The German branch of high IQ society Mensa has unveiled its full slate of nominees for this year’s MinD Spielepreis.
Mensa in Deutschland has run the awards contest since 2009, and has operated a ‘shorter games’ category for more than a decade and lighter two-player games prize since 2019.
This year’s ‘shorter games’ category will be fought over by titles including 2025 Spiel des Jahres nominee Krakel Orakel, as well as Grégory Grard and Mathieu Roussel’s design Zenith and Take Time from Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière.
Word chaining game Next by Verena Wiechens and Lukas Setzke is also up for the shorter game prize – which focuses on titles that play in well under an hour – as is Maldón’s design El Camarero (published in Germany as Chaosteria), and Wilmot’s Warehouse from David King, Ricky Haggett and Richard Hogg.
In the two-player games category, Bruno Cathala’s design Kamon is up against Niwashi, from Gautier de Cottreau and Baptiste Laurent, Junghee Choi’s Orapa and Tobias Tesar’s Perfect Murder.
Playball, designed by David Florsch, will also compete in that category, as will Strategeti by Ignasi Ferré and Suna Valo, designed by Andreas Odendahl (who goes by ode.).
Jochen Tierbach, who has been organising the MinD Game Award for 16 years, said at the time, “There are already various awards and prizes for family and connoisseur games.
“But for expert games, the really tough ones, there is no such thing in Germany yet. And we feel that the industry wants it.”
The long list of more than 20 expert-level titles was whittled down to six challengers for the complex games award this year: Galactic Cruise, Luthier, Shackleton Base, Speakeasy, Thebai and Thesauros, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.
Last year’s MinD award for complex games saw Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI add to its array of prizes, while Simone Luciani and Dávid Turczi’s Nucleum triumphed in 2024.
Vom 19. bis 22. März 2026 öffnete die Leipziger Buchmesse erneut ihre Tore und lockte Bücherfans, Verlage und Autor*innen in die Messehallen. Zwischen farbenfrohen Ständen, Lesebühnen und Live-Events zeigte sich einmal mehr, wie vielfältig und lebendig die Buchwelt ist. Die Phantastik bewies dabei erneut ihre wachsende Bedeutung auf der Messe.
Petiquette, Thomas Sellner’s card game of picking out patterns among hat-wearing animals, has been named game of the year at this year’s Golden Box Awards.
The Oink Games-published design fought off competition from 2025 winner Isao Mukai, who was nominated for Banana Governance – a card-based drafting and bidding game which sees players attempt to satisfy the needs of hungry monkeys better than their opponents.
A comment from the selection committee about Petiquette called the title “a brilliant and sharp work typical of Oink”.
Cards from Banana Governance, designed and published by Isao Mukai
It said, “I’ll never forget the shock I felt the first time I played it. The rules are simple: just give the answer that fits in the single ‘?’ on the cards laid out.
“But… the eyes of those who give the same answer feel friendly. The mouths of those who give a different answer seem to twist. The loneliness of desperately trying to explain when you’re the only one who gives a different answer.
“A mix of various emotions. The unique experience of this game really stands out.”
The annual Golden Box contest was launched four years ago, modelled on the American film industry’s Academy Awards. More than 40 industry professionals from within the Japanese board game sphere voted on this year’s award.
In addition to ‘Best Picture’ for the overall game of the year, the awards also celebrate the best in game design, art, graphic design, production and rulebook work through individual awards.
Cover art for Sweet Lands
Eve Inc-designed Nusutto Cat – also known as Meow Heist – triumphed in this year’s Game Design Award, while best art went to Totsuca Chuo’s Sweet Lands, which was illustrated by Tatsuki Asano and Broni120.
Moyuki Adisawa’s animal jet ski racing game Tornado Splash picked up the Graphic Design Award thanks to the work of iD Creative Co, while the Production Award went to National Economy and Toshinori Iwai.
The selection committee said of the Production Award win: “It’s great when a great game is revived. It’s even better when a great game is revived in the best possible form.
“This new edition not only makes the seemingly impossible revival of this masterpiece a reality, but also reinterprets it in a more refined way.
“The ‘box within a box’ structure, combining the three parts, is exciting even before you start playing, and the ‘household budget’ mechanism that characterizes this game is implemented clearly and beautifully as a ‘safe’.
“This masterpiece hasn’t lost its appeal even after ten years, and this new edition will be loved for even longer.”
