From Boardgame News:
Nominees for the 2009 Spiel des Jahres – Germany’s “Game of the Year” award – and Kinderspiel des Jahres have been announced by the respective juries for those awards. The nominees for Spiel des Jahres, with their designers and German publishers listed, are:
- Dominion, by Donald Vaccarino (Hans im Glück)
- Fauna, by Friedemann Friese (HUCH & friends)
- Finca, by Ralf zur Linde and Wolfgang Sentker (Hans im Glück)
- Fits, by Reiner Knizia (Ravensburger)
- Pandemic, by Matt Leacock (Pegasus Spiele)
Unless Reiner Knizia takes home his second consecutive SdJ, having won in 2008 for Keltis (Kosmos), some designer (or designers) will be hoisting the big red poppel for the first time when the winners are announced on June 29. In a sign of how far the U.S. game industry has advanced in recent years, two of this year’s nominees – Dominion and Pandemic – were developed by, respectively, Rio Grande Games and Z-Man Games, then published by German partners.
The SdJ jury sometimes issues special awards to games that fit into particular categories, and two such games received awards in 2009: Space Alert, by Vlaada Chvatil (Czech Games Edition) in the category of “new game worlds” and Gift Trap, by Nick Kellet (Heidelberger Spieleverlag) for “party games.”
The nominees for the Kinderspiel des Jahres, again with their designers and German publishers listed, are:
- Curli Kuller, by Marco Teubner (Selecta)
- Das magische Labyrinth, by Dirk Baumann (Drei Magier Spiele)
- Land in Sicht, by Stefan Dorra (Ravensburger)
- Nicht zu Fassen, by Fréderic Moyersoen (Zoch Spiele)
- Zoowaboo, by Carlo A. Rossi (Selecta)
In addition to announcing the nominees, the juries for the two awards also offer a list of recommended titles, games appropriate for families and children but games that don’t have the broad appeal or broad availability of the nominees. The SdJ recommended list consists of the following titles:
- Cities, by Martyn F (Emma Games)
- Diamonds Club, by Rüdiger Dorn (Ravensburger)
- Einauge sei wachsum, by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling (Amigo)
- Maori, by Günter Burkhardt (Hans im Glück)
- Mow, by Bruno Cathala (Hurrican)
- Poison, by Reiner Knizia (Amigo)
- Valdora, by Michael Schacht (Abacusspiele)
- Zack & Pack, by Bernd Eisenstein (Kosmos)
And the recommended list of games for children includes the following:
- 6 nimmt! Junior, by Wolfgang Kramer (Amigo)
- Der kleine Ritter Trenk, by
- Finde die Tiere, by Anja Wrede (Logis)
- Go! Gorilla, by Michael Kohner Corporation (Goliath)
- Klickado, by Christian Sovis (Drei Magier Spiele)
- Kofferdetektive, by Guido Hoffmann (HABA)
- Polizei Alarm, by Kai Haferkamp and Markus Nikisch (HABA)
- Schwarzer Kater, by Steffen Mullhäuser and Bernhard Kümmelmann (Steffen Spiele)
- Würfelwölfe, by Marco Teubner (HABA)
As mentioned earlier, the winners of the two awards will be announced on June 29, 2009. Congrats to all the nominees!
[From Nominees for the 2009 Spiel des Jahres & Kinderspiel des Jahres]
Just came across this, and since we’re all in a particularly retro mood here at the Pete these days, it seemed fitting to share it:
That’s right! L.E.D. football has come to the iPhone. Click the link below to download it.
iTunes Download: L.E.D. Football 2
Modern accounts say the game is lame, but I really loved it…even if I never played it the way the manufacturers intended. I certainly remember playing with the cool glow-in-the-dark pieces and the ghost spinner. Transogram made the original game but Marx marketed a 30th anniversary version in 1997. How time flies.
