SdJ predictions on Analysis Paralysis

Spiel des Jahres 2025 predictions

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Sat, 17 May 2025 00:05:57 +0300

Spiel des Jahres 2025 is around the corner! As with the previous five 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 20th.

As every year, I’ll let the algorithms speak, and I’ve doubled down on the path I’ve started last year when I put more focus on jury members’ reviews. Back then, I simply averaged all available reviews to obtain a proxy for the “jury review”. The major problem with this are of course the gaps in the data for missing reviews. Luckily, we have a method to fill those gaps in the form of our recommendation algorithm. So this year, I’ve put 50% of the weight on the individual recommendations for the 14 jury members and 50% on the “recommendendations to the jury”. This way, I was able to calculated a score for 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. As always, you can find the complete code on GitLab and the complete results here.

We have another year with some strong contenders. I think there’s one clear nomination (though it’s less clear on what list, more on that later), with the rest of the field pretty wide open. My predictions last year weren’t particularly good, so the only way is up… 📈

But without further ado, here are the favourite games to win Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025.

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2025

#1: The Gang

3–6 players, 20 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 89% Spiel

Bet together the order of your hands in Texas Hold’em Poker to win together.

#2: Point of View: Lost Places

2–8 players, 60 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 99% Spiel

A cooperative-communicative game series with different points of view for everyone.

#3: Tower Up

2–4 players, 30–45 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.9), 87% Spiel

Architects compete against one another to construct the best buildings in town.

#4: Castle Combo

2–5 players, 10–25 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 86% Spiel

Draft people from the lower and upper city to create a valuable house.

#5: Chocolates

2–4 players, 15–20 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel

Figure out as much as you can about your box of chocolates BEFORE tasting them!

#6: Slide

2–6 players, 15 minutes, 7+ years, light (1.2), 100% Spiel

Group numbers in your grid to make them disappear.

#7: Krakel Orakel

2–8 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.1), 100% Spiel

Can you spot and reveal pictures in a tangle of lines?

#8: Agent Avenue

2–4 players, 10–20 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 100% Spiel

A blend of strategic bluffing and set collection in a whimsical spy world.

#9: Quando

2–6 players, 15 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel

Ditch cards from your hand as you aim to have the lowest score.

#10: Courtisans

2–5 players, 20–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 91% Spiel

When the Queen holds her banquet, skullduggery is on the menu!

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025

#1: Bomb Busters

2–5 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 54% Kennerspiel

Players defuse bombs by deducing and cutting unseen wires of different values.

#2: The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

2 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.1), 94% Kennerspiel

Play as the Fellowship or Sauron and attempt to determine the fate of Middle-earth.

#3: Faraway

2–6 players, 15–30 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.9), 67% Kennerspiel

Explore a mysterious land and fulfill quests on your way back.

#4: Blood on the Clocktower

6–21 players, 30–120 minutes, 15+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

Deduce who the Demon is through logic and bluffing. Dead players still play.

#5: Apiary

1–5 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

Hyper-intelligent bees take to outer space to build, explore, and grow.

#6: Wyrmspan

1–5 players, 90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (2.8), 100% Kennerspiel

Build a cavernous sanctuary for dragons of all shapes and sizes!

#7: Wonderland’s War

2–5 players, 45–125 minutes, 13+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

The looking glass has shattered and war has come to Wonderland!

#8: Endeavor: Deep Sea

1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.9), 100% Kennerspiel

Lead your research institute to explore ocean depths and publish your findings!

#9: SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

1–4 players, 40–160 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (3.8), 100% Kennerspiel

Search for signs of alien life by launching probes and analyzing distant signals.

#10: The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

1–4 players, 20 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 75% Kennerspiel

Travel from the Shire and overcome every obstacle as a team.

My two cents

It’s time for my picks for the nominations. The algorithms determined the longlist predictions, but my gut feeling takes over from here on.

My predictions for nominees for Spiel des Jahres 2025

There’s at least five or six games amongst the predictions for the longlist that I could see being nominated, but I had to pick just three of them… 🤞

My predictions for nominees for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025

Again, many more strong contenders than I could fit on the predictions list. Bomb Busters is the candidate everybody is talking about, and I too am fairly certain it’ll be nominated. Its Kennerspiel score is 54%, so I left it on the anthracite list, though personally I think it’ll end up on the red one.

Conclusion

Another year full of wonderful games – let’s enjoy being spoiled for choice until the trade wars dry up the supplies. 🙈

Also, let’s not forget Kinderspiel des Jahres – my daughters are now 4 and 5 years old, and we’ve already played through most of the back catalogue of past winners, so the whole family is looking forward to more great recommendations.

Stay tuned for the announcement on May 20th! 🤩

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 2024 and March 2025 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. ↩︎

Spiel des Jahres 2024 predictions

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Fri, 31 May 2024 12:00:00 +0300

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. The other major contributor are the “recommendendations to the jury”. 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.

This is quite a curious year. Usually, I’ve had quite clear favourites for the nominations or even the winners, but would find lots of surprises on the longlist. This year, however, there’s been a large number of games with a really warm reception by the jury, which I believe we will see on the longlist, but not really any game that stands out as a clear favourite for the nominations.

The jury chairman, Harald Schrapers, already spoke some time ago of the year of the card games, so prepare for lots of small but original card games in the predictions, which might be one reason why there’s no clear favourite.

But without further ado, here are the favourite games to win Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2024.

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2024

#1: The Same Game

3–6 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel

Discuss how completely different objects might share something in common.

A cooperative party game by Wolfgang Warsch – The Same Game is a game to watch!

#2: FTW?!

2–6 players, 25–40 minutes, 8+ years, 90% Spiel

Play your cards cleverly to be the 1337 in FTW?!

FTW?!, an UNO variant, could be Friedemann Friese’s first nomination in over a decade.

#3: 5 Towers

2–5 players, 15–30 minutes, 7+ years, 79% Spiel

Get the most cards and build fantastic towers!

Kasper Lapp strikes again with 5 Towers!

