All "Spiel des Jahres🇩🇪 1979" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2026

In Acquire, players strategically invest in businesses, aiming to secure a majority of stock. As tile placements drive business growth and mergers, majority stockholders receive significant bonuses. These bonuses can be reinvested into other chains, creating a race among players to accumulate the greatest wealth.

Hare & Tortoise is a classic board game and the first recipient of the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in 1979. This game ingeniously combines strategy and arithmetic in a race format. Players must carefully manage their 'fuel' – represented by carrots – to ensure they practically run out (but not completely) as they cross the finish line. Adding to the strategic depth, players also need to spend three lettuce cards during the race. Movement costs carrots, and various spots on the track offer opportunities to gain or lose carrots, making each decision crucial.

Seti is an abstract strategy game inspired by the limited information available on an ancient Egyptian game. Players control Pharaoh and High Priest figures, moving them across a board to reach the opposite end. The base game is played on a 3×10 board, while an advanced version uses a 5×10 board without the special invulnerable **death ship” figures.

Players compete to collect their container blocks from a central island and return them to their respective depots before the spring melt. The game unfolds in two parts: winter, where players place ice blocks on a hex grid, and spring, where melting allows them to remove ice blocks. Players draw from decks to determine their actions, with various strategic options influencing the flow of the game as conditions change.

Players engage in an abstract two-player game that focuses on creating connections, similar to Hex. Each player uses pegs and links to build a continuous path across a 24x24 board, connecting their respective sides while preventing their opponent from doing the same. The game includes strategic elements, such as the ability to swap sides after the first move, which helps balance the advantage of going first.

Merlin was a handheld electronic game that followed in the footsteps of Simon. It featured an unmistakable red plastic design in the shape of a phone. Players could choose from six different games, including Tic-Tac-Toe and Blackjack 13, and even save their progress while adjusting the difficulty level from 1 to 9.

Players have 7 pawns and 1 king on an 8x8 grid, set up on opposite sides of the board. Movement resembles chess, allowing players to remove each other's pieces. Unique to this game, each piece features a display that changes the number of spaces it can move based on its position, influenced by magnets underneath the board. After several rounds, players can rotate the board to keep the experience fresh.

Senso, known as Simon in English, is a large round electronic device with four player buttons on top. It operates as a memory game where players must repeat sequences of lights and sounds. If a player fails, they receive a "raspberry" and are out of the game, while the speed increases, making it more challenging. For a more strategic approach, players can ignore the computer and create their own sequences by adding colors with each round.