Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023 on Analysis Paralysis

Spiel des Jahres 2023 winners

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 16:25:13 +0300

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. The jury is clearly actively trying to improve the award ceremony, so hopefully next year everything will be a bit snappier.

But without further ado, here are the winners of Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023!

Spiel des Jahres 2023

Dorfromantik: The Board Game

1–6 players, 30–60 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.7)

In the end, the main award went to what most observers (myself included) considered the favourite. I guess I should be happy the jury didn’t pick Next Station: London, so I don’t have to stop being Spiel des Jahres’s fanboy. 😅

Maybe we can continue the co-op vs solo game discussion some other time, but for now I really do think this is a very pleasing puzzle, whether on your own or with friends, and it’ll make a great ambassador for the hobby, maybe even pull in a video gamer or two. I don’t think it’ll knock anybody off their socks or redefine their expectations of board gaming, but they’ll have a good time, and that’s what matters most.

Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023

Challengers!

1–8 players, 45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.8)

Just as with Spiel des Jahres, most people’s first guess won Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023. This decision was somewhat controversial nonetheless: not so much because of the game’s qualities, but because of the colour of the award. Some people went full on gatekeeper because the jury called Challengers! a “connoisseur game” – just read through the comment section of this BGG news article 🍿.

It is worth noticing that this year’s Spiel and Kennerspiel des Jahres are only separated by 0.1 on BGG’s complexity scale (1.7 and 1.8 respectively, at the time of writing). And I certainly have been considering Challengers! a candidate for Spiel des Jahres as well. But one also needs to trust the jury in their judgement here who don’t blindly follow BGG’s data and apply some algorithm (trust me, I’ve tried 😅), but actually watch a wide spectrum of people play the games and hence understand the difficulty they can present. I highly doubt the 28 people who voted Challengers! to be a “light” game (complexity: 1) ever tried to explain the game to casual gamers and then leave them to fight their battles on their own.

In the end, we’re left with a winner that’s not quite like any other game out there and hence could push people’s expectations of board games today. Challengers! doesn’t have the same strategic depth as the other nominees, but if there were no skills involved, how come I fail this consistently with my decks after dozens of games on Board Game Arena? 😉

Special Awards 2023

Unlock!: Game Adventures

1–5 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.4)

Let’s not forget the special award for Unlock!: Game Adventures as well as Unlock! Kids: Detective Stories, and to some extent the whole Unlock! line. I’ve personally been a big fan of their games for a long time and agree with the jury’s sentiment that the entries have become even better over time. Let’s hope that this rare honour will encourage them to keep it up – and maybe become a little faster in bringing new cases from France out into the rest of the world.

Conclusion

If you had asked me in winter about my guess for Spiel des Jahres 2023, I would’ve said it’ll be a battle between Dorfromantik and Challengers! (with a slight advantage for the latter), but I wouldn’t have a clue about Kennerspiel. Because it didn’t come head to head between the two favourites, I can now claim that I called both awards correctly again, bringing my total to seven out of eight over the past four years.

As always, it’s been a lot of fun, and I’m already looking forward to another year of gaming and predictions. With a little luck, I’ll be live at the ceremony in Berlin next July again. 🤞

Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions – Part 2!

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 15:32:50 +0300

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. 😎

Nominated for Spiel des Jahres 2023

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 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	R.G	Average	Bayes	Poll
Dorfromantik	7.0	7.8	6.5	69.6%
Fun Facts	6.2	7.0	6.0	13.0%
Next Station	7.5	7.5	6.5	17.4%

This looks like a head-to-head between Dorfromantik and Next Station: London. Or could this be an underdog win for Fun Facts? Let’s take a closer look at the nominees.

Dorfromantik: The Board Game

1–6 players, 30–60 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.7)

There’s a lot of buzz going on around this video game adaptation that the jury describes as a “feel-good-game”. It sure feels soothing how the landscape evolves over the course of the game, while presenting an interesting challenge to score as many points as possible. The campaign mode with its unlockable content offers some fresh challenges every time and provides a great excuse to come back to the game again and again.

