Spiel des Jahres Week at The Opinionated Gamers takes a detour on this penultimate day of the week to explore and rank the 13 winners of the Kennerspiel des Jahres.  The Kennerspiel debuted in 2011 to honor Antoine Bauza and 7 Wonders as the new “connoisseur” or “expert” game of the year.  This formalized an occasional practice of honoring more complicated games, like the Special Award for “Complex Game” for Caylus (2005) and Agricola (2008).  The Spiel des Jahres jury has indicated that the Kennerspiel award honors games that present more of a challenge and that are meant for a more experienced audience.  22 members of the Opinionated Gamers voted to select our favorite KdJ winner, our least favorite KdJ winner, and any other KdJ winners that we enjoyed and would like to play again.

Most Loved

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Runners Up:

• Quacks of Quedlinburg
• Istanbul
• 7 Wonders

The Crew from 2019 emerged victorious in a tight race with 4 votes as the most beloved Kennerspiel winner, followed closely by 3 votes for each of Quacks of Quedlinburg, Istanbul, and 7 Wonders.  Challengers netted 2 votes as the best KdJ game, followed by a single vote for each of Exit, Isle of Skye, Legends of Andor, and Village.  There were zero votes for Broom Service, Living Forest, Wingspan, or Paleo.

• Talia Rosen: Given how much my fellow Opinionated Gamers seem to talk about trick-taking (and climbing) card games, I’m not surprised to see The Crew emerge victorious.  And I do love playing The Crew repeatedly with a good group, although I’d always rather play Karl Heinz-Schmiel’s brilliant Was Sticht or Stefan Dorra’s criminally-underrated Njet.  That being said, a cooperative trick-taking game is an unsurprising breakout star and an entirely reasonable game to crown as the collective OG favorite among the 13 Kennerspiel winners.  Personally, I voted for Village (although I strongly considered voting for Living Forest or Wingspan).  I think the worker aging mechanism in Village is very clever and ahead of its time, and I just have a soft spot for Inka and Markus Brand designs (especially the phenomenal La Boca).

James Nathan: One of the trick-taking crew here. Just chiming in to say that I did not vote for The Crew as my most loved – though certainly one I’d happily play anytime. Also, if given the option to vote for Agricola as one of the proto-KdJ winners – I would have! I adore that game. I did, though, vote for Legends of Andor. I think my reputation for playing quirky, lighter, indie card games might not cause you to think I’d be the Andor guy, but I’m an evangelist for this game. For me, it’s at such a sweet spot of mixing logistics puzzle, monster fighting, and whimsy. I cannot imagine the last time I owned another “roll dice and fight monsters” game, but I also think that’s just a veneer here. To overview, Legends of Andor is a cooperative game based on scenarios. Your cohort generally has around 14 turns to beat the current setup, with each round being a letter of the alphabet (beginning on A and ending on N). Certain events are seeded at different letters; when the timer gets to E, reveal this card, and when it gets to H, reveal this here other card. Maybe that E card is 1 of 3 chosen at random. Sometimes that E card is “here’s a bunch of new monsters” but sometimes it is “this farmer wants you to deliver this letter to the forest before turn K”. I love going on these sidequests! But one of the places it shines is that you can’t simply kill all the monsters, as it affects the timing. Each monster you kill knocks 1 turn off of the length of the game – giving you less time to get your letter delivered.  So you need to be judicious. Oh, and roll well. Oh, and if you don’t kill some, they’ll overrun the castle. I think the game’s appearance leads you to think it’s 90% battling monsters, but for me it’s 70% logistics puzzle and 30% battling monsters, and I love it so much.

• Ryan Post: I am tier 2 trick taking fan, and am in the same boat as JN – I very much enjoyed The Crew and would play anytime, but it didn’t get my vote. Somewhat because I have sold it for The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, but mostly because there is one game in this crowd I would put way above all the others: 7 Wonders. Of the 50+ games I first bought when I entered the hobby, most have left as I honed my tastes. Yet 7 Wonders still gets multiple plays from my group every year. It’s my favorite pass and draft game, so long as I’m playing with the expansions. Mid comment expansion rank list: Armada > Cities >> Leaders > Tower Half of Babel >>>>> Great Projects Half of Babel (Edifices). But really, I enjoy it so much I’d play pretty much any configuration without Projects. Just talking about it now, when I get home I’m shuffling the cards and pre-setting everything up for my Saturday group so we can play!