Yoshihiko Koriyama worked on the rulebook for that title, with proofreading from Shota Okano and DTP work from Makoto Takami. The selection committee said, “The fact that you can essentially understand the game rules by reading just one page is excellent.”
Bomb Busters designer Hishashi Hayashi collecting his Spiel des Jahres award
The win marked the first Spiel des Jahres triumph for an Asian designer in the prize’s 46-year history, and underscored the huge rise in tabletop designs making their way across from Asia to Europe and North America in the past decade.
Each winner will receive a golden board game box as a trophy.
Winner: Sweet Lands, Totsuca Chuo (Uchibacoya) – art by Tatsuki Asano and Broni120 A Boar, Crab, Dung Beatle, Takuya Iwamura (Kyuhachi Dog) – art by Takuya Iwamura Ghost Lift, Onegear (Engames) – art by Sai Beppu
Graphic Design Award
Winner: Tornado Splash, Moyuki Adisawa (ArcLight Games) – graphic design by iD Creative Vidro, Keita Kasagi (Bamboo Games) – graphic design by Kakuzato Shady Lady, Kaya Miyano (Mob+) – graphic design by Sai Beppu
Winner: Down Down Dungeon, Reiner Knizia (ForGames) Electra Select (The Society for Appreciating Swaying Buds) Snowp, Eisuke Fujinawa, Kazunori Hori (SzpiLAB)
Co-operative puzzle challenge game Take Time has triumphed in this year’s Swiss Gamers Award, which is voted on by members of board game clubs, game and toy libraries and gaming associations from across the country.
Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière’s design sealed top spot above Eric Olsen’s Flip 7 – which won the separate family game prize – and also finished in third place in the family-weight category.
The win is the second year in a row a game from Asmodee studio Libellud has won the Swiss Gamers Award, following last year’s success for nature-themed tile-laying game Harmonies.
Take Time, designed by Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière
The game fought off tough competition in the family game category this year from titles including Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini’s Toy Battle, the winner of the 2026 As d’Or.
This year’s Swiss Gamers Award featured an expert game category for the first time, which was won by Yeom Cheolwoong’s design Wondrous Creatures – a strategy title based around players building fantasy animal reserves.
Wondrous Creatures, designed by Yeom Cheolwoong || Photo Credit: Bad Comet
The Swiss Gamers Award has been held every year since 2010, following the demise of the Schweizer Spielepreis in 2006.
Although the award is given by gamers living in Switzerland, all games published in the prior year can be nominated, regardless of the nationality of their authors and publishers.
This year’s award marked the third in a row presented to a relatively light game, following Harmonies last year and Faraway in the 2023 awards (presented in 2024).
The far more heavyweight Ark Nova triumphed in 2022, and mid-weight euro The Lost Ruins of Arnak won in 2021.
The award is organised by Ludesco, Switzerland’s biggest board game festival, in partnership with the Swiss Federation of Toy Libraries and the Swiss Game Museum.
Swiss Gamers Awards full results 2025
Main Award Winner: Take Time, designed by Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothière (Published by Libellud) 2nd Place: Flip 7, Eric Olsen (Catch Up Games, Kosmos) 3rd Place: Zenith, Grégory Grard, Mathieu Roussel (PlayPunk)
Family Award Winner: Flip 7, Eric Olsen (Catch Up Games, Kosmos) 2nd Place: Toy Battle, Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini (Repos Productions) 3rd Place: Take Time, Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière (Libellud)
Expert Award Winner: Wondrous Creatures, Yeom Cheolwoong (Super Meeple, Strohmann Games) 2nd Place: Endeavor: Deep Sea, Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray (Super Meeple, Board Game Circus) 3rd Place: Eternal Decks, Hiroken (Pixie Games, Strohmann Games)
Das Spielefestival Ludesco, der Verband der Schweizer Ludotheken und das Schweizer Spielmuseum haben dem Spielepreis aus der Schweiz neues Leben eingehaucht. Das sind die Gewinner des Swiss Gamers Award 2025. Spielclubs, Ludotheken und Spielgemeinschaften im ganzen Land konnten ihre Stimmen
Editor’s note: GAMA is one of the sponsors of the BoardGameWire newsletter
US-based board game stores have sealed another clean sweep of trade association GAMA‘s annual Power Retail Awards, which aim to recognise outstanding excellence in tabletop game retailing around the globe.
