The German Spiel des Jahres is perhaps the world's most prestigious game award. Founded in 1978 by a group of German game
critics to promote awareness and to increase the cultural value of games, the award recognizes outstanding games based on
originality, playability, and educational value of the game idea; organization, clarity and understandability of rules; packing
and layout of the gameboard and the game rules; and functionality and overall quality of the game materials included.
Funagain would like to congratulate the designers and publishers of this year's nominees:
- Marrakech by Dominique Ehrhard (Gigamic / Fundex)
- Keltis by Reiner Knizia (Kosmos / Rio Grande Games)
- Witch's Brew by Andreas Pelikan (Alea / Rio Grande Games)
- Blox by Wolfgang Kramer, Hans Raggan, and Jurgen PK Grunau (Ravensburger Germany)
- Stone Age by Michael Tummelhofer (Hans im Gluck / Rio Grande Games)
In addition to the nominees, the panel of judges also recommends several additional games as releases worthy of
notice. To see the full list of recommended games, visit the Spiel des Jahres 2008 page.
This year, the judges also chose to award the very popular game Agricola with a special award for complex play. This is awarded some years to games that the judges wish to acknowledge but are more complicated than the games normally selected as nominees. Congratulations to the designer, Uwe Rosenberg!
You can see the complete details of all of these fine games on Funagain's
Spiel des Jahres 2008 page.
The announcement of the winner will come in July. Congratulations and best of luck to all!