I definitely had a lovely time playing through the campaign for eleven straight evenings. I even found myself looking forward to incorporating that new tile I just unlocked into my strategy for the next game and chase a new highscore. Sure, for the last game or two it did feel like I was mostly going through the motions just to tick off the last few boxes, but on the other hand: what was the last game you played for eleven days in a row?

But hidden in there is also my biggest concern: for me, Dorfromantik is essentially a solo game. Of course, you can discuss with your group where to place a tile, but that’s true for any solo game – by that logic, they’re all just “co-operative games you can play on your own”.

One final question remains: Will the jury award Spiel des Jahres to another comforting hex-tile-laying game one year after Cascadia? They always claim that they don’t concern themselves with such considerations, and the two games do play out quite differently. Still, the award is meant as an ambassador for the board gaming hobby, so highlighting the breadth of what a game could be beyond plopping hexes on the table yet again can’t be entirely dismissed.

Fun Facts

4–8 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.0)

The pitch of a party game that allows you to get to know your group, but in a controlled and gentle manner, seems to be a perfect match for a Spiel des Jahres. Of course, there isn’t “enough game” to it for the ‘geek crowd, so don’t be fooled by the numbers above. The jury definitely has a fondness for very direct games that mostly play above the table: in the interactions between the players.

Still, I was a little surprised by the nomination. Whilst the reviews were by and large very positive, the game seems to work best with players you already somewhat know. In a fairly random group, the game can fall flat since you have no reference points to go on about when comparing one player’s answer to another one’s. A Spiel des Jahres should work for anybody, so that caveat seems significant to me and puts Fun Facts at some disadvantage in the competition for the red meeple.

Next Station: London

1–4 players, 25–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4)

By my count, this is the forth “random’n’write” game to be nominated for either award over the past decade, and to be honest, I’m not sure what this particular variant adds to the genre. I do find it very elegant how the fact that every players draws a different underground line every round breaks the symmetry such that everybody’s tube map will look different despite following the same cards. But as far as the actual gameplay goes, I found the very similar Voll Verplant to be the more intriguing puzzle. My final grump is that a winning map looks nothing like an actual underground map: the scoring incentivises players to zig-zag through quarters and back and forth across the river, and that’s just not how an efficient public transport system is designed.

This is not to say Next Station: London wouldn’t be a fine game and a deserving nominee, but I’d be fairly disappointed if it did win the award that puts it in line with such giants as CATAN and Carcassonne.

OK, one more complaint, then I’ll shut up: I had a hard time learning the game from the rule book, and I’ve played over 600 different games. How would this fair with the average gamer?

Also, there’s zero interaction between players. (Yeah, I lied, I wasn’t done.) Like, not even a race for completing an objective first or anything. Why would the jury shout from the roof that games are a cultural and social good worth studying and promoting, just to put the spotlight on a game that has players silently ignore each other for half an hour whilst drawing the least efficient tube maps possible?

Again, not a bad game by any stretch, I just don’t see it as Spiel des Jahres material.

Who will win?

Alright, I guess it doesn’t come as a surprise that I don’t think Next Station: London will (or rather: should) win. As I already said, Fun Facts is in some respects the perfect Spiel des Jahres, still my money is on Dorfromantik. It has a couple of things going for itself:

The jury clearly disagrees with my assessment of it being a solo (only) game, so that doesn’t seem to be an obstacle.
Maybe being a solo game isn’t all that bad? Maybe it’s time to highlight this part of the hobby? But then again, Harald Schrapers, chair of the jury, wrote a whole editorial on how he’s “totally not interested” in solo gaming (spielbox 2019/7).
From a social aspect, maybe the strongest draw could be the promise of bringing video gamers into the analogue tabletop world. As an ambassador for the hobby, this could be the most valuable asset of them all.

Nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023

Let’s take a look at the same metrics as above, but for the Kennerspiel nominees:

Game	R.G	Average	Bayes	Poll
Challengers!	6.4	7.2	6.3	29.8%
IKI	6.6	7.7	6.9	14.9%
Planet Unknown	6.7	8.0	7.2	55.3%

The numbers clearly favour Planet Unknown to win Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023. Will the jury agree with the wisdom of the crowd?

Challengers!