Arizona-based Silver Dragon Games scooped Retailer of the Year at this year’s awards, adding to the Innovation In Games (Retail) and Outstanding Store Design titles it won at the same awards in 2024.
They were joined this year by Illinois-based Fantasy Books and Games, which won the Innovation in Games (Retail) award, Minnesota’s The Gamers Den, which sealed Outstanding Contribution to the Games Industry (Retail), and Wisconsin-based Oddwillow’s Game Haven, which won Outstanding Store Design.
Team Members from Oddwillow’s Game Haven, the winner of this years’ Outstanding Store Design Power Retail Award || Photo Credit: GAMA
More than 750 retailers were submitted for inclusion in this year’s awards, with nominations coming from Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) customers before being voted on by a GAMA committee of retailers and emeritus ‘team retail’ members.
This year’s Power Retail Awards also saw a special prize presented to awards committee chair Jax Ward – declaring her a ‘Knight of the Order of the Brass Squirrel’ – for her long-time service to GAMA’s retailer members.
Ward, who owns Crazy Squirrel Games in California, is a former GAMA board of directors member and ex-chair of its ‘team retail’ segment.
GAMA said her continuing service to the organisation and the tabletop retail included revitalising the Power Retail Awards and “promoting a standard of excellence throughout the retail community”.
GAMA president Nicole Brady said, “These retailers represent the very best of the global tabletop community. Their dedication to creating welcoming spaces and growing the hobby continues to strengthen the entire industry.”
The result is the second time in three years that US-based stores have won every category of the Power Retail Awards – and means retailers from the country have scooped 17 out of the last 23 awards handed out through the process.
That total does not include the 2021 Retailer of the Year award, which was presented to every GAMA retailer member at the time to recognise and celebrate them having survived the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just one non-US store was among the 19 finalists for this year’s Power Retail Awards – UK-based Eclectic Games, which was the sole non-US winner in last year’s ceremony. Previous winners are not eligible for categories they have won, according to GAMA rules, but may be eligible for other categories.
UK-based game retailer Eclectic Games || Photo Credit: Eclectic Games
Last October GAMA set its sights on becoming the “epicentre” of global tabletop gaming through the unveiling of its first-ever 10-year plan, which includes expanding itself into a global organisation. That expansion is part of its ‘second phase’ of priorities, slated for between 2028 and 2030.
Such international expansion hopes are not new for the organisation. Brady’s predecessor as GAMA president, Eric Price, said in 2023 that he was focused on growing the organisation’s membership and adding more international connections, starting with European members and organizations.
At that time about 90% of GAMA’s membership hailed from the US, with just 5% coming from Canada and 5% from the rest of the world.
US-based GAMA’s other projects within the 10-year plan include boosting its membership within both hobby games and the mass market, shifting its finances away from their heavy reliance on the annual GAMA Expo and Origins shows, and leading the conversation on sustainability within the industry.
France’s highest-profile board game prize, the As d’Or, has unveiled Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini’s Toy Battle as the winner of its main award for 2026.
The family weight, toy-themed wargame fought off competition from Flip 7 and Rebirth to scoop this year’s prize, while Stefan Feld design Civolution won out against Arcs and Ants to win the expert game award.
This year’s As d’Or saw a significant change to its rules, with organisers requiring entries to name artists on the game boxes for first time.
Paul Mafayon was the artist for Toy Battle, while Civolution was illustrated by Dennis Lohausen, Zenith by Xavier Gueniffey Durin and Mooki Island by Mélanie Bardin, also known as Seppyo.
The award, which traces its history back to 1988, has required entries to show designer names on their game boxes for several years, in addition to requirements for the game to be published in French and available in the French market during the preceding year.
A statement from Philippe Mouret and Julia Marcelin, both heads of studio at Toy Battle publisher Asmodee, said “Tonight’s recognition first belongs to the authors and illustrator whose talent and vision brought Toy Battle to life.
“We also want to thank all the teams involved for their dedication, as well as the Festival’s jury for this distinction. This award is a wonderful acknowledgment of the creativity and vitality of today’s tabletop industry.”
It added, “It also reflects the current trend: playing games as a couple, and smaller-format games are appealing to the public, and publishers are offering more and more of them.”
Viking-themed card shedding game Odin won last year’s As d’Or, while city-building eurogame Kutná Hora triumphed in the Expert Game category at the 2025 awards, Operation Noisettes won the children’s game prize, and Behind scooped the “Initié” award – which targets regular board game players ready for more challenging mechanisms.
