All "Spiel des Jahres🇩🇪 1996" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2026

PitchCar and its earlier version Carabande are dexterity-based board games that create a fun and competitive racing experience. Players use finger flicks to propel small discs (representing cars) around a track constructed from wooden pieces.

El Grande is a classic strategy board game set in medieval Spain, where players, as powerful lords or "Grandes," vie for control over various regions in a declining kingdom. The game is known for its blend of tactical depth and strategic planning.

Players need to guess words without using pens, speaking, or making gestures. Instead, they can only use glass beads and sticks to form as many words as possible within a time limit. Their teammates will guess the words to earn points for the team.

A stick is placed in the center of the table. Three cards show consonants, and players must find a word containing all three consonants in any order, along with other letters. The player who successfully names a word scores points for the vowels in that word, while making mistakes or remaining silent results in losing vowels. The game ends when a player collects a specific quantity of each vowel, winning if they have fewer of a certain vowel than the others.

The two-minute card game Speed, known as "Blink" in English, is claimed to be the fastest game in the world for two players. Players compete to empty their hands by matching the color, shape, or number of symbols on their cards with the top card of the central piles, without taking turns. The first player to clear their hand and draw from a pile wins. The rules also include variants for three- and four-player games.

Players try to collect majorities in as many of the ten different glamorous resource chicken holdings as possible by playing the most or the second-most cards of each type. There are three scoring rounds triggered by the appearance of specific cards from the draw pile. The game has previously been released under different names in Germany and the USA.

Maximize your earnings by finishing as one of the first to cross the finish line while also betting on your performance. Each player starts with 200,000 credits and selects their "Speed cards" after an auction for "Contestants cards" corresponding to their colors.

Players must find sets of four animals that match those shown on their search cards in this award-winning memory game for children. Each player has a set of 24 unique plastic animals and search cards, and they take turns asking other players for specific animals. The game ends when all matching cards are found, and points are awarded for completed sets.

The card game features several games, with Mü as the main attraction. Players engage in complex trick-taking gameplay to win points. It includes variations like The Last Panther, Wimmüln, and Rummü, catering to different age groups and player counts. The game consists of 60 cards in five colors, each with a numerical value and point indicators.

A beautiful combination of tile placement and betting. Players place long tiles to build five towers taller and taller while betting on which will be the highest or shortest. As players build, the height they add determines their betting limits and which draw pile they can take from. A clever mechanism creates engaging and frustrating decisions, rewarding the majority supporters on each tower with points.

This is a river-building tile placement game for two players. The goal is to complete the canal in a loop using 16 identical pieces, each featuring a straight section on one side and a curve on the other. If a player realizes the canal cannot be completed, they challenge the other player, who must attempt to finish it alone; if successful, they win, otherwise, the challenger wins.

Players navigate a racetrack, avoiding storm clouds, making repairs, and possibly picking up a passenger for bonus points. A black plastic storm cloud with a clear cap holds colored balls that determine flight speed. Players draw cards to assist in repairs and choose between outer, middle, or inner lanes, with the inner lane being the shortest but most expensive to use.

Players control competing ant colonies aiming to connect all their anthills. They work to create ant chains from one anthill to another while simultaneously cutting off the chains of their opponents.