All "Spiel des Jahres🇩🇪 2013" game award winners & nominees in comparison 2025

Qwixx is a fast-paced and engaging dice game that involves all players actively, regardless of whose turn it is. It combines simple mechanics with a need for strategic decision-making, making it a fun and interactive game for all involved.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a cooperative, real-time board game that offers an exhilarating and unique gaming experience. The game's theme centers around players working together to escape a cursed temple before it collapses.

Hanabi, named after the Japanese word for "fireworks," invites players to collaboratively create the perfect fireworks display. In this cooperative game, the goal is to arrange cards on the table in the correct order to achieve a stunning pyrotechnic spectacle. However, there's a catch - players must hold their cards so that they are visible only to their teammates. To succeed, you'll need to provide hints to your fellow players about the numbers and colors of their cards, working together to avoid mistakes and complete the fireworks show before running out of cards.

Players engage in a dexterity game where they load wooden "cargo" onto a swaying wooden ship. Items like bottles, sailors, and rats are placed on the ship's body and on three throwing arms extending from the mast.

La Boca, the famous neighborhood of Buenos Aires, is known for its quirky skyline made from recycled fishing boats and colorful metal. Players form teams to creatively build skylines based on challenge cards while coordinating closely, as each team can only see their own view of the structure. The goal is to complete the colored blocks before time runs out, earning points, and the team with the most points after several rounds will shine as champions.

The princess has once again been captured by an evil wizard, and it's time to rescue her from the enchanted tower. One player takes on the role of the wizard, who hides a key under one of 16 spaces on the board. The other players, as Robin, must find the key before the wizard does. Once found, they can attempt to unlock one of the towers; if they choose correctly, they win the game.

Rise of Augustus (also known simply as Augustus) is a tactical board game where players take on the role of powerful leaders during the era of Augustus Caesar, competing to complete various objectives for power and victory points. The game combines elements of strategic planning and luck, with a unique mechanism involving the drawing of symbols and the placement of legionnaire meeples.

In Libertalia, players delve into a world of piracy, vying to become the most cunning pirate of all. This game is about outsmarting your rivals through strategic use of crew member cards and seizing the opportunity to thwart their plans.

Bruges is a strategic board game set in the bustling 15th-century city of Bruges, known for its thriving culture and commerce. The game revolves around the theme of merchant competition and maintaining influence in this wealthy Belgian Hanseatic city.

In this abstract strategy game, players aim to collect as many points as possible by placing tokens on numbered spaces on a board composed of two concentric rings and several spokes connecting them to the center. Each player's turn allows them to either play a chain of tokens or draw new ones, while matching colors to earn points. The game ends when all dark gray spaces are filled or a player cannot draw enough tokens to complete their turn, with the winner being the one with the most points.

There’s a pesky little bug in the kitchen, a HEXBUG® nano® scuttling across the board. Players rotate utensils like knives, forks, and spoons to trap the bug. Roll the dice to see which utensils can be turned, catch the bug, and earn tokens; the first player to collect five tokens wins.

Linus, the little magician, has enchanted some of his toys while using his powers. Help him pick up the toys from his room!

Gold fever strikes at the Orinoco River! Deep in the jungle, explorers have uncovered the ruins of an ancient culture along its banks. Players must navigate their adventurers across floating logs to reach the treasure, while avoiding hazards and competing against others to collect the most gold and win the game.

Players roll three dice on an 8x8 grid. They can write the sum of the dice in either of the two touching fields, as long as their opponent hasn't placed a higher number in an adjacent field. The game ends when one player fills a horizontal and a vertical row, with the winner being the one who occupies the most fields.

Mixtour is an original abstract stacking game for 2 players. Starting with an empty board, players enter new pieces and move them to build stacks of 5 or more to win. There are many movement options, including splitting stacks and moving opponent pieces, but each move must end on a different stack. The height of the receiving stack determines the range of possible movements.