The As d’Or was launched 38 years ago to highlight the best games available at France’s Festival International des Jeux in Cannes. The award was merged with the Jeu de l’Année in 2005.
More than 100,000 people attended this year’s FIJ between February 25 and March 1, down on the record 110,000 admissions across the five-day event last year.
The 2026 As d’Or Awards
As d’Or
Winner: Toy Battle, designed by Alessandro Zucchini and Paolo Mori, published by Repos (Asmodee) Flip 7, Eric Olsen – Catch Up Games Rebirth, Reiner Knizia – Lucky Duck Games and Mighty Boards
As d’Or-Jeu de l’Année – Enfant / Children
Winner: Mooki Island, Florian Sirieix – Le Scorpion Masqué Archeo, Thomas Favrelière, Adrien Pédron – Gigamic The Twisted Spooky Night, Wolfgang Dirscherl, Wolfgang Lehmann – Drei Magier Spiele
As d’Or-Jeu de l’Année – Initié / Intermediate
Winner: Zenith, Grégory Grard, Mathieu Roussel – PlayPunk First Rat, Gabriele Ausiello, Virginio Gigli – Pegasus Spiele Take Time Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothière – Libellud
As d’Or-Jeu de l’Année – Expert / Expert Game
The supreme discipline for all strategists and frequent players.
Winner: Civolution, Stefan Feld–Grail Games, Deep Print Games Arcs, Cole Wehrle – Leder Games Ants, Renato Ciervo, Andrea Robbiani – Cranio Creations and Intrafin
The long-running Cardboard Edison Award, which aims to celebrate the best in unpublished board game designs, has revealed its latest finalists after whittling them down from a record-breaking 396 entries.
This year’s 20 finalists include a magnet-based vertical castle-building game, a medium-weight strategy title centred around wedding planning, and a Persian folklore-themed action selection design which sees players use astrolabes to read stars and hunt demons.
Cardboard Edison’s annual entry numbers have soared since the first competition attracted 109 designs in 2016 – almost doubling to 192 within the next two years, and more than doubling between the pandemic year of 2020 and this year’s contest.
Part of that growth has been down to the competition’s growing pedigree of winners that have gone on to be published by well-known studios.
They include Winter, published by Devir, Castell from Renegade Game Studios and Umbra Via from Pandasaurus Games, as well as 2023 champion Diatoms, which followed a successful Kickstarter campaign with retail publication by 25th Century Games in partnership with Ludoliminal.
Still from the pitch video for StrongHolds by Nelson de Castro, one of this year’s Cardboard Edison Award finalists
The rising numbers of entries has also been boosted by the international growth of the award, which attracted submissions from designers in 34 different countries this year.
Just over half of the submissions were from the US, about 8% from Australia, 6% from Canada and 4% from the UK, with “a decent number” from Germany, Spain, New Zealand and The Netherlands.
Cardboard Edison was launched in 2012 as a board game design studio and hub, which has since expanded from a well-read industry blog into a vast repository of information for board game designers.
Suzanne Zinsli, who created the award a decade ago with the help of fellow Cardboard Edison founder Chris Zinsli, told BoardGameWire it was “crazy” how it had grown globally, adding that she was “humbled that people from so many different countries trust us with their games and want our feedback”.
She said one of the major challenges around the award’s rapid growth was bringing in enough judges to properly assess the rising numbers of entries.
Zinsli said, “Honestly, finding enough people to judge all the entries has probably been the toughest part of running the Cardboard Edison Award every year.
Cardboard Edison co-founder Suzanne Zinsli
“It’s a big ask, and we’re very particular about who we invite. We want judges we can trust to be objective, provide great feedback, and who have the experience to back it up.
“That was our biggest hurdle this year, but it actually worked out great. We had enough judges, they were almost all able to hit their targets, and it ended up being one of our smoother years overall.”
When asked if any particular trends or themes were noticeable among this year’s cohort of entries, Zinsli told BoardGameWire, “I definitely noticed a few! For mechanisms, I saw several trick-taking legacy games, which is so cool. I love trick-taking and I like legacy games, so seeing them paired together felt brilliant.
“I was excited when I saw the first one, then I saw a second, and then a third! It’s something I haven’t really seen in the past, and now suddenly there were at least three entries, and there might have been more, since I only personally judged about 60 games. I love it – I’m totally here for it.
