All "À la carte🇩🇪 1998" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2026

Family Business is a cutthroat card game that simulates mob warfare with a keen focus on strategy, betrayal, and survival. Players assume the roles of rival mob families, all vying for power by eliminating the competition. The game's appeal lies in its simplicity, coupled with the depth of player interaction and strategy, making every session unpredictable and engaging.

The game adds an interesting twist to the standard trick-taking genre. Players must follow the lead color if possible, but the highest card played wins the trick, regardless of the color. After all tricks are played, players score points based on the number of cards collected in each color, with the highest scorer winning the game.

The game showcases Uwe Rosenberg's talent for unique card games. Players are dealt eight cards and choose a card value to collect, which is then revealed. A trick-taking mechanic follows, allowing players to follow suit or to play a trump card if they cannot. Winning tricks allows players to build their "good" pile, while other cards go to the "bad" pile, which can eventually be exchanged at the end of rounds.

Canyon is a trick-taking game where players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will win. The number of cards in a player's hand fluctuates, and correct predictions allow players to move their markers on a scoring track depicted as a river in a canyon. If too many cards are played without a correct prediction, players risk being sent back several spaces when caught "in the current" near the finish line.

Alhambra: The Card Game is inspired by the popular and award-winning game franchise, Alhambra. This version maintains the same core rules but features different themes and minor changes from its predecessor, Stimmt So!. Players acquire shares in various aspects of a large company using a mechanism similar to Union Pacific, with different currencies and stock types rewarding majority and minority shareholders throughout the game.

In Caesar & Cleopatra, a two-player card game, participants step into the roles of these iconic historical figures, with Caesar advocating for Rome's invasion of Egypt and Cleopatra fighting for its independence. The core of the game revolves around influencing Roman officials - Aedils, Quaestors, Senators, Pretorians, and Censors - using agent cards numbered 1 to 5. Players must strategically decide whether to play these agents face-down for secrecy or face-up for greater influence. Additionally, action cards like Assassins and Scouts add layers of strategy, allowing players to remove opposing agents or reveal hidden ones. The game progresses by revealing votes from the Roman officials, with the player having the most influence winning their support. The game concludes once all officials have chosen sides, with victory going to the player who has garnered the most support, factoring in bonus points for majorities in specific groups and certain hidden objectives.

"Dumm gelaufen!" is a card game featuring a colorful, numbered deck along with a separate 'Murphy' set that includes rule switches. The game may be challenging for non-players to fully grasp. It is published by Ravensburger under their FX label.

Players embody the will of the people, guiding five ancient civilizations to greater heights of power and technology. Each turn, an active player makes a trade offer, and others respond in kind. Using cards and information gained through trade, players can acquire identical citizen cards to build a city or identical technology cards to erect a monument, with the ultimate goal of accumulating the most victory points by game’s end.

Players take on the role of football coaches for competing teams. They use special square cards to represent players in various positions: forwards, midfielders, defenders, and goalkeepers. In each round, one player represents the offense by selecting cards simultaneously from their playbooks, while player cards contribute skill points to the current game, affecting their future rotations and effectiveness.