#4: Mycelia

1–4 players, 45 minutes, 9+ years, medium light (2.0), 62% Spiel

Attract help from forest dwellers to remove dewdrops from your field.

One of two games called Mycelia from last year – what a sign if there ever was one that we’ve had enough nature kitsch!

#5: Sides

2–9 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 74% Spiel

Team members work together to have two of them guessing hidden word.

Sides looks a bit like a game generated by an AI that was trained on previous Spiel des Jahres winners. Make of that what you will.

#6: Trekking Through History

2–4 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.8), 93% Spiel

Time travel to some of the greatest moments in human history.

Trekking Through History used to have a beautiful cover. What has happened to it?

#7: Block and Key

1–4 players, 20–40 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.7), 97% Spiel

Cleverly place 3D blocks in a shared space to unlock the key to victory points.

#8: Trio

3–5 players, 15 minutes, 6+ years, light (1.0), 99% Spiel

Reveal anyone’s lowest or highest card and keep going until there’re three of a kind!

Trio has won this year’s As d’Or, France’s answer to the Spiel des Jahres, so is definitely one to consider.

#9: Phantom Ink

4–8 players, 10–15 minutes, 13+ years, light (1.1), 99% Spiel

Spirits race to get their medium teammates to guess a secret object.

Phantom Ink is another word guessing party game, but one with a lot of atmosphere. Its chances might be drastically improved by its much better German title.

#10: Comet

2–4 players, 45–75 minutes, 12+ years, medium light (2.0), 70% Spiel

Save extinct and endangered species from their deadly fate by the threatening comet!

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2024

#1: Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West

2–5 players, 20–90 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.5), 94% Kennerspiel

Build train lines across the United States in a twelve-game campaign.

The jury states that they won’t consider straight reimplementations of previous games, but they did nominate three different Pandemic variants over the year. Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West could definitely find a place on the longlist.

#2: Sky Team

2 players, 15 minutes, 12+ years, medium light (2.0), 66% Kennerspiel

Pilot and co-pilot work together to land planes.

The last 2-player game to be nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres was Targi in 2012. Sky Team is highly praised, but has next to no chance of winning.

#3: Obsession

1–4 players, 30–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.1), 100% Kennerspiel

Renovate an estate, manage servants, and pursue romance in Victorian England.

Obsession was first released in 2018 and has gathered quite the following over the years, sitting at #62 on BGG.

#4: Forest Shuffle

2–5 players, 40–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 94% Kennerspiel

Gather the most valuable trees and attract species to them.

Forest Shuffle is high up on most pundits’ lists. I’d say the theme is super bland, but at least in German its title is a pretty good pun.

#5: Caper: Europe

2 players, 25–35 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.1), 77% Kennerspiel

Three heists. Two rivals. One criminal mastermind will rise to the top.

#6: Heat: Pedal to the Metal

1–6 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 66% Kennerspiel

Manage your race car’s speed to keep from overheating.

Heat has been in the BGG hotness pretty much non-stop since its release and has climbed to #42. The jury however has not been as hot on it (pun intended) as the community.

#7: The Guild of Merchant Explorers

1–4 players, 45 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (2.0), 95% Kennerspiel

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

The Guild of Merchant Explorers was actually also #7 on last year’s predictions, but apparently the jury only considers it for this year. Sometimes that’s the hardest part of the predictions. 🤷

#8: Daybreak

1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 10+ years, medium (3.0), 99% Kennerspiel

Cooperatively decarbonize the planet and create resilient societies.

What a topical game between all those anthropomorphic animals! Daybreak combines a bold theme with interesting gameplay – and again has a much better title in German.

#9: Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory

2–4 players, 90–180 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (4.2), 100% Kennerspiel

Simulate a whole contemporary nation in this asymmetric, politico-economic euro-game.

At least for me, Hegemony shot out of nowhere into the BGG top 100. Quite heavy overall, but a place on the longlist is always possible.

#10: Darwin’s Journey

1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (3.9), 100% Kennerspiel

Retrace Darwin’s journey to the Galapagos in a worker-placement adventure.

My two cents

It’s time for my picks for the nominations. As indicated in the introduction, I think the algorithm has done a pretty good at predicting the longlist, which means there’s lots of strong contenders. Let’s go with these predictions for the nominations:

My predictions for nominees for Spiel des Jahres 2024

The grognards will go crazy if there’s three party games on the shortlist, but those are just the most approachable kind of games.

My predictions for nominees for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2024

To be honest, I’d see Sky Team rather on the red list, but I’ll stick with the categorisation of the algorithm here.

Honourable mentions

Finally, I always like to sneak in a few more games that I think have a good shot at the longlist, even though the algorithm didn’t place them in the top 10.

Conclusion

This year is set to be one that lives from its breadth rather than its depth. I’d say the race is pretty open in both awards, much more so than in previous years. While this makes my job as a predictor harder, as a board game fan I’m looking forward to the surprises that the jury will have in store for us.

With every passing year, I also get more and more excited about the picks for Kinderspiel des Jahres – so far all their recommendations were hits with my kids, and I can’t wait to see what’s the latest hotness in children’s games.

Stay tuned for the announcement on June 11th! 🤩

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 2023 and March 2024 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. ↩︎

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. ↩︎

Spiel des Jahres 2022 predictions

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Mon, 16 May 2022 18:40:51 +0300

Spiel des Jahres 2022 is around the corner! (Has it really been a year already since we last spoke with each other? 😅) We’re blessed with another strong year full of wonderful games that all compete for the most prestigious awards in board gaming. 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 23rd.

