Cafe del Gatto wins Austrian game of the year prize

Cafe del Gatto, a family-focused drafting game about cat baristas competing to serve customers drinks, has won this year’s Austrian game of the year prize.

Thomas Bareder from the Austrian Game Academy called Cafe del Gatto a highly successful family game, was a pleasure to touch and look at and had a brisk rhythm and low barrer to entry.

He added that the game’s transparency offered “a lot of freedom for tactical considerations without being overwhelming”.

The Schmidt-published game, from Dragon’s Breath co-designer Lena Burkhardt and new designer Julia Wagner, is not yet available in English, although an English version of the rulebook is available here.

Children’s game of the year went to Beethupferl, a memory and skill game about watering vegetable seedlings, while family game of the year was awarded to Emanuele Briano-designed race game 80 Days.

Crime deduction game Black Stories won friends game of the year, and expert game of the year was awarded to Pegasus-publised asymmetric eurogame Merchant’s Cove.

Friedemann Friese’s Fancy Feathers won card game of the year, while ‘Trend’ game of the year went to Uwe Rosenberg’s Atiwa, a game about attracting fruit bats to help develop a small community in Ghana.