Planet Unknown by Ryan Lambert and Adam Rehberg

In recent years, there has been a marked change the complexity of the games—compared with previous winners like El Grande, Tikal and The Settlers of Catan (all of which won the “Red Pöppel” as they preceded the inception of the Kennerspiel award), for example, even this year’s nominations for Kennerspiel are extremely light games that have been called party games by some.  This is at least partly because the criteria or rules for the Spiel des Jahres Awards are very clearly and strictly laid out.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal
– Image used with permission of Henk Rolleman
(@namellor on Instagram)

For example, one of the most popular games of the year, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, was not eligible, allegedly due to lack of ready availability in the German market.  Similarly, the German release for another popular game, Earth, marginally failed to make the entry date, but may therefore be eligible for next year.  Another favourite amongst the GOATS is Die Wandelnden Türme (Wandering Towers), which also failed to get a mention either this year or last, presumably because it too fell foul of one of the rules. Iki, on the other hand was first released in 2015, but did not get a “full German release” at the time and therefore the recent re-release with new artwork is eligible, so there is still hope for all those that have missed the boat.

Die Wandelnden Türme
– Image by boardGOATS

It is also worth remembering that the “Red Pöppel” Spiel des Jahres Award is specifically aimed at German families, not necessarily families that play lots of games.  Even the “expert” Kennerspiel des Jahres Award, is aimed at families that are “just ready to move on to the next step”—neither award are aimed at people who regularly play games.  For this, the Deutscher Spielepreis is a much better fit, but the Spiel des Jahres Awards are still the industry’s headline award, and therefore are of great significance.

The Spiel des Jahres Awards
– Image from spiel-des-jahres.de

The winners will be announced on Sunday 16th July in Berlin.