1–8 players, 45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.8)

This one was a bit of a surprise to the algorithm, but not because it was nominated, but on what list. It had a 0% Kennerspiel score, and unlike some other decisions by the algorithm, in this case I agreed with its classification. The cartoonish appearance and the lack of player agency during large portions of the game seem much better suited for a Spiel than a Kennerspiel. And indeed, when presenting the longlist in ascending order of difficulty, the jury mentioned Challengers! as the simplest amongst the Kennerspiel recommendations, i.e., the one that would have been most likely to leap over to the other award. Having played this game now with more players, I do see where the jury is coming from: there’s a lot of details going on that aren’t intuitive on first playthrough. What’s worse: In the usual setting, where one player explains the rules to the rest of the group, you might have up to three head-to-head battles with new players left entirely to their own devices and being confused what’s the difference between “gaining the flag”, “in flag possession” and “on flag loss”.

So, while I do think that this game plays out like a Spiel for skilled players, it presents the barriers of entry like a Kennerspiel for casual players, and that’s what matters most for the classification of the award type.

But once that barrier is cleared, I think this is quite an exceptional game, certainly in the sense that there isn’t really anything like it out there. The jury mentions that this is a Kennerspiel that creates a party game atmosphere, and I think once you buy into the mindset and let go of control of your team, it’s really entertaining to come up with interesting combos, just to see your team completely fail to execute your brilliant strategy on the pitch.

Of course, there’s a lot of luck and randomness involved, which can lead to frustrating moments, but this is a game that plays out so quickly that it’s not a bug but a feature. There really are a lot of clever little design decisions in there which make this game sing. I’m certainly already excited to see how Challengers! 2 will stir up the formula.

IKI

2–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0)

This is the second edition of a game that itself re-implements Edo Craftsman Story, a game that is almost a decade old. In a time that’s dominated by the cult of the new and where a second print run is the exception, it’s nice to see so much appreciation for a game past its initial hype cycle.

I haven’t played IKI yet, so don’t have much to say about the gameplay. The jury points out how the mechanics actually capture the spirit of being a trader in Japan at the time, which sounds like an intriguing proposition.

The last thing I’ll have to say is that the complexity seems on the upper end of what the jury would consider for a Kennerspiel. Not out of the question, but it does make a win for IKI less likely.

Planet Unknown

1–6 players, 60–80 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2)

Another game I haven’t played, but the buzz is quite strong. The combination of tile laying and tech tree seems fresh enough. Opinions are split on the central carousel that determines what tiles are available to each player every round – both if it was necessary to blow up the price of the game like this and whether calling it the Lazy S.U.S.A.N. space station is a clever pun or a little trite.

By all means, the reviews are strong and both weight and length seem to hit the sweet spot of a Kennerspiel, so Planet Unknown is definitely a strong contender.

Who will win?

I think it’s clear that all three nominees are very strong and have a realistic chance of winning – none of them would be a big surprise. But in the end I’ll go with the title that had the strongest reviews and was the frontrunner right from the start: Challengers! It’s the most unusual game amongst the nominees (which isn’t necessarily something the jury cares about, see the very safe picks from last year), but I think in many respects it can push the public’s perception of what a board game can be and do, which is something the jury cares about deeply. (At least I interpret their choises this way… 😉)

Let’s see if this bet-against-the-odds will pay off for me. We’ll be wiser on Sunday! I hope you’re as excited as I am. 😎

Spiel des Jahres 2023 nominations

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 23:20:42 +0300

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.

Nominated for Spiel des Jahres 2023

Dorfromantik: The Board Game

1–6 players, 30–60 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.7), 100% Spiel

Probably the strongest contender for a nomination beforehand. No surprises here…

Fun Facts

4–8 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel

Together with That’s Not a Hat, designer Kasper Lapp had two entries with quite some buzz, though the algorithm wouldn’t pick it up and placed Fun Facts on #36 of the predictions.

Next Station: London

1–4 players, 25–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 100% Spiel

This was the #1 prediction, so the nomination is a logical consequence, even though I didn’t see it being nominated.