• Mark Jackson: While I’m happy to play The Crew (though I would not count myself in the “trick-taking inner circle”), 7 Wonders was my pick for the best of the Kennerspiel bunch. With the exception of the “Laws”/Tower expansion in Babel, I’m happy to play it in almost any configuration. (And, since Ryan just noted his list of preferred expansion, I’ll post mine as well: Cities > Armada > Great Projects > Leaders > Tower.)

• Nate Beeler: Again, I didn’t vote because I was on vacation, but I have thoughts. The Kennerspiel prize is, by the jury’s description, meant to reward games targeted to experienced gamers who want more of a challenge. This is just like how the Academy Awards has always given its Oscar not to the best and most deserving movies but to those that appeal to a specific kind of family that like movies but haven’t watched very many and can’t handle complex ideas. They then give a special side award to the actual best movie of the year. Or at least, they used to. Now they put the best movies on a recommended list, and still put a cap on the amount of emotional complexity a movie can have to win that special award. Have I stretched the metaphor enough? Grumble, grumble, grumble. That all said, I really liked Die Crew when it came out. It got played to death for a while and I burned out on it, but now I can go back occasionally. For me, Agricola would be the best winner, if that counts, and Istanbul if it doesn’t.

• Simon Weinberg: Funnily enough I’m not a massive fan of any of these but happy to play them. Of the four, I’d probably choose Istanbul first as it is intriguing and interactive; and Quacks last as I find it too random. The Crew is a great concept and fun to play but a bit too basic for my crowd who love TT games.  Great for teaching TT to kids and casual gamers tho! Lastly I never really loved 7 wonders for the same reason I don’t like Dominion – I don’t like the military aspect as I feel the game is driving me not the other way round. But don’t listen to me! 

• Larry Levy:  So how about we hear from someone who actually did vote for The Crew?  That would be me.  Overall, I fare much better with Kennerspiel winners than the main prize, although my success rate is still only about 50%.  But of those I like, The Crew is a pretty easy pick for my favorite.  A cooperative trick-taker sounds impossible, but designer Thomas Sing did a terrific job with it and getting your group to meet the goals of the various scenarios with only minimal communication is a genuine, and very enjoyable, challenge.  It’s a very innovative and refreshingly different take for those who love trick-taking games, or for those who just like cooperative puzzles.  I agree that the Mission Deep Sea follow-up is slightly better, but I’ll happily play either game any time. I did consider voting for Village, as that’s a fine game with some unusual mechanisms (there’s not many games that include worker death as a feature and even fewer where you can benefit from it!).  But it’s been quite a long time since anyone expressed a desire to play it, while I’m sure I wouldn’t have any trouble scaring up a game of The Crew, so it really wasn’t that close a call.

• Dale Yu: My vote went for Challengers.  (It would have gone for Agricola were that an official option).  Though I am part of the trick taking cadre; the deckbuilding aspect here, though subtle, really interests me.  Some people (wrongly) claim that there is no choice once you enter the duel, but this is dependent on the cards in your deck – there are plenty of cards which give you options when they are played.  I tend towards those cards both for the interactivity as well as they just feel more fun to me; but I’m also happy to have a deck where you just flip cards and see what happens.  Andor is a strong second place.  As many people have noted above, it’s a fun puzzle, really more a logistics game – you have to figure out which enemies you can afford to kill, not just kill everything you can.  My thoughts may have been molded by JN’s love as I was part of his group that played through the entire series of games during the pandemic.  We managed to play via PCIO using a screenshot of the board as the background and then using all sorts of proxy pieces to represent the different enemies, wells, nuts, etc.  Good times.

• Matt Carlson: I also love Agricola and would have been hard pressed to decide if the others were better. I love The Crew, but I rarely can get people to play – they always want to play their own favorite trick taker (hearts, spades, Euchre, etc…) 7 Wonders is great fun but strongly favors players familiar with the game. My vote was for Quacks. It’s a great push-your-luck game that sits in a nice place for family/friendly gaming. I love how the colored chips can have different powers from game to game. I’m probably also biased as my family enjoyed it for a time so that I went and maximally blinged-up my Quacks set. Oh, I’ve played Istanbul and it didn’t grab me. I believe I did enjoy the dice version though. 

• Tery Noseworthy: Another member of the trick-taking crew here and I did vote for the The Crew. I will happily play this game for hours.  I love the trick taking aspect, the tenseness of trying to play to complete the mission and the thrill when you think you will fail but your team manages to do it.

• Fraser McHarg: I would have put Agricola and Caylus above these had they been official contenders.  I like the Crew and Quacks, even though it focuses my mutant ability to draw the white three out of the bag.  I haven’t played Istanbul or 7 Wonders much, but would most likely choose Istanbul first.

