The Spiel des Jahres rundown for 2024 was announced yesterday, and the winner is none other than...
Sky Team – Luc Remond & Scorpion Masque
Yes! That sought after Red Poppel that guarantees you an additional 50,000 sales goes to Kosmos’s two-player, co-operative dice rolling game where, playing the role of pilot and co-pilot, you have to safely land your plane across an increasingly more difficult set of scenarios at airports around the world.
(not to be confused with SkyTeam; a major airline alliance of 19 different carriers...)
With limited communication and differing capabilities, pilot and co-pilot must assign their dice to complete tasks such as: balancing the axis, deploying flaps, lowering the wheels etc. (and maybe having a coffee.)
Fun fact: this is the first time a game strictly for 2 players has won the coveted award!
Sky Team takes the win from the other worthy nominees: Captain Flip and In the Footsteps of Darwin.
Kennerspiel des Jahres
The connoisseur/expert game prize goes to:
Daybreak - Matt Leacock, Matteo Menapace and CMYK from Schmidt.
A co-operative game about climate action - each player controls a world power, deploying policies and technologies to both dismantle the engine of global heating, and to build resilient societies that protect people from life-threatening crises!
Incidentally, Matt Leacock was one of the team along with Alan R. Moon and co behind Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West which, along with The Guild of Merchant Explorers, were runners up. So, well done Matt!
Kinderspiel des Jahres
The children’s prize goes to:
Die Magischen Schlüssel (Magic Keys) – Arno Steinwender, Markus Slawitscheck and Happy Baobob
In this game from the Game Factory, children from 6 and up have to search the forest for The Magic Keys to open the treasure chest, and retrieve the precious gems inside. But the keys are spread over a long path, and only one of them opens the chest....
So, that’s it for 2024! See you again this time next year for another host of worthy winners.