Spiel des Jahres recommendations

Akropolis: Having won the As d’Or and being placed #5 by the algorithm, “just” a recommendation is almost disappointing… 😉
HITSTER: Only #18 by the algorithm, but I squeezed it in as an honourable mention. This could’ve been a strong contender for Spiel des Jahres, but it works best with a paid Spotify subscription, which really hampered its chances for a nomination.
KuZOOkA: I’ve even had this down for a nomination, so a recommendation was expected in the end.
MANTIS: This year’s obligatory jury suprise, just #173 prediction according to algorithm. Another simple card game by the Exploding Kittens publishers.
QE: For me this was a candidate for a Kennerspiel nomination – in the end, the algorithm was right, predicting a place on the longlist for Spiel des Jahres.
Sea Salt & Paper: At #17 of the predictions a near miss. Another fairly simple card game that was on many commentators’ lists.
That’s Not a Hat: As mentioned with Fun Facts, this was another much discussed game. At #20, the algorithm actually gave it the better odds.

Nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023

Challengers!

1–8 players, 45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.8), 0% Kennerspiel

Challengers! was definitely one of the jury members’ darlings and couldn’t possibly be absent from any predictions list. The algorithm put it on #16, I saw it amongst the nominations – for Spiel des Jahres… We’ll have more things to discuss on this topic in the follow-up predictions article.

IKI

2–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

Even though the algorithm placed it #2 amongst the predictions, this game feels a bit like an underdog, partially because it was originally released in 2015, but didn’t receive much attention until its got a second edition. Now it’s nominated for the most prestigious award in board gaming!

Planet Unknown

1–6 players, 60–80 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 7% Kennerspiel

The only Kennerspiel nomination I got dead-on right, even though the algorithm placed it only on #21 – again for the wrong award…

Kennerspiel des Jahres recommendations

Council of Shadows: I even thought a nomination was possible, even though the algorithm placed it only #82. In the end probably a bit too heavy for a nomination.
Mindbug: First Contact: Jury surprises, part 2. This one the algorithm had only as prediction #101. I can’t say I’ve heard much else about the game otherwise either, though it has a very famous name amongst its design team…

Special Awards 2023

Unlock!: Game Adventures

1–5 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.4), 100% Kennerspiel

The jury also awarded two special awards this year, the first in five years and the first ever for a Kinderspiel. This honour goes to the Unlock! series in general, and to their latest installment in particular, which lifts the concept on a wonderful meta level by choosing the three popular games Mysterium, Ticket to Ride and Pandemic as background stories.

At this point in the history of Spiel des Jahres it is almost a running gag that Pandemic designer Matt Leacock has never won the main award. He was nominated three times with various Pandemic variants and received said last special award for Pandemic Legacy: Season 2. Now his game inspired another special award winner – but still no main award. Maybe the jury waits for Season 13 for that?

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

Of the fifteen games on the two longlists, the algorithm classified two wrong – both nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres: Challengers! and Planet Unknown. The former was sorted as the lightest amongst the connoisseur games as presented by the jury, so at least that seems like a near miss, even though the algorithm was 100% convinced it should be on the Spiel des Jahres list. 🙈 Still, overall 87% correct ain’t too bad.

Longlist

This one’s pretty bad… 😅 The algorithm predicted a mere six out of fifteen games (40%) correctly. I can at least claim for myself that I predicted or mentioned honourably a further four games, bumping the accuracy to 67%, which is somewhat in line with previous years.

Shortlist

It’s not getting any better. This year, I only called three out of six nominations correctly – one of them for the wrong award. Two out of those predictions were “manual overrides” because the algorithm didn’t pick up those games at all. Overall, the weakest year so far for my predictions, it appears I need to adjust the algorithms a little bit.

That’s it for now, we’ll be back soon with a little more in-depth analyses on the six nominees and their chances of winning an award.

Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Sat, 20 May 2023 22:24:54 +0300

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. You can find the detailed analysis here and complete results here. But without further ado, here are the favourite games to win Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023.

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2023

#1: Next Station: London

1–4 players, 25–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 100% Spiel

Draw tube lines to cross the Thames and connect London.

#2: Splendor Duel

2 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 70% Spiel

Renaissance merchants go head to head to please nobility.

