One of my favorite annual game awards is Spiel Portugal’s Jogo do Ano (which is Portuguese for “Game of the Year”). What I like about it is that the nominated games are all heavier ones and titles like that often don’t get much love from the more traditional awards, where accessibility has become increasingly important. I also feel that they make excellent choices of which games to honor. Just check out the games which have won the JdA this decade:
2020 – Barrage
2021 – Imperial Struggle
2022 – Imperial Steam
2023 – Carnegie
2024 – Nucleum
2025 – SETI
Spiel Portugal just announced the five nominees for the JdA. Here they are, in alphabetical order, together with their designers:
- Ada’s Dream (Toni Lopez)
- Ants (Renato Ciervo, Andrea Robbiani)
- Galactic Cruise (T.K. King, Dennis Northcott, Koltin Thompson)
- Luthier (Dave Beck, Abe Burson)
- Speakeasy (Vital Lacerda)
It’s the sixth Jogo do Ano nomination for Lacerda, a proud native of Portugal. That ties him with Simone Luciani for most JdA nominations, one ahead of Martin Wallace. Lacerda has won the award once, for Lisboa, back in 2018. It’s the first nomination for all the other designers.
The winners will be announced later this year, probably sometime during Fall. Congratulations to all the nominated games and designers!
