Voting opens for Germany’s biggest board gaming award

Voting is open for the Deutscher Spiele Preis, Germany’s biggest board gaming award, with winners set to be announced at the Essen Game Fair in October.

The awards have been running since 1990, when Catan designer Klaus Teuber’s Hoity Toity came away with the inaugural prize.

Runaway success Ark Nova triumphed in last year’s awards, with Quacks and Co: Quedlinburg Dash winning the best children’s game prize.

While nominally a ‘family games’ award, the winning games have varied heavily in complexity and play time over the last few years.

Recent previous winners have included The Lost Ruins of Arnak, The Crew, Wingspan, Azul, Terraforming Mars.

Ark Nova is the most complex game to win the award since Mombasa in 2016, according to ‘game weight’ ratings compiled on BoardGameGeek.

Voting is open for games that were published in German between May 1 2022 and April 30 this year.

Possible contenders for this year’s prize include Earth from Inside Up Games, Heat: Pedal to the Metal by Days of Wonder and Dune: Imperium from Dire Wolf.

Votes are only counted from people who live in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with the voting process set to close on August 15. Anyone eligible can vote here: https://www.spiel-essen.de/de/dsp