“As for themes, I wouldn’t say there was one ‘big’ topic, but I saw a lot of games that felt very personal, things based on the designers’ own lives or lifestyles.
“It felt like more games than ever had a message to send or a story to tell. It was really nice to get a glimpse into the designers’ lives and see what’s important to them through their work.”
The 2026 Cardboard Edison Award is its second since the organiser revealed it was changing its judging process, after a backlash over a colonisation-themed winner from 2024.
Suzanne and Chris Zinsli said it “became clear there was a blind spot in our judging process” after the response to the prize being given to Crowded Frontier, which was themed around the rush to colonise the American West.
Speaking to BoardGameWire this week about the impact of those changes, Suzanne Zinsli said, “I’m going to cautiously say I think the changes have helped, since we didn’t see any similar issues last year.
“As for the future, I’m sure things will continue to evolve. There’s nothing on the books right now, but as the industry and society change, we want to keep up.
“I’m also realistic, and I’m sure we’ll mess something up again at some point. But when we do, we’ll course-correct. We’re ready to change as needed.”
Still from the pitch video for Braggin’ Wranglers by Luke Wolyncewicz, one of this year’s Cardboard Edison Award finalists
In terms of advice for potential future applicants, Zinsli told BoardGameWire, “If I had to pick one thing to focus on: have your game blind (or unguided) playtested.
“Every year, I read rulebooks where I simply can’t figure out how to play. That really hurts your chances! You might have a fantastic game, but if I can’t play it without you there to teach me, I’ll never know how good it is.
“On the flip side, the biggest thing to avoid is ignoring the three-minute video limit. We ask for three minutes, but we often get videos that are seven, 10, or even 20 minutes long. Also, don’t send us a video from five years ago.
“If the video hasn’t changed in five years, it makes me think the game hasn’t made any progress either. We want to see the current version of your work!”
This year’s finalists will now enter a second round of judging in order to crown the winner, with a champion usually announced in May of each year.
The game, designed by former Ravensburger game development intern Sammy Salkind, puts players in the shoes of startup founders battling to build their internet startups during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
—
Cardboard Edison finalists 2026:
Astrolabe by Yasaman Farazan 2-5 players 45-90 minutes Players are exorcists in a Persian folklore world, using astrolabes to read the stars, hunt demons, and bind them into artifacts. Each round, players secretly rotate their astrolabe to choose an action, a number, and a time of day, then reveal and resolve actions in ascending order. Pitch video
Black Ruth of Dogtown by Keith DeViere Donaldson 1-4 players 30 minutes Black Ruth of Dogtown is a procedural oracle system driven by a circular mancala drafting mechanism, where players construct a three-by-three grid to optimize set collection and speculative scoring in service of a final narrative divination resolution. Pitch video
Braggin’ Wranglers by Luke Wolyncewicz 2-8 players 15 minutes Braggin’ Wranglers sees players catching animals to score points using a unique adjustable lasso—but there’s a twist! Turn order is decided by your lasso size, which you secretly set at the start of each round! Pitch video
Catacombes de Paris by Nicholas Henning 2-5 players 70-110 minutes In Catacombes de Paris, players take on the solemn duty of transporting the remains of millions through the bustling streets of 18th-century Paris to build their personal ossuary in the famed Catacombs. This highly thematic experience combines a strategic pick-up-and-deliver system with an engaging polyomino mini-game for building out your ossuary board. Pitch video
Deductive Seasoning by Eric Ledger 2-5 players 20-40 minutes Deductive Seasoning is a family-friendly deduction card game where you are a food scientist who has concocted a dish using a secret ingredient from the Periodic Table of Flavor. You must figure out other players’ secret ingredient through careful play and observation. Pitch video
Goa Kranti by Andy Desa 2-4 players 60-90 minutes A cooperative game about an overlooked chapter in history: Goa’s struggle for independence from Portugal (1932-1961). Players embody historical freedom fighters choosing between violent resistance and peaceful satyagraha. Core mechanisms include push-your-luck resource gathering, deck improvement, and bag-building for a pivotal mid-game check when India gains independence. Pitch video
