All "Spiel des Jahres🇩🇪 1987" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2026

The award-winning cooperative board game features a dice-based movement mechanic. Players navigate a tree-shaped board filled with movement spaces, which are gradually covered by game pieces representing acid rain. It's a race between accumulating droplets and the players' collective ability to deftly flick them away. Players are encouraged to openly discuss their movement options, but tackling the acid rain together remains a challenging task, with adjustable difficulty based on the number of droplets that fall.

Players navigate their carpet through clouds while avoiding obstacles that are placed at the start by all players. Utilizing a special die adds an element of luck beyond the card draw, but there is still plenty of room for strategy.

Players deliver cargo to various cities across Germany and other European locations. They determine offer and demand cities through card play and compete for delivery contracts by bidding against each other. Movement involves rolling dice and maneuvering small rubber trucks on an abstract map featuring interconnected roads and cities. The game was re-released in 2007 with updated graphics and rule changes to reduce randomness.

Shark is a stock trading game reminiscent of Acquire, where abstract moves on the board determine the stock values of various companies. Players can buy and sell stocks both before and after their turn, rolling dice to decide which company to influence and where to place their marker. The game ends when all markers of a company are used, when a company's stock price reaches 15, or when all stocks have been sold, at which point players cash in their stocks to see who has the most money.

Players collect clues from various rooms in a murder mystery-style game. They have limited time before the train reaches the station, and if the culprit is not caught, the murderer will escape. The game offers a unique challenge, as the solution is never completely certain, requiring players to make logical assumptions based on different pre-made murder cases.

The aim of the game is to collect round cards known as "Monads," resembling Yin-Yang symbols. Players achieve this by trading, purchasing, and jumping with other cards.

Kremlin is a game of cunning political strategy set against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's Politburo. Players navigate the treacherous waters of Soviet politics, seeking to influence and control key figures to achieve power. The game cleverly simulates the precarious balance of power, the threat of accusations, and the inevitable toll of age and health on politicians.

A sailing race challenges players to manipulate six lighthouses to navigate their ship around two buoys and return to the start. Players have nine action points to rotate light beams, move towers, and advance their yacht. They must position their ship at the intersections of the light beams, or risk drifting one space forward if unable to move as desired.

Players compete to become the head waiter in a restaurant by serving their tables most effectively while blocking their opponents.