Flip 7, Bomb Busters, Krakel Orakel to battle it out for this year’s Spiel des Jahres award -

The nominees for this year’s Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the highest profile award in board gaming, have been unveiled ahead of the grand final on July 13.

Press your luck card game Flip 7 is up for the main Spiel des Jahres prize alongside collaborative bomb disposal game Bomb Busters and Krakel Orakel, described as a co-operative drawing game for people who can’t draw.

This year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres, awarded to slightly more complex games than the SdJ, will be fought over by Endeavor: Deep Sea, Looot and Faraway, while the children-focused Kinderspiel comes down to Die Mausebande, Cascadia Junior or Topp die Torte.

While publishers tend to keep tight-lipped about actual sales figures, Pegasus Spiel co-founder Karsten Esser told BoardGameWire in a 2023 interview that winning the SdJ can boost a game’s sales by 10x to 20x in the months following, due to a slew of exposure across mainstream shopping outlets in the run-up to Christmas.

The 2025 Spiel des Jahres, Kennerspiel and Kinderspiel nominees

That kind of boost can be hugely impactful for publishers and designers alike – and is particularly important to smaller outlets in the fight to stand out in an increasingly competitive industry, which sees thousands of releases each year.

Spiel des Jahres Association chairman Harald Schrapers said the jury of German-speaking board game critics whittled down a record 385 games this year to reach the shortlist of nominees – a total up 10% on 2024, which was itself a 20% rise compared to the previous year.

The jury considers games published in the current or previous year distributed and sold in German-speaking countries, and available at retail at the time of award selection.

Schrapers said in a livestream announcing the longlists and nominees, “We do not know what the development will be like in the future, whether there will be more games – I have to say, I hope not.

“It then also becomes a little difficult – I only ever want more really good games… and sometimes you can say [about other designs]: ‘it’s not all that important'”.

Spiel des Jahres Association chairman Harald Schrapers

Schrapers pointed out there were almost 100 variants and revisions of existing games in this year’s pile of entries – including Kennerspiel finalist Deep Sea Adventure, a reimplementation of 2009 release Endeavor which was itself a Spiel des Jahres recommended title.

Endeavor, known as Magister Navis in Germany, was themed around colonial nations conquering new lands for their empires, whereas Endeavor: Deep Sea reimagines the game as marine researchers exploring the ocean and developing sustainability projects.

Schrapers said, “This is now a really massive revision and not just a redesign. And what was originally an issue at the time, of the colonialists, has now been turned into something that thematically appeals much more.”

He also highlighted longlisted Spiel des Jahres title Kauri as “even more impressive thematically”, attempting to described as it does the colonial history of New Zealand and the interplay of ecological systems.

Schrapers said, “And we realised: you can look at history from different perspectives, and if a game can do that, then we have really experienced a great story in a game like this – and that always makes us happy when there are things like that”.

He added that the percentage of non-male designers across the hundreds of games considered for the SdJ and Kennerspiel had fallen again, down to 2% this year from 2.6% in 2024.

About 96% of designs considered were from male designers, with the remaining 2% from teams or pairs of creators.

Last year’s Spiel des Jahres was won by Sky Team, which pipped Captain Flip and In the Footsteps of Darwin to the prize.

The 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres prize for more complex games was also won by a co-op, with climate action-focused Daybreak by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace clinching the win.

Two days after last years awards the organisers of the Spiel des Jahres banned Menapace from future events after he wore a watermelon sticker to show his support of Palestine at the award ceremony.

The 2025 Spiel des Jahres longlists (final nominees in bold):

Spiel des Jahres

Foxy by David Spada, published by Gate On Games

Flip 7 Eric Olsen, The Op Games (KOSMOS in Germany)

Agent Avenue Christian and Laura Kudahl, Nerdlab Games

The Animals of Baker Street David Neale Clementine

Krakel Orakel Die 7 Bazis – Topp

Bomb Busters, Hisashi Hayashi, Cocktail Games (Pegasus Spiele in Germany)

Castle Combo, Grégory Grard, Mathieu Roussel – Catch Up Games

Cities Phil Walker-Harding, Steve Finn, Devir

Perfect Words, Paul-Henri Argiot, Tiki Editions