Spiel de Jahres Winners for 2019

As a follow up to our article about the Spiel de Jahres last year, we cover the winners of this coveted award in 2019. Though they give awards for all types of games, which we list, if you are looking for a euro heavy game, see our list of best strategy board games.

The 2019 SPIEL DE JAHRES WINNER is – Just One by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter.

This game is a ton of fun and on the lighter side, more family friendly and party game than high-level, complex, strategy game. See our review for Just One in our Best Party Games List – listed as #3. As refresher, this is a words based game, where players must be clever about the words they select because if you pick the same word as someone else, your word does not get used for the round!

The 2019 KENNERSPIEL DES JARES is – Wingspan by Elizabeth Hargrave.

An absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully designed game, this game is highly strategic, and challenging, winning in this prestigious category for a medium-to-high level strategy game with complex mechanics (and beautiful birds). In other words – if you want to win this one, you have to carefully plan your moves and placement amongst the moving parts and players, of course.

Also to note, this game was designed by Stonemaier, and it feels 100% this way in how it plays, overall design, and the feel of the game – Wingspan. For another good review, you can read the one here by Ars Technica.

The 2019 KINDERSPIEL is – Valley of the Vikings by Marie and Wilfried Fort.

While I haven’t played this one myself, I wish this was around when I was a kid because Barrel Bowling, Vikings, and Coins on a beautiful board in the Viking world sounds great to me!

The other must MENTIONS and call-outs are Imhotep: The Duel which I just reviewed, Reef (love!) and great for friends or family and on our list of best family board games, and Architects of the West Kingdom (complex and worth it, and definitely a favorite of this year).

Now the real question – is the committee already in discussion for games to consider for the Spiel de Jahres 2020?