Spiel Des Jahres Games
Spiel des Jahres Games of the Year
In 1978, Germany created the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award in an effort to promote game design and reward games who have achieved excellence. Since then, the award has become the premier international board game award presented every year. Games that want to be considered for the award will have been released in the past twelve months from the last year’s award in Germany. Games are then judged on their concept, rule structure, design, and layout. The Spiel des Jahres has helped inspire the renaissance of board games the world is currently enjoying.
F.G.Bradley’s carries a wide range of Spiel des Jahres winning games. All games carried at F.G.Bradley’s are shown below. For the full list visit here.
Spiel Des Jahres 2024 Winner
Skyteam
Sky Team is a cooperative game, exclusively for 2 players, where you play a pilot and co-pilot at the controls of an airliner. Your goal is to work together as a team to land your airplane in different airports around the world. From Montreal to Tokyo, discover 11 airports and 21 exciting scenarios inspired by real landing conditions. Each airport comes with its own set of challenges!
Spiel Des Jahres 2023 Winner
Dorfromantik
Work together to lay hexagonal tiles to create a beautiful landscape and try to fulfill the orders of the population, while at the same time laying as long a track and as long a river as possible, but also taking into account the flags that provide points in enclosed areas. The better the players manage to do this, the more points they can score at the end.
Spiel Des Jahres 2022 Winner
Cascadia
Between Canada and the Northwest USA you can find the region of ‘Cascadia’, famous for the extraordinary diversity of its plant and animal life. In the tile-laying game of the same name, up to four nature-lovers compete to create a habitat rich in victory points, connecting matching landscape tiles to form as large an area as possible.
Spiel Des Jahres 2021 Winner
Micro Macro: Crime City
There are over a dozen murder and crime cases to solve in this enormous bustling city map, drawn in the style of hidden object games. Clues and signs give us evidence for the sequence of events, leading to an exciting reconstruction of the crime, all without any text and with minimal rules.
Spiel Des Jahres 2019 Winner
Just One
In the co-operative game Just One, one player has to guess a word. The clues aren’t provided by the game but by the rest of the players. Without discussing it with their teammates, each player writes down a clue they think will help guide the guessing player to the word.
Spiel Des Jahres 2018 Winner
Azul
In the tactical tile-laying game Azul, the Portuguese King Manuel I commissions craftsmen to decorate the walls of his palace with beautiful mosaics. Beneath the simple action of laying tiles burns a fierce competition to pick the best tiles from the factories at just the right time.
Spiel Des Jahres 2017 Winner
Kingdomino
“Kingdomino” lifts the time-honoured principle of dominoes to a new level. Players take on the role of Lords seeking new lands to expand their kingdom. You must explore all the lands, in order to spot the best plots, while competing with other lords to acquire them first.
Spiel Des Jahres 2016 Winner
Codenames
One game of Codenames is often followed by a second, then a third, then a fourth. This association game is so spell-binding that it’s hard to break away from it. To describe as many words as possible using just one term, without giving anything away to the opposition, is like a puzzle you just have to solve.
Spiel Des Jahres 2015 Winner
Colt Express
We are bandits in the Wild West, robbing a three-dimensional train on a daring journey over switching points, bridges and through tunnels. Revolvers smoke and fists fly as we race from carriage to carriage, robbing the passengers and beating our rivals. The three-dimensional game board, makes “Colt Express” particularly eye-catching.
Spiel Des Jahres 2014 Winner
Camel Up
“Camel Up“ is a family game par excellence. Its intuitive rules mean that all players get involved straight away. And no-one’s left behind: The frantic race stirs up a host of emotions, players of all ages find themselves hoping, worrying and laughing.
Spiel Des Jahres 2013 Winner
Hanabi
Hanabi is persuasive due to its unprecedented mix of collaborative, communicative and deductive game elements. It is fascinating to watch how the groups harmonise better from game to game and learn to draw the right conclusions from wisely given hints.
Spiel Des Jahres 2012 Winner
Kingdom Builder
In this exciting building game, each player creates their own private kingdom, using their 40 wooden houses to settle deserts, canyons, forests, grasslands and flower fields. The simple building mechanic doesn’t reveal its charms straight away but allows its true class to unfold after a few games.
Spiel Des Jahres 2011 Winner
Qwirkle
Simple and logical rules define this almost self-explanatory block-laying game. Its captivating combination of colours and shapes placed into rows of six matching blocks requires a bit of luck but also forward planning and tactical consideration. The tactile and colourfully printed wooden blocks are so pleasing to play with that often one game quickly follows another.
Spiel Des Jahres 2010 Winner
Dixit
Dixit is an enchanting card game inviting you to let your imagination run wild. Discover 84 dreamlike illustrations on large text-free cards, and interpret those mysterious images. Accessible and family-oriented, Dixit is the ideal game to play with family or friends and to get to know your peers from another perspective.
Spiel Des Jahres 2009 Winner
Dominion
In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. This is a game of building a deck of cards. The deck contains your resources, victory points, and the things you can do.
Spiel Des Jahres 2004 Winner
Ticket To Ride
Ticket to Ride is the epitome of a “gateway game”- simple enough to be taught in a few minutes, and with enough action and tension to keep new players involved and in the game for the duration. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America.
Spiel Des Jahres 2001 Winner
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etc. It provides plenty of ways to use your cunning and outsmart your opponents.
Kennerspiel des Jahres: Expert Games of the Year
Kennerspiel des Jahres, first awarded in 2011, expands the prestigious Spiel des Jahres to recognize the “connoisseur/expert game of the year”. These are games which are meant for a more experienced audience, and where the Spiel des Jahres typically recognizes the best games for the entire family, the Kennerspiel des Jahres is more for gamers looking for games which present more of a challenge.
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2024 Winner
Daybreak
Daybreak is more than a cooperative board game about stopping climate change. It presents a hopeful vision of the near future, where you get to build the mind-blowing technologies and resilient societies we need to save the planet.
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2023 Winner
Challengers!
Will your dream team succeed? Players are participating in a 7-round tournament. Qualify yourself for the final by being one of the two players with the most fans at the end of the 7th match. The two most beloved players then participate in the final for sweet, sweet victory!
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2022 Winner
Living Forest
In Living Forest, play as a nature spirit who will try to save the forest and its sacred tree from the flames of Onibi. The animal guardians have come together to lend a hand around the Circle of Spirits where you progress. Each turn, they bring you valuable elements, so try to combine your team of animal guardians as best as possible to carry out your actions.
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2021 Winner
Paleo
Return to the stone age in a new cooperative adventure! Paleo is a survival strategy game for 2–4 players, who form a tribe of people working together to explore their surroundings and undertake the ultimate paleolithic quest: completing a cave painting. At the end of each day, you’ll need enough food and resources to keep your people alive and on track to complete your final masterpiece.
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2020 Winner
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
In The Crew the players set out as astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. The eventful journey through space extends over 50 exciting missions. But this game can only be defeated by meeting common individual tasks of each player. In order to meet the varied challenges, communication is essential in the team. But this is more difficult than expected in space.
Kennerspiel Des Jahres 2019 Winner
Wingspan
You are bird enthusiasts, researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats. Work to build your habitats and collect the most exotic birds.
Kinderspiel des Jahres: Kids Games of the Year
The Kinderspiel des Jahres is awarded every year to the best children’s game by a jury of game critics. This award is aimed at younger children, preferably games for ages 6 and up.
Kinderspiel Des Jahres 2023 Winner
Mysterium Kids: Captain Echo's Treasure
Mysterium Kids: Captain Echo’s Tresor is a cooperative game specially designed for kids. It helps develop children’s concentration and imagination. In turn, play as the ghost or as treasure seekers and try to find in team which illustrated card corresponds to the location of the treasure, all while guided by the tambourine’s sounds only!
Kinderspiel Des Jahres 2021 Winner
Dragomino
Explore new lands in search of fabulous dragons! Players build their ”kingdom” and as they match different landscapes, they try to collect as many eggs as possible! Pick a domino to add to your kingdom. Try to match it to the dominoes already in play. Each matching dominoes scores one egg… which is either empty or has a baby dragon inside!