Most Unloved

Broom Service

Runners Up:

• Exit: The Game
• Wingspan

This was not a close call.  7 people chose Broom Service as their least favorite of the Kennerspiel winners, so it was a runaway “winner” in the voting among the Opinionated Gamers.  It looks like this Alea game didn’t quite meet the high standards set by the OG.  The runners up were Exit: The Game and Wingspan with 3 votes each, followed with just one or two votes for 7 Wonders, Challengers, Village, The Crew, and Isle of Skye.  There were 5 games that nobody picked as their least favorite KdJ winner: Quacks of Quedlinburg, Istanbul, Legends of Andor, Living Forest, and Paleo.  This means that Living Forest and Paleo have the dubious distinction of being the only games that were nobody’s favorite and nobody’s least favorite.

• Talia: I played Witch’s Brew at BGG.CON back in 2008, and apparently I rated it a 5 out of 10 at the time, and Broom Service is listed as a reimplementation, so I’ve never sought it out to learn or play.  I had trouble picking any of these 13 games as “not for me” but ended up settling on Exit (despite my aforementioned fondness for the Brands as designers) because it’s the clearest “not for me” design, much like MicroMacro Crime City discussed in yesterday’s post.  I’ll let my compatriots explain why Broom Service is the last Kennerspiel game that you should run out to play.

• James: Broom Service was my runner up for favorite behind (Agricola and) Legends of Andor, so I’m jumping in with why it’s great. There are a few mechanic archetypes in board games that people try different riffs on, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. The balance of tuning them just right is difficult. Take a “guess what this person was communicating” game – like Pictionary, charades, or Just One. Sometimes guessing is trivially easy; sometimes it is prohibitively difficult. For my experience, those games succeed or fail based upon getting that tuning right – regardless of the unique mechanics they surround it by. No amount of clever ideas in the drawing or communication can smooth over the experience if the guessing isn’t focused right. Broom Service takes another of these high concepts “take the lesser guaranteed option or gamble for a big payoff that somebody may snipe from you” and sticks a perfect landing where other games stumble. In a way, it’s calling out to be a card game (and hey! there are those versions, but this is the best one) in the vein of Love Letter or something like that – a microgame of 16ish cards -, but, in an unusual taste preference for me, I think it succeeds better here than it would there because there is enough other game to inform what you think other players’ incentives might be, and give you other things to do. You make educated decisions not blind guesses. And that tension is great. I’ve been playing a bit of the new Japanese reprint of Mr. Diamond recently and sometimes I’m literally biting my knuckle as the game comes down to match point – if this piece comes off the board I win, but if it’s stuck, my odds converge to nearly 0. It’s a 2 in 18 chance. Broom Service hasn’t caused me to bite my knuckle in the same way, and, structurally, the outcome of the game doesn’t come down to a single decision in the same way, but that sort of super-saturation of tension is present. And delicious. I love when games can fill my brain with emotions and adrenaline and not just numbers and decision trees. This one does both in a delightful way.

• Ryan: I’ll reprise my role as OG contrarian, and say that like JN, Broom Service would have been my 2nd place vote for Kennerspiel – I kinda want to change it to #1 now just to spite these results. I will note that in my 3 groups, there is at least one person who strongly hates the game, so Broom Service is certainly divisive. I mirror what he says above. It’s not often you find a lightweight game that plays so above the board as well. It certainly sparks the most laughter and excitement of all the KdJ games from my experiences. I’ll also add that compared to Witch’s Brew (Broom Service: The Card Game is what i played, but I think they are the same), I find this one as far superior – the decision to lead brave or cowardly is important and one I did not enjoy being removed in the card game. My one knock is I don’t like that there are 2 events that tell you where to place your witches by round end; one of those always finds its way back to the box before we start. For Exit: play Unlock, it’s the far superior product – I don’t have the time here to explain why so just believe me if you haven’t tried the Unlocks once they started using app integration (after the first 4 cases). For Wingspan: that was my vote, as I don’t really enjoy Stonemaier games in general – they aren’t my style. I’d rate Wingspan maybe a 6, so that being my least favorite means I quite enjoy a lot of KdJ games. 

• Dale:  I’ll jump in here and state that I am one of those people in one of Ryan’s groups who hates Broom Service.  I’ve never liked games with a lot of bluffing, and neither Broom Service nor Witch’s Brew is my style of game.

• Mark: I reserved my dislike for Isle of Skye… a game that actively frustrated me and pretty much sucked all of the enjoyment out of game night. I’ll note that Broom Service was a close second, though… as I much prefer Witch’s Brew and/or Broom Service: The Card Game over the board game version that won the KdJ.

