That Ol' Spiel Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spiel des Jahres Winner

Created by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and released to gamers in 2000, Carcassonne, named after the French fort town, won the Spiel des Jahres against Das Amulett and Zapp Zerapp. It would be the fourth such award by games publisher Hans im Glück, who won in 1991, 1994, and 1996.

To play Carcassonne, players draw tiles to construct their landscape and place followers, obtaining points through those placements or through completion of features like cities, roads, and cloisters. The game has generally been praised as a good starter game for players aiming to break into board games beyond the basics. Because of the low difficulty, it's had numerous expansions since its original release.

Answer: Spiel des Jahres Winner

Winner of the Spiel des Jahres in 2004, Ticket to Ride, was the second win for designer Alan R. Moon, who won in 1998 for Elfenland. The game was immensely popular, resulting in numerous regional variants and expansions, most of which allowed players to set up tracks around the world.

Ticket to Ride is played by up to five people who, after drawing destinations, need to link them together secretly by drawing cards and placing trains along marked routes. Gaining points for placing their train pieces down and accomplishing their goals, the winner is the one with the most.

Answer: Spiel des Jahres Winner

Though most Spiel des Jahres winners are scored on their general ease of playability, there have been some notable exceptions to this expectation in past years. Agricola, a game wherein a handful of players take turns pulling resources to construct and optimize a plot of land into a farm, was one such instance, claiming a specially-designated Complex Game award in 2008 (alongside general winner Keltis. Agricola would continue to win gaming awards throughout 2008 and 2009 across Europe.

Answer: Spiel des Jahres Winner

Created by Czech game designer Vladimír Chvátil, Codenames was far from his first product; he'd previously developed video games and a number of board games (some of which also had Spiel des Jahres attention). Chvátil previously won the New Game Worlds award, a special Spiel des Jahres prize, in 2009. Codenames took the main prize in 2016.

To play Codenames you need four people on two teams of two. Cards are placed on a game board, each featuring specific words. The goal is for the two designated spymasters to help their teammates guess their dedicated words, giving single-word hints to lead them in the correct directions while the opposite team does the same for a separate set. If players can guess their five correct words first (without hitting the assassin), they win.

Answer: Spiel des Jahres Winner

Although considered quite mainstream nowadays as far as niche board games go, The Settlers of Catan won the Spiel des Jahres back in 1995 before the board game industry blew up quite so much. It would go on to continue winning awards for more than a decade, seeing resurgences in its popularity with numerous variations and expansions. The game's creator, Klaus Teuber, had three Spiel wins before this.

The game is quite easy to pick up despite numerous piece and possibilities. In it, you spread yourself out along the edges of hexagonal tiles bearing different environments, aiming to build across various locations to take in resources and expand. You are aiming to win based on a point system, but those points can be garnered from territory growth, army building, bonus cards, and other means.

Answer: Not a Spiel des Jahres Winner

Releasing at the end of the 2000s and becoming one of the more popular complex board games of the early 21st century, Pandemic evolved (not a pun) from its base game to not only shorter, quicker variants, but to Legacy versions, games in which winning or failure would result in consequence for subsequent playthroughs. It would be nominated for the Spiel des Jahres in 2009, but would lose to Dominion. Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 would win a Special Prize from Spiel in 2018.

In Pandemic, up to four players work together to stop the spread of diseases as they propagate around the world. Every turn, the players strategize to take the smoothest path to eradication, aiming to avoid losing cities to several variants before time runs out.

Answer: Not a Spiel des Jahres Winner

First published in 2004, Betrayal at House on the Hill became another surprisingly popular game due to a unique spin on the cooperative board game trend. In this one, players explore a haunted house and, at a certain stage, a haunt is activated, transforming one of the group into an enemy who must be defeated to win the game and survive the night. The sheer variability of hauntings allows for a significant amount of replayability in this one, and it was perhaps an obvious decision to make this another 'Legacy' game, allowing players' wins and losses to have significance on later playthroughs, establishing a history of horror.

Its complexity is likely to be the reason behind its not being nominated for a Spiel des Jahres, though it is a fan favourite.

Answer: Not a Spiel des Jahres Winner

While sister game Forbidden Island was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres in 2011, Forbidden Desert didn't receive the same accolade. Both games are cooperative in nature with players needing to navigate a map keeping each other alive while searching for pieces of their means of escape (a boat in Forbidden Island and an airship in Forbidden Desert). Each player could take on a dedicated role to support their team in different ways; in the desert, one would affect the amount of water collected, for instance, to keep teammates hydrated and safe in the sun.

The game's creator, Matt Leacock, is also responsible for Pandemic. He followed up Forbidden Desert with Forbidden Sky in 2018.

Answer: Not a Spiel des Jahres Winner

Though a classic for the ages, Scrabble was invented in 1938, a number of decades before the Spiel des Jahres Awards were started in 1979.

Scrabble has had a notable run as a board game, evolving into not only a family mainstay, but a tournament-level event, allowing players to engage in club play and international championships with significant winnings. There are also numerous variants on the game including the online take, Words With Friends, which allowed people to play via mobile devices on apps or social media.

Answer: Not a Spiel des Jahres Winner

Less of a board game and more of a mat game, Wits & Wagers combines betting and trivia, having players make as close a guess as possible to a trivia question with a numerical answer and then betting on who may have gotten the closest (without going over), receiving points reflective of the odds of their bet (which could be bet in subsequent rounds).

Originally released in 2005, Wits & Wagers would be picked up by the Mattel label in 2021 after a string of awards (including the Mensa Selects label). Though not necessarily innovative from a gameplay point of view, it's a fun party game for those inclined to trivia. A German version was released in 2008, but it did not attract the eyes of the Spiel des Jahres jury.