Even more so than in previous years, I didn’t have much time (thanks, kids 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧), so I’ve mostly used the same algorithmic approach as last year. First, I took all eligible¹ games and separated them into two lists: one for Spiel des Jahres and one for Kennerspiel des Jahres, depending on their Kennerspiel score.² Then I ranked those games in a couple of different ways, and finally combined those into the final result:

Recommend.Games recommendation algorithm (50% ranking, 25% score). This has proven to be a powerful and reliable method to capture the jury’s taste, but it’s slow to recommend new games with few ratings.
Spiel des Jahres probability (10%). Similar to the model that calculates the Kennerspiel score, I’ve trained a model that tries to predict a game’s chances to end up on the jury’s longlist. This is particularly designed to unearth candidates with few votes, but it’s still rudimentary at this point.
Average BoardGameGeek rating (5%). Let the gamers speak! In order to give new games a chance, we’ll take a look at the simple average rating.
Geek score (aka Bayesian average, 5%). This score starts out at 5.5, and gets closer to the actual average the more ratings come in. It’s more reliable, but also strongly favours games that have been around for longer and hence gathered more ratings.
Recommend.Games ranking (5%). We introduced a new default ranking on R.G a couple of months ago, which seems to pick up new games shooting up the hotness a little faster than on BGG, so let’s give it a shot as part of these predictions. 🤓

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 2022.

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2022

#1: Die wandelnden Türme

2–6 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.0), 96% Spiel

Well, this is something of a surprise prediction since Die wandelnden Türme doesn’t even have an English title yet and only a handful of ratings on BGG. There must be something about this game if the algorithm could still pick it up amongst the crowd.

#2: So Clover!

3–6 players, 30 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.1), 100% Spiel

A cooperative word–association game by publisher Repos Production, in many ways reminiscent of Spiel des Jahres winner Just One. The jury generally doesn’t mind repeating themselves, so So Clover! is definitely in the running.

#3: Top Ten

4–9 players, 30 minutes, 14+ years, light (1.1), 98% Spiel

Another cooperative party game, light and with an immediate hook – exactly what the jury is looking for.

#4: Lost Cities: Roll & Write

2–5 players, 30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.1), 97% Spiel

This is an interesting one: While the jury completely ignored the original Lost Cities (now considered a classic), it did pin the main award on Keltis (essentially the board game version). Will they come back to the same system for the Roll & Write version?

#5: Cross Clues

2–6 players, 5–10 minutes, 7+ years, light (1.0), 100% Spiel

…and another cooperative word–association party game… I sense a pattern! 😅 Does Cross Clues have what it takes to set itself apart from its competitors?

#6: Fire & Stone

2–4 players, 45–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 86% Spiel

The latest game by “Mr. Carcassonne”, so this fact alone makes Fire & Stone an interesting game to watch.

#7: Explorers

1–4 players, 20 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (1.8), 98% Spiel

Phil Walker-Harding has built an impressive portfolio of award winning games over the past years, so Explorers could be his next shot at winning Spiel des Jahres.

#8: 7 Wonders: Architects

2–7 players, 25 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.4), 99% Spiel

The little sibling of the inaugural Kennerspiel des Jahres winner already won the 2022 As d’Or, the French equivalent of Spiel des Jahres, so this is definitely one to watch.

#9: Hula-Hoo!

2–6 players, 10–20 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.0), 95% Spiel

There’s been many cute and/or ugly animal themed light games by Jacques Zeimet that were often well received by the jury, so Hula-Hoo! could be the next in that line.

#10: TRAILS

2–4 players, 20–40 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.8), 93% Spiel

PARKS wasn’t as well received in Germany as it was internationally, so maybe its successor TRAILS will fare better.

My two cents

Alrighty, so these were the top ten candidates for a recommendation as determined by our algorithm. As always, I’ll add my personal best guess for the three nominees:

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2022

#1: Cryptid

3–5 players, 30–50 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 74% Kennerspiel

A bit of a latecomer to Germany, Cryptid already gathered a lot of momentum internationally and hence is an easy recommendation for our algorithm.

#2: Cascadia

1–4 players, 30–45 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.9), 53% Kennerspiel

Cascadia is another international favourite that was met with positive reviews, though most find it soothing rather than exciting. Also, it seems to be just on the border between the two awards, so could end up on either list.

#3: Ark Nova

1–4 players, 90–150 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (3.7), 100% Kennerspiel

Ark Nova is the heavy eurogame of the season and has a good shot at a spot on the longlist. It’s way too heavy for a nomination though.

#4: The Search for Planet X

1–4 players, 60 minutes, 13+ years, medium light (2.3), 98% Kennerspiel

Just like Cryptid, The Search for Planet X is a deduction game that gained a lot of recognition internationally and now could receive its share of fame in Germany.

#5: Meadow

1–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 97% Kennerspiel

Another non–controversial game with a soothing animal theme. I don’t have more to say about Meadow.

#6: Dune: Imperium

1–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 14+ years, medium (3.0), 100% Kennerspiel

My feeling is that games with a strong franchise generally are somewhat outside the jury’s scope: While strongly drawing in the enthusiastic fan base, it leaves the majority of the audience rather distance. Dune: Imperium might just be the exception to the rule since the reviews were really strong.

#7: The Red Cathedral

1–4 players, 80 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.8), 100% Kennerspiel

Another game that was available internationally and has recently seen a German release from Kosmos, who certainly know how to win awards with their games.

#8: Canvas

1–5 players, 30 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (1.7), 88% Kennerspiel

Canvas definitely has some stunning artwork, though the critical response to the gameplay was rather lackluster…

#9: Free Ride

1–5 players, 50–90 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.7), 100% Kennerspiel

Friedemann Friese’s venture into the train game genre. It’s been a while since the jury was really excited by one of his creations.

#10: Living Forest

1–4 players, 40 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 77% Kennerspiel

Living Forest is the latest Kennerspiel hotness. It got quite recently released and hasn’t received a lot of ratings yet, but is definitely on the jury’s radar.

My two cents

Same procedure as for Spiel des Jahres, here are my three top picks for Kennerspiel des Jahres nomination:

Honourable mentions

This is always the section where I squeeze in a few more title in order to increase my chance of covering the whole list. There’s plenty of strong games I could mention, but I’ll restrict myself to two additional candidates for Spiel des Jahres that the algorithm just wouldn’t quite pick up:

Voll verplant (internationally known as Metro X): A simple to learn, yet very difficult to master flip & write subway building game.
SCOUT: A highly celebrated ladder–climbing game from highly celebrated publisher Oink Games.

