Spiel Des Jahres Nominees Announced

Written by The Game on Wednesday, 31 May 20062 Comments

The Spiel Des Jahres, the German Game of the Year awards, nominees have been announced. They are:

Seeräuber
Aqua Romana
Just 4 Fun
Thurn und Taxis
Blue Moon City

Those are the nominees for the “Big Award.” Winning Spiel Des Jahres is a huge win for any company, and results in a huge increase in sales. Boardgamegeek has a discussion of the nominees with links to the games’ profiles.

Spiel Des Jahres typically focuses on family oriented games, and so is unlikely to nominate anything particularly innovative or strategic. This year, they decided to create two new categories: Best Fantasy Game (that seems to reward nice components in a game) and Best Strategy Game.

Best Fantasy Game:
Shadows over Camelot

Best Strategy Game:
Caylus

The recommended list, which isn’t quite the big award but still useful in making purchases, is:

Fettnapf … in Sicht
Hart an der Grenze
Packeis am Pol
Ausgerechnet Buxtehude
Fischmarkt
Revolte in Rom
Mesopotamien
Timbuktu
Was n das?

Discussion on the nominees and more info about the games can be found at Boardgamegeek as well.

Share and Enjoy:

Dave The Game is Dave Chalker, son of science fiction author Jack L. Chalker. In addition to being a semi-professional game designer Dave is the Editor-in-Chief of Critical Hits (which means he writes about everything.) Dave is also Executive Director of the RPG Bloggers Network. (Email Dave)

2 Comments »

Critical Hits » The Digital World of Analog Play said:

[...] One of the stories posted in nearly all the news sites I read is that Microsoft is going to make three Spiel Des Jahres winning boardgames available as downloadable content from Xbox Live. Turning boardgames into videogames has been going on for a long, long time: my parents used to play Backgammon and Bridge on their Atari. The question is about the REVERSE- how can technology improve your non-digital games? I posed the question recently about using software to play D&D over long distances- but you don’t need dedicated software to have part of the experience. I’ve heard tales of people using voice chat software and a webcam to play. (In fact, one of my favorite comics features a player in the regular RPG who plays entirely over Webcam.) Technology has finally caught up to the point to where this is viable; I remember one day when I was in middle school where I tried to play D&D over the phone when I was sick. During the phone call I changed characters to be a Raving Derelict, so all I had to do was ramble incoherently in the phone when I wanted to do something (and in fact, ramble incoherently was all my character COULD do, as it was too difficult for a real character to get the information needed to be effective over the phone.) [...]

- 25 August 2006 at 5:53 pm

Critical Hits » Hard Truths About Game Design said:

[...] He sure doesn’t dress like a millionaire… Even Alan Moon, one of the most prolific game designers working in boardgames, has admitted that if Ticket to Ride hadn’t won the Spiel Des Jahres award, he’d probably have to get another job. [...]

- 1 September 2006 at 6:04 pm

Discussions

Inq. of the Week: D&D Insider? (2 comments)
Last comment by: Micah Today at 10:19 am
The Professor X Paradox (32 comments)
Last comment by: LordVreeg Yesterday at 4:33 pm
We Must Not Remind Them Giants Walk the Earth (12 comments)
Last comment by: LordVreeg Yesterday at 4:04 pm
The more things change... (32 comments)
Last comment by: Graham Yesterday at 4:47 am