Hatchlings by Alan Leduc 2-5 players 30 minutes You’re a Nature Spirit with one job. Get your baby sea turtles out of their comfortable nest, across the beach, and into the water where they belong, thus earning praise from Mother Nature. It would be easy if it weren’t for the relentless bully Steven Seagull and the other Spirits competing for glory. Pitch video
Hybrid Hijinks by Jena Keesee 3-5 players 60 minutes A competitive game, creating hybrid creatures and utilizing variable, configurable player powers to impress visitors and earn the most approval for shifting prowess. Pitch video
Ladybugs by Michael Posada 1-4 players 30 minutes Push your luck by rolling dice that represent a colony of ladybugs flying over a field of flowers. Your rolls determine which flowers you add to your garden, which scoring conditions you unlock, and how many points you earn. Pitch video
Limelight by Cameron Fleming 3-6 players 45 minutes Limelight is a push-your-luck deckbuilder about staging a Broadway show. Over three Acts, you’ll audition talent, hire crew, and rehearse your show, trying to achieve the perfect mix of cards on Opening Night. Pitch video
Match Patch by Jack Rosen 3-5 players 20 minutes Match Patch is a game about the benefits of farming using companion planting methods. Mechanically, it is a card-matching race game where players try to diversify their harvested crops. Pitch video
Midnight Spawn by Jayson Farrell 1-4 players 60 minutes Midnight Spawn is a game about the mysterious and incredible deep sea. In this game you’re a researcher in your deep-submergence vehicle, or DSV. You’ll discover strange creatures and observe them eat or move other creatures, manipulating the shared board. You can also upgrade your DSV with tech cards or boost your score with research cards. Pitch video
Moonforge by Pawel Owsianka 1-4 players 90 minutes In Moonforge, players command large space facilities capable of capturing asteroids, extracting valuable resources (energy, metal and minerals), and upgrading their operations with new modules and functions. Resources can be sold for currency points, while depleted asteroids contribute material toward the creation of a new moon. Pitch video
PiramiDuel by Guillermo Viciano 2 players 20-30 minutes A game for two players where you will explore Ancient Egypt, fighting to claim the most influential pyramids. Pitch video
Possessions by Dan Nichols 2-4 players 60-90 minutes Possessions is a competitive strategy game where you play as ghosts with one hour to finish your unfinished business and fulfill your final wishes. As the clock ticks down, strive to get the most value from your secret ambitions by possessing your family’s last living heirs. Pitch video
StrongHolds by Nelson de Castro 2 players 40-60 minutes StrongHolds is a competitive castle-building game featuring magnetic tiles that allow players to build vertically unlike any other game. Harness your creativity and vision as a Medieval Architect, while sabotaging your opponent by tossing and sliding siege tiles to topple their progress. Pitch video
The Leftovers by Larry Ted McBride 2-4 players 25 minutes The Leftovers is a cooperative trick-taking game of community deck-building, resource management, strategy, and story. With your party of magical foodfolk, you will work together to complete objectives and avoid vicious food fiends as you explore the abandoned halls of the Enchanted Ladle. Pitch video
The Roots of All Evil by Dean Burry 2-4 players 15-20 minutes Be the first animal cultist to summon the tree demon Blackthorn by creating ever-expanding rings of root cards in which to place your sacred offerings. Pitch video
The Wedding Planner by Jose Lema 2-4 players 60-90 minutes You just got engaged! Now you have 12 months to plan the wedding of your dreams. The Wedding Planner is a medium-weight strategy game that captures the authentic pressure of the process: an overwhelming workload, finite resources, and the constant tension between vision and reality. Pitch video
Wunderkammer by Rosco Schock 2-4 players 45 minutes Wunderkammer is a set collection style game with a unique simultaneous silent auction acquisition mechanism. Each curiosity that you collect also has two attributes so the scoring of your collection is scored in each dimension. Pitch video
British board game publisher Alley Cat Games has triumphed in this year’s Diamant d’Or – a prize focused on championing heavier eurogames – after pivoting its strategy several years ago to experiment with crowdfunding more complex designs.
The Toni López-designed dice manipulation game fought off big name titles including Galactic Cruise and Luthier to win the 2026 Diamant d’Or, which was created more than a decade ago to celebrate complex euros the organisers felt were being overlooked by more mainstream board game awards.
Richard Breese’s latest design in his Key series, Keyside, took second place in this year award, while Ants, an ant colony expansion title from frequent Diamant d’Or finalist Cranio Creations, came third.