Conclusion

Looking through the list of games, there’s two trends I see:

Games arriving late to Germany. More so than in previous years, there’s plenty of titles with release date 2020 or earlier in the BGG database which have become only available in the past 12 months to the German market. Of course, there’s a bias towards these games in the algorithm since they received more ratings than brand new titles, but there might also be some release delays due to the ongoing effects of COVID–19.
Nature. Maybe this is the legacy of smash hit Wingspan or maybe it’s people looking for comfort. But there are definitely a lot of animals, plants, parks, etc, on the covers of this list.

Will the jury agree and follow my predictions? We’ll see on Monday, May 23. I can’t wait! 🤩

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 2021 and March 2022 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. ↩︎
I’ll trust the algorithm and the scores it outputs blindly. As every year, it’ll be an interesting validation of the Kennerspiel score to see whether the jury agrees or not. ↩︎

Spiel des Jahres 2021 predictions

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Fri, 14 May 2021 02:30:00 +0300

It’s our favourite time of the year again: time for Spiel des Jahres nominations! On Monday, May 17th, the jury will once again announce their longlist (aka recommendations) and shortlist (aka nominations) for Spiel des Jahres, Kennerspiel des Jahres and Kinderspiel des Jahres 2021. Just like last year, I’ll try to produce a list of the most promising games to land on the longlist for Spiel and Kennerspiel. (I’ll promise to get around to Kinderspiel predictions in a couple of years.)

Unlike last year, I won’t use hard filters though to distinguish between red and anthracite games, but will rely on the Kennerspiel score I developed a couple of months back. This model tries to predict if a game is a Kennerspiel or not based on some key features, like complexity, play time, age recommendations and game type. The jury’s decision this year what list a game belongs to will be the first actual test for that model too, so let’s hope it actually made sense! 🤞

Even more so than the previous year, I’ll take an algorithmic approach. That is, I do not follow my own taste or gut feelings, but I let the numbers talk. First, I took all eligible games¹ and separated them into two lists: one for Spiel des Jahres and one for Kennerspiel des Jahres, depending on their Kennerspiel score. Then I ranked those games in a couple of different ways, and finally combined those into the final result:

Sorted by the Recommend.Games recommendation algorithm (90%). This has proven to be a powerful and reliable method to capture the jury’s taste, but it’s slow to recommend new games with few ratings.
Spiel des Jahres probability (5%). Similar to the model that calculates the Kennerspiel score, I’ve trained a model that tries to predict a game’s chances to end up on the jury’s longlist. This is particularly designed to unearth candidates with few votes, but it’s still rudimentary at this point.
Average BoardGameGeek rating (2.5%). Let the gamers speak! In order to give new games a chance, we’ll take a look at the simple average rating.
Geek score (aka Bayesian average, 2.5%). This score starts out at 5.5, and gets closer to the actual average the more ratings come in. It’s more reliable, but also strongly favours games that have been around for longer and hence gathered more ratings.

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 2021.

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres 2021

#1: MicroMacro: Crime City

1–4 players, 15–45 minutes, 10+ years, light (1.1), 99% Spiel

Some games can be played without reading any rules. MicroMacro goes one step further: You can start playing the game right on the box. This alone makes it a strong contender. I wonder though if the jury will consider a game full of murders and crimes a pleasant pastime for families.

#2: PARKS

1–5 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 88% Spiel

Something of a latecomer to Germany, the looks and theme of PARKS are somewhat reminiscent of the previous Kennerspiel winner Wingspan. Will this work to its advantage?

#3: Detective Club

4–8 players, 45 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.2), 100% Spiel

Light and social, just like the jury likes their red games. Detective Club requires at least four players though, and the jury generally wants three players as well.

#4: Fantasy Realms

3–6 players, 20 minutes, 14+ years, medium light (1.7), 100% Spiel

Quite an old game by international standards, but it garnered its share of positive review. A breezy card game might just be what the jury is looking for!

#5: The Castles of Tuscany

2–4 players, 45–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 89% Spiel

There’s no doubt that the jury is a fan of Stefan Feld’s work. The Castles of Tuscany could earn him his first Spiel des Jahres nomination.

#6: Point Salad

2–6 players, 15–30 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.2), 100% Spiel

By all accounts, this seems to be a light and fun card game that could well be in the jury’s wheelhouse. I love the self-ironic title, but will the average gamer get the joke?

#7: Trails of Tucana

1–8 players, 15 minutes, 8+ years, light (1.3), 100% Spiel

Yet another simple roll/flip’n’write. It reminds me a lot of last year’s Silver & Gold which I had high hopes for, but was completely ignored by the jury. Might not be the best omen for Trails of Tucana.

#8: The Key: Murder at the Oakdale Club & Theft at Cliffrock Villa

1–4 players, 15–20 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.0), 99% Spiel

One year after his smash hit The Crew, Thomas Sing might reach for Spiel des Jahres this time. A real-time deduction game sure sounds like a winning combo!

#9: New York Zoo

1–5 players, 30–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.0), 96% Spiel

Another puzzle game by Uwe Rosenberg, this time filled to the brim with cute animals. Who could resist this proposition?

#10: The Adventures of Robin Hood

2–4 players, 60 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (1.7), 99% Spiel

As a very recent release, Robin Hood doesn’t have many ratings yet, so it’s hard for the algorithm to pick up. But by all appearances, Michael Menzel of Andor fame pulled off another great story game.

My two cents

Alright, that’s what the algorithms say. But just like last year, I’d like to let my guts have some say as well. These are the three games I consider having the best shot at ending up on the jury’s shortlist:

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2021

#1: The Isle of Cats

1–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 8+ years, medium light (2.3), 94% Kennerspiel

The Internet loves cats, and, apparently, so does the BGG crowd. Card drafting and tile laying combined with lots of cats – what’s there not to like?

