The win for Botanicus - the debut title from designers Samuele Tabellini Ferrari and Vieri Masseini - comes hot on the heels of the title taking home the Connoisseurs Game award at the Dutch language Nederlandse Spellenprijs.
The Seeds of Unity campaign has collected more than €535,000 from close to 2,000 backers since launching on Gamefound a week ago - and reached the €50,000 goal amount set by publisher Equinox less than nine minutes after the crowdfund went live.
The partnership comes two weeks after Asmodee revealed Catan would be coming to Netflix in the form of both "scripted and unscripted projects".
The generally congested Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the show were joined by a noticeably busier Sunday this year after Spiel made the decision to get rid of four-day tickets - reasoning that many people were buying the whole-show pass but skipping out on the final day.
SETI publishers Czech Game Edition and Germany-based HeidelBÄR Games scored a double win on the night, having also seen their Matúš Kotry-designed title Little Alchemists take home the best children's game award.
CMON's sale of Cthulhu: Death May Die is the latest move in its drive to battle the huge losses the business has chalked up in the past couple of years - and comes alongside the company announcing a new share sale worth 20% of its existing share capital in an attempt to raise money for the company.
Tariff hikes have already seen several board game businesses shutter their operations in recent months, while others have laid off staff and been forced to hike the price of their games to cover the unexpected costs.
The record could finally fall this year after Spiel made the decision to expand into a seventh vast hall at the Messe Essen exhibition centre, boosting the show floor to 77,500 sq m - up 13% year-on-year, and almost 30% compared to 2023.
The decision comes despite Amigo Games being one of the few hobby board game publishers that managed to diversify some of its manufacturing away from China - the country which has been hit the heaviest by recent US tariffs to date.
Nee created Cryptozoic in 2010 alongside Cory Jones, Scott Gaeta and John Sepenuk, and became CEO in February 2023 after Sepenuk's sudden death of a heart attack while kite-surfing.
