Spiel des Jahres 2017 Predictions
Ah it’s that time of year again! The Spiel des Jahres nominees have been announced. Potential winners of a prize akin to the oscars, only more wooden and rounded – and that’s just the designers! The Spiel des Jahres aims to highlight the very best in family friendly game design, with the Kennerspiel highlighting more strategically challenging games. Chosen by a team of influential German media creators, the nominees often offer up some surprises both for who does get picked and who does not. It’s always fun to try and guess who will take home the prize, so today I’m going to have a look at which titles are up for the awards, and try to guess which will ultimately triumph. Should be a laugh!
Spiel des Jahres
Kingdomino is a delightful tile laying game that is as simple as it is quick as it is clever! You use colourful cardboard tiles to construct a small, restricted kingdom with a nice turn order mechanic and the challenge of getting score multiplying crowns into the right sections of your player area. It all wraps up in 15 mins too, making this a really neat filler. Check out my review for more info!
Magic Maze sets you the amusing task of navigating a gang of fantasy characters through a shopping mall. It’s a cooperative game, racing to move them to the target shops before time runs out, but the inevitable hitch is that none of you can talk! This is a premise that gives rise to all kinds of silliness! Sadly it’s not a game I’ve played, but Actualol has an excellent review if you want to find out more.
As always, the judges have picked a game I have never heard of. One of the reasons why the Spiel des Jahres is such an interesting prize to follow! El Dorado is a race designed by none other than the God of maths, Reiner Knizia, and this is his first deck building game! Not only a deck building race game, but one with a player controlled dynamic market, think Star Realms but without the randomness. I might not have heard of it before now, but boy do I want to play it!
My prediction
Having only played 1 out of 3 I’m obviously drawn to towards that 1, Kingdomino! Magic Maze has a certain easy silliness that might count in its favour though. El Dorado also sounds damn clever… I think Kingdomino and El Dorado feel closer to classic Spiel des Jahres fair but this could go either way. El Dorado has a little more meat on the bones, Kingdomino is so so simple to play. I’m going to pick Kingdomino because I know that’s a good game. But I imagine I might be proven wrong here!
Kennerspiel des Jahres
The era of escape room games have hit the tabletop market hard and one is even nominated for a Kennerspiel! Exit, as I discussed in my review, is an excellent puzzle experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. While it is ultimately destroyed in the process of playing, it uses that destruction to craft very clever puzzles that couldn’t have existed otherwise.
This is big! This is the first nomination for a game produced through Kickstarter! That’s a big validation for games produced through crowd funding. Raiders of the North Sea is a worker placement game with a shared pool of workers set in a small Viking village with big dreams of smashing up fortresses all across the sea. It’s sadly not a game I’ve had chance to play but will be on the lookout for it now!
A surprise nominee simply for how heavy it gives the impression of being. Terraforming Mars sees players attempting to contribute the most to turning Mars into a habitable green space, whilst also controlling the best located cities. To do that requires canny play of the huge variety of cards that are drafted and bought each round. It’s a compelling title with a tremendous amount of depth but also an intimidating one. You can read my first impressions of it here.
My predictions
This one is an interesting one! Terraforming Mars, the current darling of the BoardGameGeek community, a well regarded Kickstarter title, and a one shot puzzle experience more than a game. I think Terraforming Mars will prove too heavy to take the prize. Likewise, I think the one shot nature of the Exit games will ultimately count against them so, by a process of elimination, we are left with the one game I haven’t played, Raiders of the North Sea!
So, my picks are Kingdomino and Raiders of the North Sea! What are your predictions? How many of the nominees have you had chance to play? Let me know in the comments!
The winners will be announced on July 17th.
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