#3: Wonder Woods

2–5 players, 20–25 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.2), 100% Spiel

Use bluff and deduction in order to find the best mushroom spots.

#4: [kosmopoli:t]

4–8 players, 6 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.3), 100% Spiel

Cooperative Kitchen Work serving client from all over the world.

#5: Akropolis

2–4 players, 20–30 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.8), 100% Spiel

Build your Greek city on multiple levels to keep your districts perfectly placed.

#6: KuZOOkA

2–6 players, 30–45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.0), 100% Spiel

Discover the most promising escape option and break out of the zoo.

#7: Caldera Park

1–4 players, 30–40 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 100% Spiel

Take care of animals in your park by forming big herds and avoiding bad weather.

#8: Inside Job

2–5 players, 20–30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 100% Spiel

Agents work together to complete missions and gather intel but who’s “The Insider”?

#9: QE

3–5 players, 45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.6), 100% Spiel

Bid ANYTHING to bail out companies, but just don’t bid the MOST!

#10: Dorfromantik: The Board Game

1–6 players, 30–60 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.7), 100% Spiel

Experience the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere of the video game on your table.

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023

#1: Terra Nova

2–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 12+ years, medium (2.8), 100% Kennerspiel

Control one of ten asymmetric factions in a streamlined version of Terra Mystica.

#2: IKI

2–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

Hire artisans, set them up in the market and acquire prestige in feudal Japan.

#3: Flamecraft

1–5 players, 60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 100% Kennerspiel

In a magical realm a village awakes, and artisan dragons make coffee and cakes!

#4: Atiwa

1–4 players, 30–120 minutes, 12+ years, medium (2.7), 99% Kennerspiel

Choose your actions carefully as you balance the needs of the community and nature.

#5: Tiletum

1–4 players, 60–100 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.4), 100% Kennerspiel

Use dice for resources and actions to gain riches in the Renaissance.

#6: Beer & Bread

2 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.4), 100% Kennerspiel

Two villages face off in the traditions of brewing beer and baking bread.

#7: The Guild of Merchant Explorers

1–4 players, 45 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (2.1), 100% Kennerspiel

Explore strange lands, establish trade routes, and search for treasure.

#8: Whirling Witchcraft

2–5 players, 15–30 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (1.8), 98% Kennerspiel

Use your recipes to generate ingredients and overflow your opponent’s cauldron.

#9: The Hunger

2–6 players, 60 minutes, 12+ years, medium light (2.3), 100% Kennerspiel

As a vampire, you want to hunt humans, but you must return home before sunrise…

#10: Oltréé

2–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.4), 100% Kennerspiel

Rangers help local communities and defend their Kingdom in order to restore hope.

My two cents

This is where I usually take the algorithmic predictions for the longlists and pick three games each that I think the jury will nominate. But this year, I’ll proceed a little different – because I don’t agree with the algorithms all that much… 🙈 So I’ll go pretty freestyle with my predictions for the nominees, both with picks from outside the algorithm’s top 10 and contradicting the Kennerspiel score. 😅

My predictions for nominees for Spiel des Jahres 2023

My predictions for nominees for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023

Honourable mentions

Lastly, let me squeeze in a few more titles in order to increase my chance of covering the whole list. Since I’ve already turned my back on my own algorithms, let me just throw out a few more title I think it might have missed… 😉

Conclusion

As you can tell from the somewhat uncommon way I picked the predictions for the shortlist, I feel like there are much fewer “obvious” candidates than in previous year – in particular for Kennerspiel, which is weird, since that’s usually the award where us board game nerds are much more up-to-date.

So even more than in previous years, I’ll be excited to hear what the jury will surprise us with.

Finally, let’s not forget Kinderspiel des Jahres. I’m really curious about that one – but from a regular customer’s perspective, since I really appreciate the guidance to new games I can try with my kids. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧

As every year, it’s not straightforward to determine what games are eligible for the awards. Generally speaking, it’d be those games release between April 2022 and March 2023 into German retail. Hence, filtering by BGG release year will exclude games that were released earlier elsewhere, but only recently in Germany, and likewise let some games pass that have not seen a German release in that time window. I did my best to catch what I could, but there’s always some that get away. ↩︎