The 2024 nominations for the three Spiel des Jahres categories have just been announced.  Although there are now other awards, this is arguably 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.  The nominees for this year’s awards have been announced as:

• Kinderspiel des Jahres
  Große kleine Edelsteine by Wolfgang Warsch
  Die magischen Schlüssel (aka Magic Keys) by Markus Slawitschek & Arno Steinwender
  Taco Katze Pizza Junior by Dave Campbell & Thierry Denoual

• Kennerspiel des Jahres
  e-Mission (aka Daybreak) by Matt Leacock & Matteo Menapace
  Die Gilde der fahrenden Händler (aka The Guild of Merchant Explorers) by Matthew Dunstan & Brett J. Gilbert
  Zug um Zug Legacy – Legenden des Westens (aka Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West) by Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock & Alan R. Moon

• Spiel des Jahres
  Auf den Wegen von Darwin (aka In the Footsteps of Darwin) by Grégory Grard & Matthieu Verdier
  Captain Flip by Paolo Mori & Remo Conzadori
  Sky Team by Luc Rémond

In recent years, there has been a shift to light or innovative games.  Although the complexity of this year’s offering is not in the same league as some of the 1990s winners (e.g. El Grande, Tikal and The Settlers of Catan, all of which won the “Red Pöppel” as they preceded the inception of the Kennerspiel award), there is a marked shift away from the novel, internet or app based games of MicroMacro: Crime City (from 2021) and Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game (from 2019) and the party games like Just One (from 2019), Pictures (from 2020), Top Ten (from 2022) and Challengers! and Fun Facts (both from 2023).

– Image by boardGOATS

In addition to the nominees, there are a number of recommended, including Harmonies and Forest Shuffle (aka Mischwald) both of which have peaked interest in the group, with the latter having been enjoyed on a Tuesday evening shortly after its release at Essen.  As always, the Deutscher Spielepreis is likely to be a better fit for more dedicated gamers, but we will no-doubt play many more of the nominations and recommendations over the coming weeks.  The Spiel des Jahres Awards are still the industry’s headline award and therefore are of great significance; it will be interesting to see what the winners are when they are announced on Sunday 21^st July in Berlin.

– Image from spiel-des-jahres.de