Kennerspiel is the connoisseurs choice of game of the year. Basically, the more complex games. Think 7 Wonders or Stone Age level of rules. Sometimes they pick a game a little lighter, other times a little heavier. If your looking for:
Scythe
Great Western Trail
A Feast for Odin
they are all way too complicated. Occasionally they will get recommended, but have no chance of winning. This year is pretty open and a game not on this list is pretty likely to get nominated, that never stopped me from guessing anyway.
Captain Sonar
Original, check. Great components, check. Awesome gameplay, check. Easy winner then!?! You need a minimum of 6 and ideally 8 to play this properly. So no, it won’t win, but this real-time battleships style game is so good it will get some love from the jury. No other game does what it does. Odds to win – 16/1
Mystic Vale
This is the game with the clever card-building mechanic. You acquire cards which are partially see-through and place them in sleeves to make one supercard. It has a nice theme about building the best Valley, filled with beautiful art. The game lacks a little longevity and needs to be expanded fairly quickly to provide variety. The judges don’t grade the game with expansions, so unlikely as well. Odds to win – 24/1
Kanagawa
This game is the definition of a ‘solid’ game. It does everything right. Beautiful art, interesting theme, good gameplay…but it’s just solid. It doesn’t blow you away and really shouldn’t win. However it’s just the sort of game they go for. Its has a very good chance IMO, but he’s also probably up for Kingdomino, so they won’t give him both awards, would they? Odds to win – 8/1
Via Nebula
Space Cowboys, who made this game, can do nothing wrong right now. They teamed up with Martin ‘I make your brain melt’ Wallace to make a game that just make’s your brain singe instead. It’s like a more expensive version of Kanagawa in that is does everything right, but doesn’t really blow you away. It’s looking like one of those years. Odds to win – 10/1
Cottage garden
This one could win either category, the SDJ or KDJ. It’s already in that post, but it’s got a better shot at this one. Odds to win – 16/1
Roll for the Galaxy
This game came out 3 years ago, what the heck dude! Well it only just got released in German, so now it can win this award. A great game that re-implements Race for the Galaxy with dice. On the heavier end of the scale, but this one could be a surprise to many people. Odds to win – 16/1
Adrenaline
It’s a first player shoot-em-up in game. Move, shoot, get cool guns and then ammo to shoot some more. It uses a clever area majority mechanic to encourage everyone to shoot everyone and is just the right weight for this award. The award panel in general really don’t like this kind of theme though and it’ll get penalized hard for it I’m afraid. Odds to win – 32/1
Terraforming Mars
Work together to terraform Mars, do it better than everyone else and win. The theme is brilliantly integrated into this game, which uses real science theory by a science guy. You have 200+ unique cards to play with and every game feels different. It’s initially a little overwhelming, but once it clicks it’s very straightforward. In a perfect world, this is the winner, hands down. It may just be too complicated though…Odds to win – 6/1
First Class
A follow up to the award winning Russian Railroads. This is slightly more family friendly and uses modules that can be added to games to create variety. It’s a nice time span, around 60 mins and has trains (what is it about trains?). This will be nominated for sure (probably). Odds to win – 6/1
Nominated:
First Class
Captain Sonar
Terraforming Mars
Winner:
First Class