#2: Calico

1–4 players, 30–45 minutes, 13+ years, medium light (2.2), 62% Kennerspiel

More cats, more puzzling – I sense a theme here. Calico is held in high regards as well, even for Spiel des Jahres by some. It’ll be exciting to see if the jury has it on their list, and, if so, on which.

#3: Lost Ruins of Arnak

1–4 players, 30–120 minutes, 12+ years, medium (2.8), 100% Kennerspiel

This game seems to be on everybody’s mind, and even though nobody seems excited by it, the consensus is that Lost Ruins of Arnak perfectly executes its combination of deckbuilding and worker placement.

#4: Brass: Birmingham

2–4 players, 60–120 minutes, 14+ years, medium heavy (3.9), 100% Kennerspiel

Certainly a fan favourite, it climbed to #3 on BGG before it finally received a German release. It’s definitely way too heavy to win Kennerspiel, but that wouldn’t stop the jury from recommending it.

#5: Yukon Airways

1–4 players, 60–90 minutes, 14+ years, medium (2.7), 100% Kennerspiel

The only thing on my mind about this game: Would the jury really award a game about flying after we’ve been collectively grounded for over a year?

#6: Switch & Signal

2–4 players, 45 minutes, 10+ years, medium light (2.2), 83% Kennerspiel

Train games have a long tradition in board gaming, but Switch & Signal is the first one I know of to approach the topic co-operatively. Colour me intrigued.

#7: Paleo

1–4 players, 45–60 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.6), 88% Kennerspiel

Paleo already received so much love for the game, and so much criticism for the rule book. The jury is known to exclude games when they just put an undue burden on the players to learn, but in this case the qualities of the game probably win.

#8: Welcome to New Las Vegas

1–50 players, 35 minutes, 10+ years, medium (2.9), 100% Kennerspiel

The jury ignored the original Welcome To…, but will it notice this more complex version set in Nevada?

#9: Tapestry

1–5 players, 90–120 minutes, 12+ years, medium (2.9), 100% Kennerspiel

Stonemaier Games sure knows how to put out beautful products, but I think in the case of Tapestry the result is just too big and too expensive for a Kennerspiel des Jahres.

#10: Paris

2–4 players, 90 minutes, 12+ years, medium (2.7), 100% Kennerspiel

The K&K of board gaming show no signs of slowing down, and their latest brain child Paris has received a lot of love.

My two cents

Finally, here are my three top candidates for a spot on the shortlist for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2021:

Again, I think this is another year of fantastic games, so competition for the awards will be fierce. I’m certainly looking forward to learning if the jury agrees with my (algorithm’s) assessment!

Honourable mentions

Last but not least I want to send you off with a couple of games that didn’t make the algorithm’s cut, but are still interesting in their own rights and might end up amongst the recommendations:

Spiel des Jahres

Paris: La Cité de la Lumière: Highly rated by the algorithm, but no chance for the main award as a two-player-game.
Aqualin: Ditto.
Krazy Pix: Not many party games on this list, so here’s one.
Abandon All Artichokes: Such a fresh and unexpected theme, would make a great entry level deckbuilder.
Cantaloop: Book 1 – Breaking into Prison: Point-and-click adventures as a board game could draw in a lot of new gamers.
The Fox in the Forest Duet: The competitive version has been recommended last year, so maybe the co-operative version has a chance this year.

Kennerspiel des Jahres

Barrage: A heavy-weight that might receive a recommendation.
Nidavellir
It’s a Wonderful World
Glasgow
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion: This lighter and more approachable version of BGG’s #1 might be a candidate for Kennerspiel des Jahres.
Under Falling Skies: The jury loves to cover all aspects of gaming, so here’s a solo game that received a lot of praises.
The 7th Continent: Classic Edition
Faiyum
Cubitos
Anno 1800
Pandemic Legacy: Season 0: The jury has a well-documented love for this series, so it seems unlikely they’ll say goodbye silently.
Aeon’s End: Another very late arrival to Germany. Thematically probably outside the jury’s comfort zone, but they do love their deckbuilders and co-ops…

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 2020 and March 2021 into German retail (though because of COVID–19 hitting in March last year we might see a few latecomers this year). 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. ↩︎

And the Spiel des Jahres 2020 goes to… Part 3!

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 10:15:00 +0300

Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres winners are due to be announced on Monday, July 20. I promised last time I’d be back with more detailed analyses and predictions. So here we go!

Out of hundreds of games published in 2019 and 2020, the jury selected a total of fifteen games they recommend, six of which they nominated for the two main awards. But who is the favourite? Who is the dark horse? Let’s find out!

Spiel or Kennerspiel?

One of the main conclusions of my original article was that Spiel des Jahres winners tend to be ever lighter and faster. Concretely, no red meeple was pinned on a game whose complexity exceeded 2 on BoardGameGeek’s complexity scale (medium light) since 2012, so I drew a hard line and claimed that no game would be nominated if it broke that pattern.

I was wrong.

Out of the six nominees, four could have been nominated for either award. Jury member Udo Bartsch wrote an interesting article explaining why the jury decided one way or another. I think the main takeaway is that BGG’s complexity rating is just too crude a measure. To their credit, they admit as much and only make a half-hearted attempt in defining what they even mean by weight or complexity. In essence, the tension lies between how hard it is to learn a game vs how hard it is to master it.¹ The ancient game of Go provides an excellent example: while the rules are very quickly explained, playing the game well easily fills a lifetime. Consequently, the complexity ratings spread over the whole scale from 1 through 5.

Back in 2020, we still are no closer to quantifying what games qualify for Spiel des Jahres or Kennerspiel. According to Udo Bartsch, it’s about the barrier that needs to be taken to immerse oneself in the experience. It’s about that Aha! moment when the penny finally drops and the game behind all the cardboard shines through. I’m not sure we’ll ever find an objective measure for that.

Nominated for Spiel des Jahres

I already introduced the nominees in the previous article, along with their characteristics and a brief assessment of their respective chances of winning an award, so here I’ll focus on the pros and cons why that game might win the red meeple.

