Board Game of the Year Award – And the Spiel des Jahres Nominees Are…
The Spiel des Jahres 2023 Nominees are here! As a highly coveted award in board gaming, it’s a great chance to check these titles out.
The Spiel des Jahres folks have collected all their favorite games from 2022 and have now announced their 2023 nominees. Seems a little confusing and not how I woulda have done it, but that’s why they are highly respected individuals, and I’m just some guy.
Spiel des Jahres is mainly focused on games with a more innovative approach to gaming. They tend to grant awards to games that have done something clever with their design and also tend to shy away from games that are more on the “casual” side of gaming.
For the roughly 98.5% of you who don’t speak German, let’s summarize the announcement video.
Your Spiel des Jahres 2023 Nominees Are…
Fun Facts
Fun Facts is a cooperative party game for up to 8 players. The premise of Fun Facts is the players are each given a question. For example, “How long is the perfect nap?” Each player secretly writes their answer on an arrow tile and then places it facedown, with their name written on the back.
The goal is to order the answers from lowest to highest, without knowing who wrote what number. Players will need to use their intuition about the person who gave each answer to know how their own answers might compare. Remember, it’s all about trying to get the answers in order.
Once revealed, each number out of order is revealed and the players score 1 point for each remaining answer. After 8 rounds, the game ends and everyone gets ready to try again to beat their previous high score!
Next Station: London
The next Spiel des Jahres 2023 Nominee is Next Station: London is a network and city-building game for 1-4 players. The game centers around the players being commissioned by the city of London to redesign the entire Underground!
Each player simultaneously will be drawing their route on their own paper playmat. With each turn, a card is drawn to determine where the new route must lead. Players score points through a variety of options, like having a route travel through multiple districts, stopping at tourist locations, connecting different routes together, crossing the Themes, and more.
After each player has completed their four routes, the game ends and scoring begins. Whichever player builds the best route wins!
Dorfromantik
Dorfromantik is a cooperative city-building game where up to 6 players work together to lay hexagonal tiles to creature scenic landscapes in order to fulfill the needs of the population. Along the way, they’ll also be attempting to create the longest river and track as possible, and other features for even more points. It’s very much in the world of a cooperative Agricola.
There is a replayable campaign mode that grants new tile types at certain point thresholds. This will give players even more ways to score points, bringing them even closer to unlocking the next box!
Honorable Mentions
There were more announcements than just the Spiel des Jahres 2023 Nominees. While not quite becoming a full Spiel des Jahres 2023 Nominee, these titles also come highly recommended:
