The Spiel des Jahres (SdJ) jury announced the nominated games for the SdJ, Kennerspiel (“connoisseur” games), and Kinderspiel (children’s games) awards earlier today and I think it’s safe to say that nobody had these titles on their Bingo cards. For each award, here are the nominated games and the recommended games, together with their designers and their publishers.
SdJ Nominated Games
- Cozy Stickerville (Corey Konieczka) – Unexpected Games
- JinxO/Dito! (Martin Ang) – Tabletoys Games/Game Factory
- Morty Sorty Magic Shop (Markus Slawitscheck) – Schmidt Spiele
SdJ Recommended Games
- Hot Streak (Jon Perry)
- Master Makatsu (Reiner Knizia)
- Take Time (Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothiere)
- Toriki (Wojciech Grajkowski)
- Toy Battle (Paolo Mori, Alsessandro Zucchini)
- Wilmot’s Warehouse (David King, Ricky Hagget, Richard Hogg)
Kennerspiel Nominated Games
- Boss Fighters QR (Michael Palm, Lukas Zach) – Pegasus Spiele
- Moon Colony Bloodbath (Donald X. Vaccarino) – Rio Grande Games/alea
- Rebirth (Reiner Knizia) – Mighty Boards/Frosted Games
Kennerspiel Recommended Games
- Foundations of Metropolis (Emerson Matsuuchi)
- Frosted Blooms (Bruno Cathala, Ludovic Maublanc)
- Sanctuary (Mathias Wigge)
- Tag Team (Corentin Lebrat, Gricha German)
Kinderspiel Nominated Games
- Boo Party (Florian Sirieix, Benoit Turpin) – LOKI
- Mooki Island (Florian Sirieix) – Scorpion Masque/Kosmos
- Verflixt Verzaubert (Thomas Dagenais-Lesperance) – Locomuse Studio/Game Factory
Kinderspiel Recommended Games
- You Little Stinker (Ken Gruhl, Quentin Weir)
- Half-and-Seek (Kseniya Kuznetsove)
- Paleolino (Marco Teubner)
Lots of surprises and lots of stuff to digest. The jury will be announcing the winners in all three categories on July 12. Until then, let the predictions and discussions begin!
They really missed the mark on the SdJ nominees this year.
Which games did you have in your top 3?
I thought Take Time or Toy Battle would have been a safe bet.
Me, too, although once our resident German native, Mario Pawlowski, mentioned that Cozy Stickerville had been released in Germany, I thought it might have a chance. But yeah, having both Take Time and Toy Battle miss out is pretty shocking. That said, a number of our writers have played JinxO and really like it. So I guess we’ll have to see.