• Nate: I’ve not played Broom Service, but I do love Witch’s Brew, the game it’s apparently based on. I hadn’t realized there were changes beyond the name, though, so I may need to seek it out. Wingspan, however, I disliked from the jump. It felt entirely derivative and watered down. The appeal seemed to be the egg bits. I’ll take a bag of Cadbury mini-eggs and be much happier, thank you all the same.

• Larry:  I don’t think I’ve played Broom Service, but I have played Witch’s Brew.  For what it is, it’s clever enough, but it’s a bluffing/guessing game and those bore me to tears.  So, no thanks.  Wingspan isn’t a game I hate; in fact, if the group wanted to play it, I’d reluctantly join in. Mechanically, it just doesn’t do anything notable, IMO, so it’s not something I’d ever seek out.  But I think Stonemaier did a brilliant job with the game’s theme and production and it’s brought a huge number of people into the hobby, so I think it was a very deserving winner for that reason.  I think I’ve only played one Exit game, but I enjoyed it, so no negative vote for that one, either.

The game that did get my least favorite pick is last year’s winner, Challengers!.  As I mentioned yesterday, pure deckbuilders don’t work for me (and I’m usually downright awful at them), so that’s a big strike against it.  But at least with Dominion, there’s a game to be played while you’re building your deck.  In Challengers!, you build your deck in solitaire mode, then during the actual battles with your opponents, things run almost entirely on auto-pilot!  What the hell is the fun in that?  Obviously, a ton of people disagree, but after one play, I decided I was very happy avoiding the game forever.

• Brandon: All three of mine, if I were ranking three most disliked KdJ winners would be listed right here. I remember Broom Service being dull as all get out, Wingspan being an overhyped deck digging bird game and Exit being more of those escape room type of games that I absolutely abhor in this industry. 

• Simon: Wingspan is decent and I love the theme and the idea; Exit is a great concept but I never get to play it; but I dislike Broom Service with a passion! I did quite like Witch’s Brew and so this was doubly disappointing (especially considering the authors!)

• Matt:  My inexperience helps here, as I haven’t played Broom Service. I love The Exit games. It is probably my favorite of this style of game – a style it started. The Exit series is one-use which places it above versions like Unlock! which can be reset. Because you can (and must at times) destroy the components I find the puzzles more compelling. I’ve played Wingspan and it’s fine. I will note that I am often giving props to the digital version, which includes the bird call of each bird when their card is played. Cool!

• Fraser: Broom Service doesn’t exist in my universe, because it is after Alea Big Box games jumped the shark with their renumbering – yes, that is a hill I will die on.  The Exit series are probably the best of that style of game, but still occasionally a little hit and miss.  I am currently playing regular games of Wingspan on Board Game Arena.

Most Played

7 Wonders, Wingspan, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and The Crew

Runner Up:

• Exit: The Game

There were 4 games that all 22 voters had played: 7 Wonders, Wingspan, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and The Crew.  The prevalence and ubiquity of these games is pretty remarkable, given how many games are released each year and how disparate the gaming tastes of OG members tend to be.  All but 1 of the voters had also played Exit: The Game.  Surprisingly, Istanbul came in next having been played by 20 out of 22 people (followed by Broom Service, Challengers, and Isle of Skye with 18 people having tried each of those).  The least played KdJ winner turned out to be Paleo (only tried by 10 out of 22 voters) and Living Forest (played by 12 out of 22 people).

• Talia: I think this is quite an accomplishment for 7 Wonders, Wingspan, Quacks, and The Crew!  I doubt the list of games that every member of the OG has played would be very long, and for relatively recent games from 2018-2020 to enter that list is impressive.  I’m sure we’ve all played Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride, but I was surprised to see that we’d all played these four newer games.  At the same time I was surprised to see how few of us had played Paleo or Living Forest.  Then again, I’m one of the few people that has not played Challengers, so I guess I need to get on that.

• Mark: Paleo is definitely worth trying… it’s not my favorite KdJ winner, but it’s a clever co-op that defies easy quarterbacking and (once you have some experience with it) can be adjusted for the appropriate difficulty level of the group playing the game.

• Nate: I would have brought the numbers down on Exit: The Game had I voted, even though I do own a copy. I guess I’m waiting for the right time to get that one play in.

