The waiting is finally coming to an end! On Sunday, July 13, the jury will announce the winners of Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025. As always, there’s six games hoping to win one of the two most important awards in gaming – and one hopeless geek trying to predict which will be the lucky ones. 🤓
I’ve been doing this for five years now and I’ve called eight out of the ten winners correctly, with the second fail happening last year because I just didn’t want to believe the jury would award Spiel des Jahres to the two player game Sky Team. Let’s hope I’ll do better this year, but it’s again a tough choice!
Nominated for Spiel des Jahres 2025
Before we dive into the individual games, let’s look at some numbers to see some objective measures for them – as far as this is possible. What we’ve got at our disposal are the jury’s reviews, recommendations to the S_d_J bot, BoardGameGeek’s average rating and the Bayesian rating. Additionally, I’ve created a poll on BGG where the geeks could have their say:
| Game | Jury | R.G | Average | Bayes | Poll |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bomb Busters | 8.3 (3) | 7.8 | 8.0 | 7.1 | 59.8% |
| Flip 7 | 7.0 (1) | 5.7 | 7.2 | 6.7 | 35.1% |
| Krakel Orakel | 7.0 (1) | 7.3 | 7.4 | 5.7 | 5.2% |
The numbers tell a clear story: Bomb Busters is considered the high favourite to win Spiel des Jahres 2025. It’s also top of list for most pundits. But is this position justified? Let’s dive into the details!
Bomb Busters
2–5 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), prediction #1
Players defuse bombs by deducing and cutting unseen wires of different values.
As mentioned before: everybody was talking about Bomb Busters and agreed that it’ll be nominated, so the only question was: Spiel or Kennerspiel? The algorithm was very non-committing at 54% and opinions were equally divided. There’s a couple of aspects worth repeating in this question: first of all, the jury coined the term Kennerspiel and hence kind of gets to decide what games fall under this category. More importantly, they don’t do it by just looking at BGG complexity ratings, but rather by observing the target audience playing the game and hence assessing what games pose a higher barrier to entry than others. In the case of Bomb Busters it’s the training missions that make all the difference: they introduce the concepts at a gentle pace, one at a time, and allow groups to go as deep or as shallow in terms of difficulty as they are comfortable. I’d be willing to place a sizable bet (if I was the gambling kind, which I’m not 🤑) that the people who shout about how hard it is to get into Bomb Busters have skipped the training missions entirely.
In the end, what matters is the jury thought this game is approachable enough to be nominated for Spiel des Jahres, and from my own experience, I agree it’s a very clever and fun game. The jury always emphasises that the latter point is what they really care about, not if they’d give the award to another limited communication co-operative game (after Sky Team last year) nor that the inevitable windfall which comes with the award will again hit the major publisher Pegasus Spiele.
Another aspect that the jury reportedly doesn’t care about, but which would be an important milestone in the internationalisation of the board game hobby, is that Hisashi Hayashi could be the first designer from Asia to win any of the three awards. (Someone correct me please if I overlooked any of the previous winners.)
Flip 7
3–99 players, 20 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.1), prediction #21
Score the cards in front of you, or take another card, risking everything you hold?
After the nomination, I’ve read through the rules, and didn’t really get what would be interesting about this game. Then I’ve tried it on Board Game Arena (BGA) – and I still don’t get it. I’ve been told it develops a whole different dynamic at the table, with people cheering for every card flip – but the same is true for UNO. Spiel des Jahres was always meant to be an ambassador for Kulturgut Spiel – games as cultural assets – and I can’t help but think that Flip 7 would be a failure at that. Flip 7 might have been a great winner in the 80s, but if the jury does decide to award it on Sunday, it would feel like denying the progress in game design in the past decades.
Krakel Orakel
2–8 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.1), prediction #7
Can you spot and reveal pictures in a tangle of lines?
Something of a wildcard amongst the nominations, still without English edition announced. I’ve mentioned in the previous article that as a drawing game for people who can’t draw it has strong competition from Pictomania. What I overlooked was the fact that this one’s co-operative, reducing the hurdle for people to engage even further. Overall, this sounds like an appealing package to win Spiel des Jahres, somewhat following along the line of winners we’ve had a couple of years ago, e.g., Just One and Pictures.
Who will win?
I’ll have to go with the herd here and say that any winner other than Bomb Busters would be a surprise. I know Flip 7 has its fans, though I don’t see the appeal, and Krakel Orakel sure sounds nice, but I think the jury will continue the streak of favourite wins.
Nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025
Let’s take a look at the same metrics as above, but for the Kennerspiel nominees:
| Game | Jury | R.G | Average | Bayes | Poll |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endeavor: Deep Sea | 8.0 (5) | 5.8 | 8.2 | 7.4 | 43.9% |
| Faraway | 7.6 (5) | 7.1 | 7.6 | 7.2 | 41.8% |
| Looot | 6.8 (4) | 5.0 | 7.1 | 6.2 | 14.3% |
Those numbers look much closer than they did for Spiel. Overall, the critical and geek response to Endeavor is stronger, but Faraway might be more up the jury’s alley. Let’s take a closer look at each nominee!
Endeavor: Deep Sea
1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.9), prediction #8
Lead your research institute to explore ocean depths and publish your findings!
It’s another game I haven’t played yet, though its predecessor has been sitting on my shelf of shame for ages now. It’s quite interesting that the jury themselves pointed out when revealing the longlist that this game is very much on the heavy side of Kennerspiel, but then proceeded to nominate it anyways. It’s even more curious when you consider that last year’s winner Daybreak has almost the same complexity rating on BGG.
In the end, no matter how enthusiastic the critical response to this game is, this big box with its myriad of icons might just be a tad too intimidating for the target audience of Kennerspiel.
Faraway
2–6 players, 15–30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.9), prediction #3
Explore a mysterious land and fulfill quests on your way back.
Faraway already appeared on some prediction lists last year because it took a while for the German edition to be released, so the international buzz has pretty much eased up by now. Overall, this is a pretty standard engine builder – with the twist of the “reverse” scoring of the cards.
I’ve only played this game on BGA, so take my impression with a grain of salt, but I’m not blown away by Faraway. I guess I’m generally not too much into engine builders and that twist isn’t particularly exciting after the first game or two, when it’s novelty and surprise implications have become familiar. At that point working out the best card to play becomes mostly tedious.
That said, it does play quickly and has some interesting decisions to offer, so there’s that.
Or I’m just a little grumpy at this title for giving me an Ohrwurm of the best worst song of all times… 🤷
Looot
2–4 players, 35 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.1), prediction #30
Gather resources and capture buildings to develop your fjord.
Another game I’ve only played on BGA and another one which I think is just fine. I’ve read somewhere someone comparing it to games Reiner Knizia used to design, which is back-handed but fitting compliment. Choosing and laying the tiles sure offer a lot of choices, and I can see how they might be appealing to some people, but once you’ve understood how the different criteria interact, optimising your point booty becomes another tedious exercise.
I probably sound more negative towards the game than I actually am – the game really seems to be fine – but the nomination did come as a bit of a surprise given that even the jury members seemed to be rather lukewarm on it.
Who will win?
This is a really tough one. From the overall reviews, it seems Endeavor would have the edge, but it also appears to be just outside what a Kennerspiel usually demands of the players, so I’ll put my money on Faraway. Seeing Looot win would be a huge surprise.
Alright, that’s it for the predictions, we’ll see each other again in a couple of days to discuss the results. I know I’ll be glued to the livestream. 🤩