The cat’s out of the bag and the winners have been announced!
This year’s show was… even longer… 😅 After last year I’ve hoped for a snappier show – instead it was further extended. As much as I appreciate the jury’s work (which I’ve expressed at length), the stage isn’t where they shine, so I don’t understand why we need two awkward hours of their presence. It’s understandable they want to highlight various aspects of board gaming and their activities, since those are the only two hours of attention they get all year, but just as an endless recommendation list would water down the award, the rule in showbiz is to make every minute count.
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Spiel des Jahres 2024 predictions – Part 2!
The waiting is finally coming to an end! On Sunday, July 21, the jury will announce the winners of Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2024. We’re blessed with another year of very strong games and I’m certainly very excited to learn what games will win the two awards.
I’ve been doing this for four years now and I’ve called seven out of the eight winners correctly. No reason to rest on any laurels – there’s another batch of awards coming up, and this year might be the closest race yet!
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Thoughts on Spiel des Jahres
What it is and what it isn't
Some of you might have notices that I’m a bit of a Spiel des Jahres fanboy. 🙃 Every year when the award season rolls around, the discussion about the purpose and the influence of Spiel des Jahres comes up again. So I thought it’s a good idea to collect my thoughts on the subject in one handy place I can easily reference in the future. 🤓
What’s the purpose of Spiel des Jahres?
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Spiel des Jahres 2024 nominations
Nominations are out! The jury selected a total of sixteen games for their longlist, nine for Spiel des Jahres and seven for Kennerspiel des Jahres. Out of these games, three games each are nominated for the two awards and can hope to get the coveted meeple added to their covers on July 21.
Let’s dive straight into the nominations and recommendations, before we discuss how good (or bad) my predictions were and if the agreed with our Kennerspiel score.
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Spiel des Jahres 2024 predictions
Spiel des Jahres 2024 is around the corner! As in the previous four years, I’ll try to predict what games have the best shot at ending up on the longlist (aka recommendations) and the shortlist (aka nominations) when the jury announces their picks on June 11th.
As every year, I’ll let the algorithms speak, but I’ve added something new this year: I tried to track the jury members’ reviews of all eligible1 games, in particular when they publish scores (such as in the magazine Spielbox), and fed those into the predictions.
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Game Designer Hall of Fame
The best board game designers of all times – according to Spiel des Jahres
Spiel des Jahres 2024 nominations are just around the corner (watch this space for our annual predictions), but I wanted to take this opportunity for a look back over the history of the award. Specifically, I wanted to see which designers have been most successful at the Spiel, Kennerspiel and Kinderspiel des Jahres awards.
The first red meeple was given out in 1979. Since 1989, the jury also awarded the Kinderspiel des Jahres for children’s games, initially as an annual special award, and from 2001 as its own award with the blue meeple.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 winners
The cat’s out of the bag and the winners have been announced!
This year’s show was… long… On the one hand, it’s nice to have all three awards (including the Kinderspiel) back together in one announcement, but on the other hand, once you add special awards, the review of the 1983 awards, interviews etc, even die hard fans (and obviously I’m one of them) have a hard time keeping their attention up.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions – Part 2!
The waiting is finally coming to an end! On Sunday, July 16, the jury will announce the winners of Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023. We’re blessed with another year of very strong games and I’m certainly very excited to learn what games will win the two awards.
After two years of calling both winners correctly, I’ve missed the Spiel des Jahres 2022 winner Cascadia last year, so I hope I’ll do better this year.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 nominations
Nominations are out! The jury selected a total of fifteen games for their longlist, ten for Spiel des Jahres and five for Kennerspiel des Jahres. Out of these games, three games each are nominated for the two awards and can hope to get the coveted meeple added to their covers on July 16.
Let’s dive straight into the nominations and recommendations, before we discuss how good (or bad) my predictions were and if the agreed with our Kennerspiel score.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions
Spiel des Jahres 2023 is around the corner! As in the previous years, I’ll try to predict what games have the best shot at ending up on the longlist (aka recommendations) and the shortlist (aka nominations) when the jury announces their picks on May 22nd.
As every year, I’ll let the algorithms speak. The predictions for the longlist come directly from the recommendendations out of all eligible1 games. Our very own Kennerspiel score is then used to sort those into their respective list of the top 10 contenders for either award.
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