All "Spiel des Jahres🇩🇪 1980" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2026

Rummikub is a classic tile-based game that shares similarities with several European card games, including Machiavelli and Vatikan. It's a game that combines elements of strategy and luck, appealing to both casual and strategic players.

The game features an unusual tetrahedral game board with 121 dice in three colors. It includes a variety of games that range from dexterity to abstract movements and encourages players to create new games. The box of the Kosmos edition indicates an age range of "4-99," while the latest edition states "6+".

Originally designed by a teacher as an educational tool, this game features various editions, including hexagonal maps of real locations like Tennessee and Germany. Players build tracks starting from one of the cities on the map and earn small bonuses for reaching cities first, but resources are limited. After connecting most cities, players race on the established routes, with the winner being the one with the highest bank balance at the end.

Fokus (or Domination) is an abstract strategy game where players aim to move pieces and capture them, leaving their opponents with no available moves. A player can move one piece or a stack of pieces based on their quantity, and if a stack exceeds five pieces, excess pieces are removed. Strategically reserving captured pieces for later use can turn the tide of the game by enabling powerful plays against opponents.

Epaminondas is a lesser-known abstract two-player game designed by Bob Abbott, featuring white against black pieces. Played on a 14 x 12 grid with 28 black and 28 white stones, players aim to move their pieces into the opponent's back row while capturing their opponent's pieces using connected groups called phalanxes.