My City

Pros

Reiner Knizia is en vogue again.
Legacy / campaign format allows players to ease into the experience.
Highest average rating on BGG (7.55).
Has been consistently highly recommended to the S_d_J bot

Cons

Still very complex (2.14) for a Spiel des Jahres.
That’s it, really…

Nova Luna

Pros

Uwe Rosenberg has always been en vogue.
The fan favourite so far with the highest geek rating (6.34) and leading in this poll.

Cons

Fairly abstract.
On the heavy side of Spiel des Jahres.

Pictures

Pros

Super simple and quick.
Typical Spiel des Jahres material.
Highly recommended to the S_d_J bot sometimes – the recommendations tend to be rather volatile.

Cons

With Just One we had a somewhat similar winner last year.
In its simplicity, it might not have the same staying power as the other nominees.

Who will win?

Honestly, the numbers don’t yield any clear favourite. If I had to make a guess, I’d still put my money on the quick and simple Pictures ahead of the legacy game My City, with the abstract Nova Luna further behind. But overall, the field really seems open. We’ll know more on Monday!

Nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres

Same procedure, let’s assess each game’s chances of winning the award!

Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale

Pros

Roll and write games have been on the rise for some time, with Qwixx and That’s Pretty Clever receiving nominations.
The highest rated game in the Recommend.Games ranking.

Cons

It might not have enough meat for a Kennerspiel in the end.
While there are lots of positive opinions, none seem to be excited.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Pros

Already on its way into the BGG top 100 (#124 at the time of writing).
Consistently and by far the highest recommendation to the S_d_J bot.
Runaway leader in the poll I quoted above.

Cons

Too obvious choice?

King’s Dilemma

Pros

Probably the most innovative game on the list with lots of hype from the community.
Highest average rating on BGG (8.12).

Cons

Can you imagine a game about intrigue and backstabbing being played around the Christmas tree?
Very lowly ranked in the recommendations for the S_d_J bot.

Who will win?

Hands down, The Crew is the high favourite, and any other outcome would be a big surprise. This game seems to appeal to reviewers, the community, and the wider market alike. Cartographers just doesn’t have the same pull, and King’s Dilemma seems too specific for an award that’s supposed to reach hundreds of thousands of German average gamers.

I hope you’re as excited as I am about Monday’s announcements. We’ll be back with the final conclusions for Spiel des Jahres 2020!

This is one of the many things the BoardGameGeek competitor Board Game Atlas gets right: they measure both learning and strategy complexity. ↩︎

And the Spiel des Jahres 2020 goes to…

contact@recommend.games (Recommend.Games) — Fri, 15 May 2020 15:35:00 +0300

For the impatient: If you don’t care about the analysis of previous winners and all you’re interested in are the candidates for this year’s awards, jump straight to the list…

It’s that time of year again when the whole board game scene takes a deep look into their crystal balls: On Monday, May 18, the jury Spiel des Jahres will announce the nominees for the game of the year award in Germany. There’s a myriad of awards in tabletop gaming, but the red meeple is the one everbody is really after. Even international publishers often prioritise releasing their game in Germany before their home country just so it’d be eligible for Spiel des Jahres. It is that important!

Consequently, there are many lists floating all around the Internet trying to predict this year’s nominees. And this is one of them! Most lists are based on the author’s experience and taste, but here we try to take a data driven approach: We’ll look at the previous winners, try to derive the jury’s (implicit or explicit) criteria, and check what current games that meet those criteria have been rated highly.

You’ll actually get two for the price of one: since 2011, in addition to the traditional main award Spiel des Jahres that is targeted at casual gamers, there is also the Kennerspiel des Jahres for those who are ready for a (little) more complex game, i.e., “connoisseur gamers”. There’s also a third award Kinderspiel des Jahres for children’s games, but since the author of these lines doesn’t know the first thing about this sector (give it another four or five years), we won’t talk further about it.

This is a drama in three acts: First, we’ll take a look at previous winners in order to understand what kind of games the jury likes to honour. Second, we use those criteria to find candidates for this year’s Spiel des Jahres. And lastly, we’ll do the same for the Kennerspiel des Jahres. Let’s go!

Analysis of past winners

It’s worth recalling what the mission statement of Spiel des Jahres is. The target audience are people that buy maybe one game a year which ends up under the Christmas tree and is meant to be played that very evening with the family. This means a game hoping to decorate itself with the red meeple needs to be accessible in every possible way: affordable price point, short rules, quick play time, yet fun for grandchildren and grandparents alike. Luckily for us, BoardGameGeek quantifies about every aspect of games, so let’s look in more details into previous winners and how they scored in those criteria.

Does the community like Spiel des Jahres winners?

First, there’s the question if the community at BoardGameGeek and the jury Spiel des Jahres are aligned at all. After all, the former is full of mostly US-centric hardcore gamers, while the latter is exclusively concerned with casual gamers in Germany. Still, when we look at how the BGG crowd has rated the award winners over the last years, the jury seems to have done a good job:

While not every single game was a hit with the geeks, many Spiel des Jahres winners score highly, and particularly there’s a clear upwards trend visible over the past decade or so. Granted, this is also the case with recent releases in general, but the point remains that German families and American geeks might agree on some games after all.

With that out of the way, let’s examine some of our candidates’ particular features.

How difficult can it be?

BoardGameGeek quantifies a game’s weight or complexity on a scale from 1 (light) to 5 (heavy). Naturally, the accessibility of a Spiel des Jahres pushes them towards the lighter side, though over the years, the jury selected some more complex games as well:

However, recent years have seen a strong trend towards the very light games. In fact, since the introduction of Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2011, only 2012’s winner Kingdom Builder exceeded a complexity rating of 2 (medium light) – by 0.07 points. Even said Kennerspiel, whose first few winners hovered around a weight of 3 (medium), is drawn more and more towards the 2 mark.

