{"id":5743,"date":"2026-01-27T14:59:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/?p=5743"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:54:22","slug":"we-feel-that-the-industry-wants-it-german-mensa-switches-long-running-board-game-award-away-from-lighter-titles-to-focus-on-expert-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/we-feel-that-the-industry-wants-it-german-mensa-switches-long-running-board-game-award-away-from-lighter-titles-to-focus-on-expert-games\/","title":{"rendered":"“We feel that the industry wants it”: German Mensa refocuses part of long-running board game award towards more complex, expert-level games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The German branch of high IQ society Mensa has changed up part of its long-running board game awards to focus entirely on complex, expert-level titles, in addition to its prizes for shorter family games and two-player designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mensa in Deutschland<\/a> has awarded the MinD Spielepreis<\/a> since 2009, and has operated a ‘shorter games’ category for more than a decade and lighter two-player games prize since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year’s complex games category will focus exclusively on the heavier end of the scale, pitting six expert-level games against each other in order to fill what the organisers see as a gap in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jochen Tierbach, who has been organising the MinD Game Award for 16 years, said, “There are already various awards and prizes for family and connoisseur games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But for expert games, the really tough ones, there is no such thing in Germany yet. And we feel that the industry wants it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long list of more than 20 titles has been whittled down to six challengers for the complex games award for this year: Galactic Cruise<\/a>, Luthier<\/a>, Shackleton Base<\/a>, Speakeasy<\/a>, Thebai<\/a> and Thesauros<\/a>, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisers will now take the next ten months to persuade as many Mensans as possible to play the titles and rate them out of 10 for ‘challenge factor’ and ‘replayability’. The winner is set to be announced on November 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year’s MinD award for complex games saw Tom\u00e1\u0161 Holek\u2019s space exploration eurogame SETI<\/a> add to its array of prizes, while Simone Luciani and D\u00e1vid Turczi’s Nucleum triumphed in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent holder of the MinD shorter game award was 2025 Spiel des Jahres winner Bomb Busters<\/a>, while 2024 SdJ champion Sky Team<\/a> was last year’s winner of the best two-player game prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other board game awards focusing specifically on heavier titles include France’s Diamant d\u2019Or<\/a>, which was launched more than a decade ago to champion complex eurogames the organisers felt were being overlooked by more mainstream board game awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US branch of Mensa also runs an annual board game award, Mensa Select, which is voted on by members following a now traditional four-day gaming marathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MinD Spielepreis finalists 2026<\/strong>

Galactic Cruise, by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thompson (published in Germany by PD Verlag)<\/strong>
MinD committee notes: “In Galactic Cruise, players build a luxurious cruise company for space travel and organise ships, staff and wealthy customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The game impresses with its strong thematic interconnection, a hidden deployment mechanism to determine the order of actions, and challenging resource planning.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luthier, by Dave Back and Abe Burson (Funtails)<\/strong>
“Luthier puts players in the role of instrument makers who, thanks to generous patrons, equip famous musicians throughout the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods and compete for the chair of various instrument groups in the orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shackleton Base, by Fabio Lopiano and Nestore Mangone (Giant Roc)<\/strong>
“In Shackleton Base, players build a permanent base at the south pole of the moon, using executives who bring a slight asymmetry to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Three of seven selectable corporations with special abilities and several interlocking scoring options provide strategic depth and high variety.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speakeasy, by Vital Lacerda (Skellig Games)<\/strong>
“Speakeasy is set during Prohibition in Manhattan, where players open illegal bars, nightclubs and casinos in different districts and supply them with stolen or moonshine alcohol. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The appeal of the game lies in the indirect interaction through territory control, competition for lucrative locations and the constant risk of attracting too much attention.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thebai, by D\u00e1vid Turczi (Pegasus Spiele)<\/strong>
“Thebai is a tightly interwoven optimisation game in which population or hoplite cubes are placed on your own estate or on the shared game board to rebuild the Kadmeia of Thebai. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Resources must be gathered for assignments while trying to promote population to the council or promote hoplites to army commanders in order to successfully repel attacks on the city.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thesauros, by Cedric Millet (Elznir Games)<\/strong>
“In Thesauros, players first search for and then recover sunken treasures in order to ultimately sell them to a museum at a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Budget planning several rounds in advance requires strategic foresight and a carefully balanced mix of long-term exploration plans, short-term financing requirements, and disruptive manoeuvres against or by the competition.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more stories like this direct to your email inbox, click here to sign up for BoardGameWire’s free email newsletter. \n\nAnd if you’ve found our reporting interesting or useful, please consider a paid subscription to help support our journalism!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long list of more than 20 titles has been whittled down to six challengers for the complex game category for this year: Galactic Cruise, Luthier, Shackleton Base, Speakeasy, Thebai and Thesauros, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,6,135,2052,2053,51,2085,2086,408,2087,2088,2090,2091],"class_list":["post-5743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-award","tag-board-game","tag-board-games","tag-galactic-cruise","tag-luthier","tag-mensa","tag-mind","tag-mind-spielepreis","tag-prize","tag-shackleton-base","tag-speakeasy","tag-thebai","tag-thesauros"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5743"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6391,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743\/revisions\/6391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}