All the Jahres
Replaying the winners of the Spiel des Jahres so you don’t have to
Words and photographs by James Wallis
EL GRANDE
Year of win: 1996
Designer: Wolfgang Kramer, Richard Ulrich
Number of players: 2-5
Playing time: 60-120 minutes
Worthy winner? Arguably
Worth playing now? Yes
Availability: Common in Germany, rare elsewhere
Price: About £85 for the big box
It’s 1996 and you are the jury of the Spiel des Jahres, the most important games prize in the world. Last year you awarded it to The Settlers of Catan or, more accurately, to Die Siedler von Catan, because the prize only goes to games published in German. Catan wasn’t a typical winner: the prize is supposedly for familyfriendly games and, at the time, Catan was perhaps the most complex game to have worn the Spiel des Jahres logo on its box. Now you’re faced with a difficult choice. Do you give the prize to a technically brilliant, tactically complex, grown-up game by one of the great designers of the age, Wolfgang Kramer? Or to an audaciously fun dexterity game that combines F1 racing with the flicky skills of Subbuteo, Carabande?