Game of the year 2023
Winner: Dorfromantik: The Board Game
Other nominees:
Recomendations:
Kenner game of the year 2023
Winner: Challengers!
Other nominees:
Recommendations:
Children’s game of the year 2023
Winner: Mysterium Kids
Other nominees:
Recomendations:
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Spiel des Jahres are without a doubt the most important boardgaming awards. They have a GIGANTIC impact in game sales. Huge.
I wish they had an actual “advanced” category, with heavier games. Their advanced cateogory is honestly a joke.
I wish they had an actual “advanced” category, with heavier games. Their advanced cateogory is honestly a joke.
I guess my question is, why would they need to expand? The reason SdJ is so big is because you can hand off the nominations and winner to a generic family in Europe and they go “ok, this is what to play at the holiday season” which is why one of the criteria is “it’s widely available in Germany.” Heavy games aren’t going to have that fit that purpose, and the Jogo de Ano already sort of covers that niche if you’re just looking for casual recommendations.
Their current “advanced” category is often redundant, in my personal opinion. The winner of the “advanced” category is lighter than ticket to ride.
Jogo do Ano is an amazing award (my favorite, in fact) but it doesn’t have nearly the same exposure or impact as SdJ.
The winner of the “advanced” category is lighter than ticket to ride.
Challengers may have simple rules but it has plenty of strategic depth. That seems to be the sweet spot for Kennerspiel.
I can understand that stance. I think what SdJ represents doesn’t really equate to “this is the best game” so much as “this is a game that you should pick up and play over Christmas” because of the criteria that is involved in selection. That’s why it has such sway in sales; because you have a bunch of families who are looking for a TtR level game and they run out and buy it for the rest of the year accordingly. Their advanced category is effectively “ok, you’ve already played a couple of boardgames, now here is the next level” which is still a far cry from Terra Mystica. How decipherable the rulebook is, stages at which planning for turns is done, all of that is criteria but on a culturally oriented level for just German families, not an abstract one for connoisseurs (ala BGG).
Something a friend of mine in Germany told me; you see more people playing boardgames, but a reduction in percentage of “heavy gamers” (which is an amorphous metric anyway once we cross cultures). SdJ meets their needs because that’s what the populace by and large needs an award for (compared to heavy gamers who do their own research). That’s why I also look at the Jogo; it’s going to look at what Americans would consider “heavy” games.
I think what SdJ represents doesn’t really equate to “this is the best game” so much as “this is a game that you should pick up and play over Christmas” because of the criteria that is involved in selection.
Oh absolutely. I own several SdJ winners such as MicroMacro, Just One, Azul, Codenames, Ticket to Ride… They’re great games to play with the family and most of the times they’re big hits.
Their advanced category is effectively “ok, you’ve already played a couple of boardgames, now here is the next level” which is still a far cry from Terra Mystica
This is where I believe they often (not always) fail. If Challengers was in the Spiel des Jahres category no one would have thought it was odd because they’re at the same level. The next level should be something around the 2.5 weight category. Even though I don’t personally enjoy Wingspan, I think it was a great choice for a next level kind of game.
Good candidates for 2022, though I’m not sure they have a german version, would be Heat: Pedal to the Metal, Flamecraft, Turing Machine, Caper: Europe…
I think it even took them a while to introduce the „Kennerspiel“ category. Maybe we need something like an Expert category.
Yep, they were introduced in
20162011!2011
You are correct, my bad!
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Did you play it? Interested in some thoughts if you have them!
Not OP: I played it with my girlfriend exclusively so far, so I only have 2P experience. The game perfectly introduces new mechanics over time. You start with the basics - you only score with quests (special tiles that you have to add regular tiles to, to finish them) and your biggest city/forest/field/river/railway, that’s it for the first game. You’ll most likely score less than 100 points in the first few games, but you’ll still get “progression points” that’ll unlock new mechanics after your 2nd or 3rd game.
These mechanics allow you to score progressively more points and make the game more complicated as you go on. We got a new mechanic from the progression track or the challenge cards (which you’ll unlock with the track) pretty much every round. These new mechanics are usually a new special tile with extra scoring opportunities (which also means you’ll be able to place more tiles as you go on).
We finished the progression track and almost all challenges after 14 rounds I think. After that you can play for highscores or reset the game and start over from the beginning. This also leads to one of the best features: the included insert is beautifully organized. You have a slot for the quest tiles, for the regular and special tiles (with room to spare for the new tiles you’ll unlock), the quest markers, all the little tokens you get, the reward boxes and the tracking/scoring sheets. The reward boxes have a card that tells you what belongs into it if you want to reset the game. It is just so well thought through. It takes only 2 mins to set up (you have to shuffle all the tiles, sorting the quest markers and placing all the challenge cards so you remember them is optional but doesn’t take long) and 5 mins max to put away.
I would recommend playing with one group/partner until you are finished with the progression track. Sorting out all the tokens/tiles/challenges you have unlocked with one group but not the other is possible but would add considerably to the setup or put away time.
I can wholeheartedly recommend it, maybe with the caveat that you should make sure that each player draws their own tile and has the option to make placement decisions on their own (they even say so in the rules that the drawing player has the final say). For us it became a really cooperative experience and we actively thought through our options. It is one of the few games I can play several rounds after another because it is fast enough for the “one more round” effect, but strategic enough to keep me thinking.
Thanks a lot for your detailed answer! I’ll grab it once it goes back on stock, which will probably take a while…
Anybody play any of these games?
I’ve been playing Challengers a ton on BGA. There is a lot more to it than it may seem at first and it’s a very fun game.
Yesterday I was mentioning Azul as an example of a game that’s very easy to teach and a lot of fun when played casually but at the same has great depth at high level play. I think Challengers falls into this space too. The award is well deserved IMO.
The Decision Space podcast has just covered the game if you’d like some more in-depth discussion. They rated it very high too.
Edit: I totally missed that Sea Salt & Paper got a recommendation too! It’s one of my absolute favorite small deck games, very addictive! And I’d highly recommend Next Station: London too if you enjoy flip & writes. It has quickly become one of our comfort games.
I’ve played Akropolis and Planet Unknown.
Akropolis is a competitive city builder where you’re having to make the choice of expanding outward or nullifying previous tiles by building on-top / upward for more points. I really enjoy it, my favorite new one of the year. (I tend to enjoy stylish, colorful, solo puzzley games)
Planet Unknown is a grid-planet that you’re terraforming with tetronimos. There are several tracks of environment types with different bonuses. I enjoyed the gameplay well enough but found it a little slow for my tastes; wife liked it more than I did.
What I did really appreciate is how replayable it seems. There are tons of planet variants, terrain tracks, and challenge cards that seem like you could really build the experience you wantI’ve played challengers several times now and absolutely love it. My friends always ask to play it when I host a game night. I just don’t like the art style that much, but the gameplay is great.
I really like Dorfromantik as a super relaxed solo game for when I need to calm down after work. Hopefully they’ll do an expansion with more unlockables at some point.
On the whole though, everything covered by SdJ is way too light for me which is why I’ve rarely paid any attention to its nominees and awards.
Crazy to see Dorfromantik here. I played it on steam as a computer game, like 1 year ago, for a bit.
However, it was so … cozy … that I got bored while playing it and returned it. That’s not to say, if you like cozy games, this one is chill.
