Welcome to Spiel des Jahres Week here at the Opinionated Gamers!  We will be celebrating and discussing the biggest award in board gaming all week long.  Today, we will start with the new 2024 nominees that were just announced a few days ago.  The winners will be announced next month on July 21, but in the meantime, we took a quick poll among OG members to predict the outcome.  Today we’ll share our predictions for which games will win, as well as our favorites among the nominees and a bit of commentary on the 2024 Spiel des Jahres.

Check back tomorrow for the results from a poll conducted across 23 members of the Opinionated Gamers to determine our favorite SDJ winners of all time.  The award has been given to 45 games since its inception in 1979, and we’ll share our collective favorites from among those winners tomorrow.  Later in the week, we will discuss our “not for me” games among all of the award’s recipients, as well as a special focus on the Kennerspiel on Thursday, and we will close out the week on Friday with a grand finale ranking that you won’t want to miss.  So stick with the Opinionated Gamers for Spiel des Jahres Week!

Spiel des Jahres Nominees

• Captain Flip – 10 votes
• Sky Team – 6 votes
• In the Footsteps of Darwin – 0 votes

Captain Flip is the overwhelming favorite among OG members to win the 2024 Spiel de Jahres next month!  With over 62% of the votes, we are collectively projecting that Paolo Mori and Remo Conzadori’s design for PlayPunk will snag board gaming’s grand prize this year.  As you’ll see below, the big debate is over whether a two-player game (Sky Team) can win Germany’s family game award.  While Sky Team has received rave reviews from several of the SDJ jury members, the game cannot be played together by a family, so it will be fascinating to see if it can emerge victorious next month.  Most OG members think not, but a few brave souls are predicting a win for Sky Team.  Are their personal preferences coloring their predictions?  We also took a poll to determine OG members’ personal favorite among the nominees and Sky Team won in a landslide followed by In the Footsteps of Darwin.  So while we collectively expect Captain Flip to win the award, we collectively rank it last among our favorites of the nominees.

• Talia Rosen: My money is definitely on Captain Flip because it’s very light and can easily be enjoyed by the whole family.  I loved Captain Flip the first time I played, but wasn’t so sure I needed to buy it after the third time I played it.  Sky Team is solid and clever, but I really don’t think a two-player game can win the family game of the year award.  I had never heard of the Darwin game until the nominees were announced, so maybe I live under a rock or no one I know has even played it.

• Larry Levy:  I haven’t played any of the three nominees, which isn’t unusual for me and the SdJ games.  But I’ll go crazy and predict a Sky Team victory, even though it’s only 2-player.  It’s easily the most well regarded of the three nominees and I think they will go with what they perceive to be the best game.  I know that several of the Jury members absolutely love Sky Team, so I think they’ll pick it, in spite of its player count.  It might wind up disappointing a whole lot of German families, though, if they do.

• Tery Noseworthy: I feel like Captain Flip has a huge fan base; I keep hearing people rave about it.  I’ve only played once and it was fine; sometimes it’s nice to have a quick, light game available that is enjoyable and this seems to fit the bill for many. I just don’t get the love for Sky Team; I am glad so many people seem to enjoy it, but it is definitely not for me.

• Mark Jackson: I think Sky Team will win… even though I wish it would be In the Footsteps of Darwin. Captain Flip is pleasant but not particularly special.

• Erik Arneson: I’ve only played Captain Flip and Sky Team, and enjoyed both quite a bit. Of the two, I prefer Sky Team, but I think the fact that it’s limited to two players will probably hurt it in the SdJ vote.

• Dale Yu: Team Captain Flip here.  It’s a great game, quick to teach and learn, lots of moments leading to laughing, fun, and enjoyment.  Sky Team was good, but I still don’t see a 2p game winning the SdJ. We just played Darwin again this week, and it was a fine game, but I just like Captain Flip a bit more.

• Matt Carlson: I love Sky Team and voted for it. I suspect the 2 player factor is against it, but it gets my vote anyway. I think its excellence might be enough to make up for the player number. Rumors that the judges love the game doesn’t hurt.

Kennerspiel des Jahres

• Daybreak (e-Mission) – 7 votes
• Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West – 5 votes
• Guild of Merchant Explorers – 3 votes

The OG predicts that Matt Leacock will finally take home the prize with a win for Daybreak (which is called e-Mission in Germany), which is co-designed by Matteo Menapace.  You can actually go try out Daybreak for free right now on Board Game Arena to see what it’s all about.  Even if Daybreak does not win, Leacock has two bites at the apple this year with a co-design credit on the new Ticket to Ride Legacy.  Will a legacy game win the Kennerspiel?  Only time will tell.  For this award, it’s clear that personal preference did not impact our votes because the vast majority of OG members voted for Guild of Merchant Explorers as their personal favorite among the nominees, but only 20% of us think it will win the prize.