• Larry:  I once wrote that 7 Wonders is a game that every serious gamer needs to have in their collection and I still kind of believe it.  It handles up to 7 players effortlessly, is easy to teach, and is fun to play.  My biggest problem with it is that the way it’s invariably played, with 6 or 7 players, is the least enjoyable for me, mostly because I don’t feel as if I’m playing with half of the people sitting at the table.  It’s still pleasant enough with that number, but I think it’s a much better game with 3 or 4.  Almost all my games of it have been with no expansions.  I did try the Leaders expansion once, but the iconography wasn’t all that clear and it slowed the game down quite a bit.  7 Wonders needs to be played briskly, so we’ve just stuck with the original game.  It’s still an indispensable way of entertaining a large group of players, but I wish I played it more often when I care about what everyone at the table is doing.

• Matt: I’d be willing to play any of these games at almost any time. I wouldn’t reach for 7 Wonders or Wingspan as my first choice but I’m happy to play. 

• Tery: I just don’t share the love for 7 Wonders. It feels random to me, and I just don’t get the appeal beyond it working for 7 players. I do love Quacks as a solid game that has great replayability and works well at all player counts.

Most Want to Play Again

The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Runner Up:

• Istanbul

The game that the most OG members liked and want to play again was The Quacks of Quedlinburg with 17 out of 22 voters enjoying the game.  The runner up was Istanbul with 15 people enjoying this Rudiger Dorn design and looking forward to another play.  So while The Crew had the most ardent fans, Quacks and Istanbul actually had more fans!

• Talia: Wolfgang Warsch really burst onto the scene in 2018 with Quacks, The Mind, Illusion, and Gang Schon Clever, and he hasn’t let up with follow-up designs like Wavelength, The Fuzzies, and Taverns of Tiefenthal!  My favorites of his are definitely The Mind and Illusion, but I’ve been contemplating diving back into Quacks.  I only ever played it once back in 2019 and moved on, but perhaps I’d enjoy picking up a copy and playing it a bunch… but then would I need to get the “Big Box” version and the GeekUp bits?  That would be quite a commitment.  As for Istanbul, it never quite measured up for me when I could be playing Rudiger Dorn’s masterful Louis XIV instead.

• Mark: I’m always willing to play Quacks… of course, thanks to the kindness of a good friend, I have the GeekUp bits (and I purchased the FoldedSpace insert, which makes setting up the game MUCH easier). 

• Nate: I do like Istanbul and Quacks. Again, I’m not sure if Agricola counts as a KdJ winner or not, but it would be my most want to play again if so. But really, the true treasures are in the nominees, and even more so the recommended lists. Ark Nova, Res Arcana, Terraforming Mars, Concordia, Russian Rails, Tzolk’in, Marco Polo, Hawaii… now there are some games I’m craving to get to the table.

• Larry:  Wow, Nate, that list of recommended games is awesome!  I would be very happy playing nothing but those titles for a year or more.  Makes you realize that the SdJ jury, for all the criticism they receive, really do appreciate quality designs; they just give the awards to the games that fit the weight of their intended audience. Of our two most popular games, I think Istanbul is a superior middleweight and one I’m always happy to play.  It’s always fun to see how Dorn implements his favorite “walking” mechanic in his games and he uses it very effectively in Istanbul.  Just a very solid game with plenty of ways to win that never overstays its welcome. Quacks, OTOH, doesn’t do it for me.  There’s just way too much luck in the way those chips come out of the bag and the rest of the game is nothing special, either.  It’s not an automatic veto from me, I guess, but I would be looking longingly at the other table to see what they’re playing.

• Dale:  I’d rather play my favorite Kinderspiel des Jahres title, Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters (the English title), than Quacks.  Quacks is fine, but it feels a bit too swingy.  It feels fresh-ish each time with different spells for the colors, but while I still own my copy, it’s been awhile since I’ve wanted to play it.  Istanbul still gets relatively regular play though, and I have shrunk it down into a 5×7 photo case as part of my traveling collection of shinky dink games.

• Matt: If you’ve read this far, you know that I like Quacks. I also have the geek-up bits and a foam tray insert that makes setup a breeze. I’ll echo Dale’s comments on Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters – that’s a great co-op game. (And I’ve shrunk my Ghost Fightin copy down to a 5×7 photo case, too!)

• Tery: As I already mentioned, I like Quacks and I too have an insert that makes set up a breeze. I love the push your luck aspect as well as the bag management, and the fact that you can customize the game as you wish  Like Dale, I also love Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters, but why choose? We can play both.

What do you think about our aggregate opinions on the Kennerspiel winner?  What are your favorite and least favorite games that have won the Kennerspiel? 

Check back tomorrow for the grand finale of the Opinionated Gamers Spiel des Jahres Week!