Nominations are out 🗄️! The jury selected a total of sixteen games for their longlists, 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 12.
Let’s dive straight into the nominations and recommendations, before we discuss how good (or bad) my predictions were and whether they agreed with our Kennerspiel score.
Nominated for Spiel des Jahres 2026
Cozy Stickerville
1–6 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.2), 99% Spiel, prediction #565
Build your village with over 800 stickers!
I’ve had this amongst my honourable mentions, but the algorithm placed it on #565 (out of 1339) – there are definitely some tweaks to the algorithm required…
JinxO
4–7 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 99% Spiel, prediction #106
A party game of associations: try to match other players’ answers without giving anything away.
The designer Martin Ang is the CEO of Tabletoys Indonesia. Last year we celebrated the first SdJ award going to Japan – could Indonesia be next?
Morty Sorty Magic Shop
2–4 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.0), 85% Spiel, #143
Apprentices try to demonstrate their talent for stocking the shelves.
A game so hot off the press, it’s not even in the R.G database yet. 🥵 Designer Markus Slawitscheck already won Kennerspiel in 2023 for Challengers! and Kinderspiel in 2024 for Magic Keys, so he now has the chance to be the first designer to complete the triple – in just three years!
Spiel des Jahres recommendations
- Hot Streak (#132)
- Meister Makatsu (#1): The algorithm’s favourite, the jury’s recommendation. It’s something!
- Take Time (#4)
- Toriki: The Castaway Island (#51 on the Kennerspiel list)
- Toy Battle (#2): After winning the As d’Or and being second in the predictions, I had thought a nomination would be a slam dunk. The jury thought otherwise.
- Wilmot’s Warehouse (#6): Apart from Toy Battle’s BGA implementation, this is the only game I’ve actually had the pleasure of playing – and I had a blast, with memorable stories and jokes I still remember.
Nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2026
Boss Fighters QR
2–4 players, 40–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.1), 80% Kennerspiel, #32
Team up and use your wits and gear to crack the tactics of intelligent boss monsters.
Another one I had on my honourable mentions, I’d still consider this a near(ish) miss at #32. I’m actually quite impressed the Kennerspiel score got it right because I got stronger red vibes from this one.
Moon Colony Bloodbath
1–5 players, 45–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (2.1), 99% Kennerspiel, #19
Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Players compete to keep their colonists alive.
The third of my honourable mentions to land on the shortlist. Both the theme and the mechanisms are fairly divisive, so a nomination wasn’t necessarily expected. At #19, even more of a near miss.
Rebirth
2–4 players, 45–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 70% Kennerspiel, #1
Rebuild old lands in a lush, hopeful future.
The one and only nomination both the algorithm and my guts got dead on right. Does that make Rebirth the favourite for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2026? Perhaps not, but it’s Reiner Knizia’s chance to complete the triple after his double in 2008.
Kennerspiel des Jahres recommendations
- Sanctuary (#26): Clearly the jury saw Sanctuary as different enough from Ark Nova to award it a spot on the longlist.
- Frosted Blooms (#139 on the Spiel list): There’s always the one game I’ve never even heard of. The algorithm hadn’t heard of it either, seeing how wrong it got this one…
- Foundations of Metropolis (#29): Originally a plastic monstrosity, the cardboard version now focuses on the strength of the mechanisms and earned a spot on the longlist this way.
- Tag Team (#111)
How good were the predictions?
This really is a drama in three acts: the decision of Kennerspiel or not, the algorithm picking the longlist, and finally my guts picking the shortlist.
Kennerspiel score
The algorithm classified fourteen out of sixteen games on the longlists correctly, only mixing up Toriki (96% Kennerspiel according to the algorithm, but on the Spiel list) and Frosted Blooms (only 11% Kennerspiel, yet on the Kennerspiel list). 88% accurate is a slight improvement over last year, and once again confirms that the score does a decent job at a notoriously vague distinction.
Longlist
The algorithm caught four of the nine games on the Spiel longlist in its top 10 and only one of the seven games on the Kennerspiel longlist (Rebirth). That’s a measly five out of sixteen – or 31% – which matches last year’s poor showing. The Spiel nominations in particular were a disaster, with JinxO being the highest ranked game at #106… 😱
As always, I also calculate the Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (nDCG) to measure how well the ranking performed. Here are the results across all years:
- 2021: 0.655
- 2022: 0.795
- 2023: 0.669
- 2024: 0.803
- 2025: 0.718
- 2026: 0.731
So by that metric, 2026 lands a touch above 2025, and overall third out of the six years so far. Given how bad some of the misses were, I take some comfort in this result.
Shortlist
I predicted Meister Makatsu, Take Time, and Toy Battle for Spiel des Jahres, and The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, Rebirth, and Saltfjord for Kennerspiel des Jahres. Only Rebirth actually made the cut – one out of six is just as bad as last year, even though my three SdJ picks all ended up as recommendations. Ouch.
The silver lining: my honourable mentions section turned out to be the real prediction list. Three out of six games I flagged there – Boss Fighters QR, Cozy Stickerville, and Moon Colony Bloodbath – ended up nominated, plus Hot Streak as a recommendation. Lesson learnt: next year, the algorithm needs to take the buzz more seriously.
That’s it for now, we’ll be back soon with a little more in-depth analysis on the six nominees and their chances of winning an award. (And also my children’s favourite for Kinderspiel des Jahres. 🥰)