From this we can conclude that the Spiel des Jahres 2020 will have a complexity rating below 2, whilst the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 will not exceed 3 in its compexity, or let’s say 3.5, in case the jury wants to go experimental.

How long can it take?

In addition to short rules (start quickly), a Spiel des Jahres should also have a short playing time (play quickly). Again, the data confirm this perception:

Here, the bands indicate the span of the playing time indicated on the games’ boxes, while the dashed lines denotes the mean. Playing times are tricky because publishers always lie about them. I suppose they simply don’t want to scare away people whose attention spans become ever shorter (thanks for still being with me by the way) with the prospect of sitting through an hour of some ultra nerdy activity. But since everybody lies the same way, we can at least compare games with each other. And again, it becomes obvious how import immediate accessibility is to the jury: The last winner that admitted to having a playing time of more than 45 minutes was 2006’s Thurn and Taxis, and none has exceeded the hour mark since 1999’s Tikal.

On the other hand, the jury seems to have no problem with longer playing times for a Kennerspiel. The sweet spot still seems to be around 60 minutes, but even 90 or 120 minutes on the box do not exclude a game from the connoisseurs’ award.

In conclusion, the Spiel des Jahres 2020 will be playable in under 1 hour, probably even 45 minutes, whilst the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 might take up to 2 hours.

How many players can take part?

The Spiel’s character as a family or rather group activity becomes obvious when looking at the supported player counts:

Every single winner of either award was playable with 3 and 4 players. It’s just what a typical German family looks like, so there’s no way the jury will deviate from this pattern. In fact, there’s only two games that were even nominated with a different player count, both pure 2-player-games: Targi in 2012 and Jambo in 2005.

Therefore, without a doubt, both Spiel des Jahres 2020 and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 will have to be playable with 3 and 4 players. (Of course, it’s a bonus if a game also works with lower or higher player counts, but 3 and 4 are a must.)

How old do they have to be?

As I mentioned above, a Spiel des Jahres should bring together children with their grandparents, yet, somewhat surprisingly, publishers don’t always seem to trust their games with the younger audience:

Here the solid line is what’s printed on the box, whilst the dotted line is what the community thinks. Similar to playing time, age recommendations are tricky and publishers often have a different opinion on it than players, but usually in the other direction. (It’s worth noticing though that often there aren’t all that many players that “vote” on the age recommendations, so take them with a pinch of salt.)

What stands out in this graphic is that Spiel des Jahres winners often have a recommended age of 12+. Notably, 2016’s winner Codenames has 14+ printed on the box, while the community thinks it’s fine to play with children from 10 years of age. Unsurprisingly, the more complex Kennerspiel often has a slightly higher age recommendation, although all winners so far stay below the mark of 12 years.

All of this makes it hard to draw a conclusion. Spiel des Jahres winners can typically be played with 8 to 10 year old children, while a Kennerspiel can usually be found in the age range from 10 to 12 years. But because of the somewhat erratic age recommendations, we only stipulate a limit of 14 years for both Spiel des Jahres 2020 and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020. Still, one can confidently exclude any game that includes adult topics or themes that might put off the younger or older audience.

Summary of criteria

OK, now we’ve got an understanding of what a game needs to look like if it hopes to win the coveted awards. A Spiel des Jahres needs to

have a complexity rating of 2 (medium light) or less and
be playable in under 60 minutes (better 45 minutes)
by (at least) 3 to 4 players
with a minimum age of at most 14 years old (better yet 12 or even 10 years old).

A Kennerspiel des Jahres needs to

have a complexity rating of 3.5 (medium), better 2.5 or less and
be playable in under 120 minutes (better 90 minutes)
by (at least) 3 to 4 players
with a minimum age of at most 14 years old (better yet 12).

Further, we need to talk about a game’s release date. It’s actually not that easy to exactly pinpoint which games are eligible for the award as the jury would generally consider games that were released between April 2019 and March 2020¹ into wider German distribution. BoardGameGeek keeps record of the year of first release, which could be a limited first print run in a different market. A game that was released years ago in its homecountry might be nominated for Spiel des Jahres years later when it hits the German market. This happened with Werewords which was first released in 2017, but saw a German edition only in early 2019 and was nominated that year. So by simply filtering on the year in the BGG database we might miss some releases, but c’est la vie…

Without further ado, let’s find some games that meet all those criteria!

Candidates for Spiel des Jahres

Gamers’ choices

First, we’ll look at games released in 2019 and 2020, sorted by their rating on BoardGameGeek. When you click on that link, the list you’ll see might be very different from what I worked with if some time has passed, so don’t be confused if the names you read here are very different. Also, I’ll skip any games that are ineligible for one reason or another.

Note that you get essentially the same list when looking at the Recommend.Games ratings.

Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale

A roll and write game that can be found on pretty much every list, hence a strong candidate for a nomination. However, its complexity is similar to That’s Pretty Clever, so this one might end up on the Kennerspiel list instead.

Wavelength

As a simple and immediate party game, this one is right up the jury’s alley when we look at the past years. Some say that a game targeted at large gatherings might be a tough sell while COVID–19 continues to rage, but on the other hand, Wavelength has proven itself something of a darling for playing via video chat, so I wouldn’t discard it. Interestingly, this is another game where the publisher and the players can’t agree on the age: the former recommends the game to player of 14 years and up, while the latter believe it’s fine for 8-year-olds!

Silver & Gold

I don’t have much information on this one, but theme, weight, and play time all seem very compatible with a Spiel des Jahres.

Draftosaurus

As with Silver & Gold, this game seems almost designed with Spiel des Jahres in mind. Antoine Bauza certainly has quite a collection of big wooden meeples already!

Obscurio

This looks very much like Mysterium with a traitor. Both this twist and it’s fairly high complexity make it somewhat of a dark horse in the running.

Recommended to the jury

Instead of looking at the community at large, we really want to know what games specifically fit the jury’s taste. The best way to achieve this is to feed previous winners, special awards, nominees, and recommendations into Recommend.Games’s engine and see what falls out of this black box! Note that in the list below I skip those games that we already covered above.