Speaking to BoardGameWire, Alley Cat Games director Caezar Al-Jassar said the team was “ecstatic” with the win, adding, “we have worked hard for three years to bring Ada’s Dream to gamers and have been blown away by the positive response from our backers and supporters”.
He said, “Ada’s Dream is the most complex game we’ve ever produced. A few years ago we noticed that the trend for Kickstarter games was leaning to heavier and more complex games than we were producing, and so we pivoted to explore creating more games like this.
“This meant a lot of extra work to produce the final game and we are incredibly pleased to see that work has paid off, and that Ada is being celebrated by the Diamant d’Or committee.”
The Diamant d’Or win comes just under a year after Alley Cat announced during its Kickstarter campaign for Baghdad that it would cease producing retail editions of its crowdfunded titles “for the foreseeable future”, amid rising competition on shop shelves and uncertainty around US tariffs.
A statement from the company at the time said,” It is getting harder for Kickstarter games to succeed, both on Kickstarter and in particular at retail stores after the campaign.
“This, coupled with rising costs and the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, has led us to look at ways of streamlining the business to ensure that we don’t have so much money tied up in stock. We’d much rather invest this money in making more great games!”
Al-Jassar told BoardGameWire, “Considering that these titles are more expensive to produce, ship, and store than smaller more retail friendly games, we kept the decision to move away from retail distribution of our Kickstarter games.”
A small number of copies of Ada’s Dream were briefly available through the Alley Cat website from February 5, but those available to US and European customers have already sold out.
Al-Jassar said, “The initial webstore sales were some stock not needed for fulfilment. However, as there are still backers that did not complete their Pledge Managers, we will be keeping a supply in storage until a set number of months after the end of fulfilment to ensure all backers have the opportunity to receive their copy.
“Regarding future plans for Ada’s Dream, we won’t be producing a print run for retail distribution but may have some more copies available once enough time has passed after fulfilment, and are exploring a future Kickstarter campaign with an expansion and reprint that we hope to launch in early 2027.”
The 2026 Diamant d’Or
WINNER: Ada’s Dream, designed by Toni López (Published by Alley Cat Games)
Second place:Keyside, by Richard Breese and David Turczi (HUCH!, R&D Games)
Third place:Ants, by Renato Ciervo and Andrea Robbiani (Cranio Creations)
Other finalists:
Galactic Cruise, by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thompson (Kinson Key Games)
Luthier, by Dave Beck and Abe Burson (Paverson Games)
Philarmonix, by Faris Suhaimi (Archona Games)
Recall, by Helge Meissner, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Kjetil Svendsen and Anna Wermlund (Alion – by Dr Ø)
France’s highest-profile board game prize, the As d’Or, has updated its rules for 2026 to ensure that artist names must appear on a game box in order for designs to be eligible for the award.
The award, which traces its history back to 1988, has required entries to show designer names on their game boxes for several years, in addition to requirements for the game to be published in French and available in the French market during the preceding year.
Board game designers and artists are frequently namechecked on box covers in the current hobby – a far cry from the time of the “coaster proclamation” in 1988, when 13 designers – including El Grande and Tikal creator Wolfgang Kramer – signed a beer mat at the Nuremberg toy fair vowing that none of them would give their games to a company without their names being written on the box.
Exceptions to that have long existed at the mass-market end of the hobby – but further cases have begun to appear in recent years, some due to the use of AI generated images in titles, and others due to stylistic choices by publishers.
Viking-themed card shedding game Odin won last year’s As d’Or, while city-building eurogame Kutná Hora triumphed in the Expert Game category at the 2025 awards, Operation Noisettes won the children’s game prize, and Behind scooped the “Initié” award – which targets regular board game players ready for more challenging mechanisms.
The 2024 winner was also a small-box card game, Trio, potentially giving Flip 7 a boost in this year’s contest.
It added, “It also reflects the current trend: playing games as a couple, and smaller-format games are appealing to the public, and publishers are offering more and more of them.”
The As d’Or traces its history back to 1988, when it was launched to highlight the best games available at France’s Festival International des Jeux in Cannes. The award was merged with the Jeu de l’Année in 2005.
This year’s winners are due to be announced on February 26 during the annual Festival International des Jeux in Cannes.
Last year’s FIJ had a record 110,000 admissions across the five-day event, with 60,000 sq m of exhibition space – up a third compared to 2024.
The German branch of high IQ society Mensa has changed up its long-running board game award to focus entirely on complex, expert-level titles, scrapping its prizes for shorter family games and two-player designs.
