The SdJ Jury has released its nominated and recommended games for 2024. Here are the nominees, together with their designers and publishers:

SdJ Nominees

• Captain Flip (Paolo Mori, Remo Conzadori) – PlayPunk
• In the Footsteps of Darwin (Gregory Grard, Matthieu Verdier) – Sorry We Are French
• Sky Team (Luc Remond) – Kosmos/Scorpion Masque

Kennerspiel Nominees

• Daybreak (aka e-Mission) (Matt Leacock, Matteo Menapace) – Schmidt
• The Guild of Merchant Explorers (Matthew Dunstan, Brett Gilbert) – Skellig Games/AEG
• Ticket to Ride Legacy – Legends of the West (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder

Kinderspiel Nominees

• Grosse kleine Edelsteine (Wolfgang Warsch) – Schmidt
• Taco Cat Pizza Junior (Dave Campbell, Thierry Denoual) – Blue Orange
• The Magic Keys (Markus Slawitschek, Arno Steinwender) – Game Factory/Happy Baobab

The thing you have to remember about the SdJ awards is that in order to qualify, a game must have a German release from the past 12 months or so. So, for example, The Guild of Merchant Explorers came out in English in 2022, but the German version didn’t debut until April of last year. Another game that might have been picked, Faraway, will not get its German release until later this year, so it isn’t eligible.

For the SdJ, the fascinating question will be if a game which can only be played by 2 can win. Sky Team is probably the most critically acclaimed of the three nominees, but will the Jury, which has historically been focused on choosing a great family game, make it the pick?

For the Kennerspiel, Matt Leacock has been here before–he once received nominations in three consecutive years–and Daybreak is his sixth SdJ game to be nominated (including a Special Award he received for Pandemic Legacy: Season 2). But none of his games have ever won. It will be an interesting race between Daybreak, Guild of Merchant Explorers, and Ticket to Ride Legacy. The original Ticket to Ride won the SdJ back in 2004, but there was some controversy over Days of Wonder’s refusal to discount the game (as is usually the case with SdJ winners in Germany). It looks as if the Jury has finally forgiven DoW, but it will be fun to see how it fares and if a legacy game can take the prize.

I’m a bit surprised that Forest Shuffle didn’t receive a KdJ nomination. Instead, it will have to be content with a recommendation.

Finally, here are the games that the Jury recommended this year:

SdJ Recommended Games

• Ghost Writer (Mary FLanagan, Max Seidman) – Pegasus
• Harmonies (Johan Benvenuto) – Libellud
• Doesn’t fit! (Thomas Weber)
• Schatz it if you can (Ralf zur Linde) – Moses
• Trekking – Journey through time (Charlie Bink) – Game Factory
• Trio (Kaya Miyano) – Cocktail Games

Kennerspiel Recommended Games

• Bier Pioniere (Thomas Spitzer) – Spielefaible
• Botanicus (Vieri Masseini, Samuele Tabellini) – Hans im Gluck
• Forest Shuffle (Kosch) – Lookout Games
• Ritual (Tomas Tarragon) – Strohmann Games

Kinderspiel Recommended Games

• Fluffy Valley (Maxime Rambourg, Theo Riviere) – Loki
• Lucker Lava (Sophia Wagner) – Drei Magier
• Die Nadel im Heudaufen (Thomas Sellner) – Schmidt

Congratulations to all the nominated and recommended games! The winning games will be announced on July 21.