Talia: I’m torn between whether Daybreak or Ticket to Ride Legacy will win, but ultimately I voted for Ticket to Ride Legacy (even though my personal favorite of these is absolutely Guild of Merchant Explorers).  I think the jury would love to give the award to all-time classic Ticket to Ride again and to honor the innovative legacy format, which has been around for 12 years now.  While I really enjoy Guild of Merchant Explorers, I think it’s a bit too dry to actually snag the award away from either Daybreak or Ticket to Ride Legacy.  I’m in the middle of a Ticket to Ride Legacy campaign, and it is such a solid family game (whereas I would have a lot of trouble convincing family to try Guild).  After the nominees were announced, I went and learned Daybreak on Board Game Arena and played it 6 times in short order.  It’s got an addictive just-one-more quality, and it’s nice to see a pretty different cooperative system from Leacock, but I’m not sure that I’ll want to play it 5 or 10 years from now like Pandemic and the Forbidden series.

• Larry:  I’m going to go with Daybreak.  I think the Jury will want to give greater exposure to a game with such an important message.  It will also finally give them a chance to reward Matt Leacock after so many near misses.  Guild probably has the most appropriate weight for the KdJ, so it can’t be ignored.  Will they want to honor a legacy game?  Possibly, although I’ve heard reports that TtR Legacy can get a bit complex after a while. Still, I can see it winning.  This is actually a reasonably strong group of nominees.

• Tery: I voted for Daybreak. I loved the game when I was lucky enough to get to play the prototype, and my enjoyment of the game has only grown. I love the balance between shared goals and doing your own thing, and the theme works very well.  I was torn because I also love Ticket to Ride Legacy; as of writing this we are 2 games away from finishing, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, It does get more complicated as the game goes on, but complicated is a strong word; there are just new elements to keep track of, and it is not terribly difficult to do.  I have not yet played Guild, but based on the positive feedback from some of the other OGers apparently I need to track it down and try it.

• Mark: While I haven’t played Ticket to Ride: Legacy yet, I own both Daybreak and The Guild of Merchant Explorers. As much as I enjoy Daybreak and think its theme may be a draw for the jury, I think Guild of Merchant Explorers is the cleaner and more accessible game. (Which means Matt Leacock misses out again – which makes me sad.) The award may go to Daybreak, but my hope is Guild of Merchant Explorers.

• Matt: I voted for Ticket to Ride Legacy – It’s the only one I know enough about to vote for. I also am hoping the Matt Leacock factor might actually help

• Dale: My vote goes to Daybreak.  It’s a great cooperative game.  Also, from my discussions with my German friends, it seems like many people there are passionate about the environment and reducing the effect of humans on the planet.  I think that this might influence the jury’s vote in that direction.  (Of course, I could be completely wrong as well).  That being said, I love playing the Guild of Merchant Explorers, and of the three, it’s the one that I enjoyed playing the most.  .

Kinderspiel des Jahres

• Magic Keys (Die Magischen Schlussel) – 4 votes
• Grose Kleine Edelsteine – 3 votes
• Taco Katze Pizza Junior – 2 votes

Only a handful of us dared vote on an award for games that we are largely unfamiliar with.  The mostly uninformed voting ended up in a very close race with a narrow edge for Magic Keys by Markus Slawitscheck and Arno Steinwender.

• Talia: My prediction is based solely on the fact that I think Wolfgang Warsch and Schmidt Spiele feel like they have a leg up here among these nominees, so I’m guessing this one goes to Grose Kleine Edelsteine.

Dale: I haven’t played any of the the three games nominated, though I have played Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, and well, that was enough for me to not consider playing the kid version.  Also, I feel like Wolfgang Warsch has some sort of magic touch for awards such as this; so hard to vote against him!

Mark: I used to keep up with “kinderspiel” – but my kinder are now 23 and 19, so I’m not in the loop nearly as much. Based solely on reading between the lines of the BoardGameGeek descriptions, I think Magic Keys not only has the best toy factor (little plastic keys slotted into the board!) but also the most interesting actual gameplay. Grose Kleine Edelsteine sounds like a “Where’s Waldo-ish” spot the details game (which holds no interest to me) and the less said about Taco Cat Pizza the better.

What games do you think will win the Spiel des Jahres, Kennerspiel, and Kinderspiel in 2024? Do you agree with our predictions or do you think we got it wrong?