Mensa in Deutschland has awarded the MinD Spielepreis since 2009, and has operated a ‘shorter games’ category for more than a decade and lighter two-player games prize since 2019.
But this year’s award will return to just a single category, pitting six expert-level games against each other in order to fill what the organisers see as a gap in the industry.
Jochen Tierbach, who has been organising the MinD Game Award for 16 years, said, “There are already various awards and prizes for family and connoisseur games.
“But for expert games, the really tough ones, there is no such thing in Germany yet. And we feel that the industry wants it.”
The organisers will now take the next ten months to persuade as many Mensans as possible to play the titles and rate them out of 10 for ‘challenge factor’ and ‘replayability’. The winner is set to be announced on November 10.
Last year’s MinD award for complex games saw Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI add to its array of prizes, while Simone Luciani and Dávid Turczi’s Nucleum triumphed in 2024.
Other board game awards focusing specifically on heavier titles include France’s Diamant d’Or, which was launched more than a decade ago to champion complex eurogames the organisers felt were being overlooked by more mainstream board game awards.
Galactic Cruise, by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thompson (published in Germany by PD Verlag) MinD committee notes: “In Galactic Cruise, players build a luxurious cruise company for space travel and organise ships, staff and wealthy customers.
“The game impresses with its strong thematic interconnection, a hidden deployment mechanism to determine the order of actions, and challenging resource planning.”
Luthier, by Dave Back and Abe Burson (Funtails) “Luthier puts players in the role of instrument makers who, thanks to generous patrons, equip famous musicians throughout the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods and compete for the chair of various instrument groups in the orchestra.
Shackleton Base, by Fabio Lopiano and Nestore Mangone (Giant Roc) “In Shackleton Base, players build a permanent base at the south pole of the moon, using executives who bring a slight asymmetry to the game.
“Three of seven selectable corporations with special abilities and several interlocking scoring options provide strategic depth and high variety.”
Speakeasy, by Vital Lacerda (Skellig Games) “Speakeasy is set during Prohibition in Manhattan, where players open illegal bars, nightclubs and casinos in different districts and supply them with stolen or moonshine alcohol.
“The appeal of the game lies in the indirect interaction through territory control, competition for lucrative locations and the constant risk of attracting too much attention.”
Thebai, by Dávid Turczi (Pegasus Spiele) “Thebai is a tightly interwoven optimisation game in which population or hoplite cubes are placed on your own estate or on the shared game board to rebuild the Kadmeia of Thebai.
“Resources must be gathered for assignments while trying to promote population to the council or promote hoplites to army commanders in order to successfully repel attacks on the city.”
Thesauros, by Cedric Millet (Elznir Games) “In Thesauros, players first search for and then recover sunken treasures in order to ultimately sell them to a museum at a profit.
“Budget planning several rounds in advance requires strategic foresight and a carefully balanced mix of long-term exploration plans, short-term financing requirements, and disruptive manoeuvres against or by the competition.”
Ich halte mich dieses Mal kurz, damit die wichtigen Fakten nicht im Geschwafel untergehen. Ihr dürft wieder euer Lieblingsspiel aus 2025 wählen, dabei aber bitte das Veröffentlichungsdatum des Spiels beachten. Es geht mir nämlich darum, eure Neuheiten zu erfahren und nicht euer Lieblingsspiel aller Zeiten. Seit 2021 geisterte Arche Nova in den Top 3 herum,...
This feels strange. I’m usually late with my yearly list, taking my sweet time until January or February to catch up on all of the noteworthy releases. This was a quieter year. Some would say weaker than most. There are still several standout titles, and it did prove a bit of a struggle to narrow…
For the fourth time we have awarded our annual Most Popular New Game Award. This year the award went to Johan Benvenuto for his game Harmonies!
This year the award could not be handed over at Spiel, so it was send to the designer in France.
Congratulations to the winner Harmonies, designer Johan Benvenuto, and the whole team behind creating this game!
Harmonies box with the BG Stats award and a golden BG Stats button
How is the winner of the Award determined?
Games that are released in 2024 are eligible. The popularity of the game is determined as follows: we looked at the unique users that logged at least one play of a game between 7 October 2024 and August 2025. The new game that was logged by the most unique users, Harmonies in this case, won. This means it doesn’t matter how many times a user played the game, or how many people were in the game.
Anmelden