On November 17, 1896, the nearly empty streets of London conceal an exciting event happening in a luxurious Bloomsbury hotel. Fifty well-known mediums are participating in an unprecedented tournament to determine the most powerful among them. Players take on the role of these mediums, guessing their opponents' cards based on the divination methods of palmistry, crystalomancy, tasseomancy, and astrology, aiming to accumulate the most points over several rounds.

Baobab features players constructing a tree using 108 random cards they cannot see. Each turn, a player declares how many cards they will play and places them according to the card's instructions. Falling cards lead to penalties, and the game ends when a player places their last card; the one with the fewest cards in their penalty pile wins.

Players take on the role of characters from the film Madagascar 3 and build circus tents and vehicles on the island of Madagascar. The game accommodates 2 to 4 players, generating resources like wood, sandbags, popcorn, wool, and juice cocktails. The goal is to be the first to set up all seven circus tents while expanding your network and avoiding the controlling zookeeper.

Hand aufs Herz is an interactive party game similar to Trigger! Players designate one hand as "true" and the other as "false" before the game starts. A player asks a question, and everyone rushes to place their hand on the plastic heart in the center, depending on how they think the question applies to them. Points are gained or lost based on the accuracy of their answer and which hand they used, impacting their overall score.

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar is a unique board game that introduces a dynamic worker placement mechanism set against the backdrop of the ancient Mayan civilization.

Defend Hoth as you battle against your friends and the Empire! This LEGO-based game allows you to build the game board from LEGO bricks and modify it for each new session. Players engage in a strategic and chance-filled conflict where one side represents the Empire and the other the Rebels, moving pieces on a customizable grid of interlocking LEGO blocks. The goal is to eliminate the opponent's forces or leader, making for a dynamic experience that lasts about 10-20 minutes.

Welcome to the diverse and captivating land of Terra Mystica, where 14 distinct peoples inhabit seven unique landscapes. In this strategic board game, each group is intrinsically tied to its own home environment, and to expand and flourish, they must transform neighboring terrains into their native habitats, all while competing against rival factions.

The Palaces of Carrara takes players to the renowned marble-producing region of Italy, where they compete to acquire marble at the best prices and use it to construct buildings. The game's strategic depth lies in balancing the cost of marble with its potential value in building construction. Players must be savvy in their purchases, as any decrease in marble prices can also benefit their opponents. The decision of when to buy marble becomes crucial, especially when considering the fluctuating values of buildings in the town. The Palaces of Carrara includes two levels of play – beginner and advanced – making it accessible to new players while offering depth for experienced gamers. Wolfgang Kramer, the co-designer, emphasizes the importance of starting with the beginner version to fully grasp the game's mechanics and how they interact.

Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game that immerses two to four players in the role of heroes defending a fantasy realm. Designed with a strong narrative focus, the game challenges players to balance strategic decision-making with immersive storytelling.

A big mess lies on the table! Players race to clear the cards and lay down matching ones in Connect the Thoughts. They build card chains to earn points by placing a card that shares an image with an existing one. The game ends when the last card is drawn, and the player with the most collected rows wins.

Sixteen double-sided tiles featuring animal images are arranged in a 4x4 grid, accompanied by a stack of 15 cards depicting the same animals, from which each player draws one to reveal their secret goal. Players take turns flipping the tiles. When an animal appears on five tiles, players targeting that animal shout "BIM BAMM." The first to do so wins the card. The winner is the first player to collect three cards.

Ten different animals from the planet "Kuhpiter" have landed on Earth, but the confused cow Mucca Pazza pressed the wrong button on the teleporter, mixing up the heads, bodies, and legs of all the animals and creating strange hybrids. Players, possibly taking on the role of a recombinant DNA specialist, must rearrange the body parts to restore the complete original animals.

Players control a family of three penguins on their journey to the South Pole. They jump from one ice chunk to another, avoiding unstable ones, and can sometimes take a faster route through the water, but only when the orca is not present. The orca lurks along their path, appearing in different locations, and the first family to reach the South Pole wins the game.