ALL THE JAHRES
On 18th May the shortlist for the forty-second Spiel des Jahres award was announced via a live Facebook stream from Germany. As usual there were three games on the list – it used to be five but that changed in 2011 when the award was split into the Spiel, for family games, and the Kennerspiel for hobby games. The three titles vying for victory are My City by previous winner Reiner Knizia, Nova Luna by previous special-prize winner Uwe Rosenberg and Netherlands designer Corné van Moorsel; and Pictures by newcomers Daniela and Christian Stohr.
It’s possible to read many things into this nominees list, but perhaps the main one is that whatever else the Spiel des Jahres has become, it’s still nowhere near predictable.