The verdict is in and the 2020 winner of the Spiel de Jahres award is out.
Today, we’re looking at the nominations and congratulating the 2020 Spiel des Jahres Winner.
MORE SPIEL DES JAHRES WINNERS: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018
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Spiel des Jahres 2020 Winner: Pictures
Congratulations to Pictures and its designers Daniela and Christian Stöhr at PD-Verlag for being the Spiel des Jahres 2020 recipient.
Building blocks, shoe laces, symbol cards, and more. At first glance, the five sets of materials included in “Pictures” couldn’t be more different. Nevertheless, they will all be used for the same purpose: players must recreate a photograph so that their opponents are able to identify it amongst all the other photos displayed.
This might not be so simple, depending on the task and the material you’re using, so you’ll need to use some creativity and abstract thinking. You’ll also need to keep an overview of the rest of the photos in the grid so that your creation doesn’t accidentally resemble a different picture.
Once all players are happy with their efforts, everyone has to guess each other’s, and points are awarded accordingly. Afterward, everyone swaps their building tools so that every player gets a chance to try out every set of materials once.
Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 Winner
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
by Thomas Sing
Kosmos
Illustration: Marco Armbruster
Cooperative space travel for 3 to 5 players aged 10 and up
As part of a spaceship crew, the players are traveling to the ninth planet at the edge of the solar system. On the way, they will encounter all sorts of problems typical for a long journey in space: malfunctioning engines and lack of oxygen serve as thematic hooks for a cooperative trick-taking game, which challenges players in a series of 50 increasingly difficult missions.
At the beginning of each mission, tasks are distributed amongst the crew members: who has to win which card in a trick? And do they need to happen in a certain order? Once the mission has started, only very limited communication is allowed between players: they can only share limited information about the cards in their hand. The crew will need teamwork, vision, and imagination to reach their distant destination.
Spiel des Jahres 2020 Nominees
My City
by Reiner Knizia, Kosmos
Illustration: Michael Menzel
An innovative city puzzle for 2 to 4 players aged 10 and up
Nova Luna
by Uwe Rosenberg and Corné van Moorsel
Edition Spielwiese, Pegasus Spiele and Stronghold Games
Illustration: Lukas Siegmon
Astral tile-laying game for 1 to 4 players aged 8 and up
Spiel des Jahres Recommended Games
Color Brain (Colour Brain)
by Tristan Williams (Game Factory and Big Potato Games)
Der Fuchs im Wald (The Fox in the Forest)
by Joshua Buergel (Leichtkraft, Foxtrot Games and Renegade Game Studios)
Draftosaurus
by Antoine Bauza u.a. (Ankama and Board Game Box)
Kitchen Rush
by Dávid Turczi and Vangelis Bagiartakis (Pegasus Spiele)
Little Town
by Shun Taguchi and Aya Taguchi (Studio GG and Iello)
Congratulations to all of the nominees and the winners! Now it’s time to go try them out.
Have you tried any of 2020’s nominees or winners? What did you think? Let us know with a comment below. We’d love to hear from you!
Kendra has always been a hardcore fantasy nerd. Growing up in the worlds of Tolkien, Sanderson, Jordan, and Abercrombie, DnD & board games just came naturally. She and her husband, Bryan, started GameCows.com in 2018 as a fun passion project that just took over their lives. An avid board gamer since childhood and chronic DnD chronicler for more than two decades, she loves to play, write, travel, and learn dead languages. She is also a professional content writer at SlashGear.com