Pictures

This game sounds almost like a sandbox full of toys that could engage the whole family. Definitely Spiel des Jahres material!

Miyabi

I got very little on this one, but Michael Kiesling sure knows how to design a Spiel des Jahres, so why not?

Deep Blue

Publisher Days of Wonders can pride themselves with one of the most iconic winners: Ticket to Ride. This game could mark their return to the nomination list.

One Key

From the same team as Obscurio, this one might be a little lighter, a little faster, a little more different, i.e., a stronger contender.

Similo

Another quick and easy game, in this case also very afforable and portable. Overall this could make it a very welcoming introduction into the wonderful world of board games.

My two cents

I tried to be as objective as possible with the selection above and let the data do the talking. But let me conclude this list with the three games that I personally think have the highest chance of receiving a nomination for Spiel des Jahres 2020:

So, those were the ten (plus three) games that, according to the data, should be the most likely to receive a nomination for Spiel des Jahres. Will the jury be this predictable? We will find out soon! For now, let’s move on to the connoisseurs’ games.

Candidates for Kennerspiel des Jahres

Gamers’ choices

As for the main award, we find the community’s favourites by looking at the BoardGameGeek and Recommend.Games ratings, which yield similar results.

Res Arcana

While fantasy isn’t necessarily the jury’s favourite theme, it didn’t stop them from giving the award to Legends of Andor in 2013. Reviewers hold Res Arcana in high regard, so this is one to watch.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

This cooperative trick-taking game is pretty much on every list, but usually for Spiel des Jahres. However, its complexity clocks in at at 2.2, well beyond what the jury would generally consider for the main award. I believe most experienced gamers underestimate how difficult the concept of trick-taking is to new players, so this game has much higher chances to win Kennerspiel des Jahres.

Tiny Towns

Another game that appears to be on everybody’s mind. Play time and complexity certainly qualify it for Kennerspiel. Bonus: the characters on the cover practice exemplary social distancing! ²

Hadara

Game studio Hans im Glück sure won their share of Spiel des Jahres awards. Could this be their first Kennerspiel?

Villagers

I don’t have much to say about this game either, but the fact that Kosmos recently released a German edition won’t harm its chances for Kennerspiel.

Recommended to the jury

Now let’s look at games recommended to the jury based on their previous choices, again skipping those that were already mentioned above.

Letter Jam

This is a tricky one. While it’s been lauded as an innovative word game, its many rules and details push its complexity into the realm of Kennerspiel des Jahres, while the word / party game genre clearly belongs with Spiel des Jahres (where it’s arguably over-represented).

Fast Sloths

The jury clearly is a fan of designer Friedemann Friese’s work as evident but many recommendations, but didn’t find a game worthy of the big meeple yet. Could this pick me up and deliver me game change their mind?

Nova Luna

Uwe Rosenberg is another favourite designer for both the community and the jury. Agricola kinda won Kennerspiel before it even existed (special award “Complex Game” in 2008), but he’s been waiting for a main award ever since. Nova Luna could be his shot, though abstract games tend to have a hard time with the jury.

Kitchen Rush

A real time cooperative worker placement game sounds like a winning combination right from the start, so this is another one to watch. However, theme and premise seem to fit better with Spiel des Jahres, but for that it’s just too complex.

Adventure Games: The Dungeon / Monochrome Inc.

Everything about this pair reminds us of the Exit Game Series that won Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2017. Hard to tell if that’s to the games’ advantage or disadvantage…

My two cents

Again, let’s wrap this up with my personal daring prediction of the three nominees for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020:

To be honest, I think Cartographers also seems to be a very strong contender, I just cannot decide for which list!

This concludes our list of ten candidates for both awards. I’m truly excited to see what we got right and where the jury will surprise us. What games do you think we missed? Is there a very recently released game that might fly under everyone’s radar? Let us know and discuss in the comments below!

Read Part 2 for the actual nominations and how I did with my predictions. Read Part 3 for analyses of the nominees and my predictions for the winners. Read Part 4 for the winners and conclusion.

PS: You can find the notebook I used for the graphs and most of the analysis I did above on Kaggle.

Honourable mentions

I’ll leave you with few games that didn’t make it to the lists above for one reason or another, but are still worth keeping an eye on. Some might show up in the recommendations, some in next year’s edition. Stay tuned!

Latecomers

Games that were release just before the deadline last year. They might get a second chance (see what I did there?) this year if the year is short on other candidates due to COVID–19.

Late to Germany

Like I said, it’s hard to include in our analysis games that were released earlier, but just arrived to Germany. One sticks out though:

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Just outside the criteria

Here I mention some games that didn’t make the cut because they are outside one or more of the jury’s (hypothetical) criteria. These might still end up on the recommendation lists.

Too “special”

Cthulhu: Death May Die: very expensive, plus the horror theme doesn’t strike well with the jury
King’s Dilemma: 16+ according to the community, just a little too mature
TEAM3 GREEN and PINK: not quite a general interest game, but already received a favourable mention on the jury’s website

Too complex

Two player only

Comebacks

While the jury has awarded games before that were reimplementations of previously published games (e.g., Alhambra in 2003), it still feels less likely, particularly when the new version is very close to the previous release, or it has been on the recommendation list already. But then again, the jury does like a surprise…

Azul: Summer Pavilion (reimplements Azul)
Corinth (reimplements Yspahan)
Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North (reimplements Imperial Settlers)
Noch mal so gut! (reimplements Encore!)

Too late

There’s many games that already stirred quite some interest internationally and can be found on many prediction lists, but that haven’t had a German release in time, so won’t be eligible this year. It’s worth keeping an eye on them for next year though!

The jury has stated that the COVID–19 pandemic does not alter the schedule for this year’s awards. However, they may not be able to thoroughly test some games that were released close to the March deadline, so those might be considered for Spiel des Jahres 2021 instead. ↩︎
This joke was stolen from Udo Bartsch. It was too good to be omitted! ↩︎