My brother and I must have played this hundreds of times. This football boardgame stayed exciting the entire game. Each player secretly chose a play (offense and defense), then placed one card over the other. Holes in the card would show positive and negative numbers. Then one player would flick the spring and the pointer would stop “springing” and point at a number. The number would be the yards gained or lost. The better yardage would be listed in a smaller area of the card, which was harder for the pointer to point at. (Does any of this make sense? It really isn’t complicated.) A different version of NFL Strategy featured a spinner instead of the spring, which made more sense in the long run (no pun intended).
I think I know where this game is. Maybe I’ll pull it out and give it a spin.
This was never a Christmas present…except maybe to myself. Metal Mental Meltdown came out a few years ago. I read about it online and immediately ordered it! Holy Gorgoroth…what a game!
The rules work similar to Trivial Pursuit. You move around a pentagram, landing on spaces which determine the difficulty of the question. Whoever reaches 666 points first, wins. However, the game’s so difficult that we barely reached 50 points after three hours of play. Matter of fact, in all the times we’ve played it, I don’t think all of our scores combined in every game even come close to 666 points.
Even the “easy” questions are near impossible, which actually adds to the fun of the game. I get so excited when I answer one correctly that I squeal like a little girl.
Examples of questions:
1) Name the third song on Blood Amplifier’s second unreleased demo.
What the…??? I made the band name up, but there are actually questions like this. I’d never even heard of the band, much less be able to name a song on ANY album…and certainly not an unreleased demo!
Or…2) As of 1997, how many albums has Cradle Death (another made up name) released? ANSWER: 12 or more…Meaning, I could say “872″ as my answer and be correct. Whoo-hoo!
Regardless, even though I can’t possibly see how metal fanatics would even know the answers, I still love the game. And it’s questions about metal! Come on…it’s pure blasphemous fun at its finest!
And no…this game never turned me into a Satanist either…
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“I enjoy Mark Hamill’s Joker, but I’m most excited to know that Kevin Conroy is returning to voice the Dark Knight Detective. Nobody does it better!”
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I spent hours and hours playing this electronic game as a kid. If I remember correctly, you were an adventurer trying to find treasure while being chased by a dragon. When you’d try to move your character one space at a time, you’d hear a sound telling you that you had just run into a wall. Otherwise, no noise, no wall. If you ran into a wall, you would then put a little wall piece on the board. Trying to blindly find the treasure before the dragon reaches you was actually quite fun.
Since embarking on the 25 Toys of Christmas Past project on the ‘Pete, I’ve discovered (and rediscovered) many strange and wondrous things. But none has seemed as strange as the Vertisim – Vertibird Simulation Software. Frequent readers (of which I hope there are at least 3) will no doubt recall the Christmas tale I spun not too long ago about my VertiBird experiences as a child. Now, someone has gone and done the improbable impossible inconceivable and created a virtual VertiBird – and it’s a pretty involved piece of software as well! My hats off to the designer, but I’m hoping his next project is a Virtual J.J. Armes!
Download the VertiSim software here.
I hesitated about putting this one on our list, because, while my brother did get it as a gift, I don’t think we ever played it. Much like the Computer Perfection game mentioned elsewhere on this blog, it was one of those things that looked cooler as a prop than it played as a game. Maybe I’m wrong, though. Take a look at this full article from BoardGameGeek and tell me what YOU think.
Some still pile praises on Mattel’s digital football games of the 70s. But, in truth, there was only one Mattel handheld electronic game that I truly loved – and it was Merlin. Futuristic design (for the time, mind you) merged with multiple gameplay options to create a game I just couldn’t put down. Maybe that’s a credit to Merlin’s designers, but it’s also because it was one of those Christmas gifts I got a few days before Christmas (undoubtedly to keep me occupied and out of my mom’s hair).
Bored child + handheld gaming = addiction
Clearly, it didn’t take Nintendo long to learn this equation.
Update: If you just can’t get enough Merlin, stop by and try out a virtual version here.
