Pegasus Spiele is thrilled to share that Dorfromantik – The Board Game has been named Game of the Year 2023!
Friedberg, July 19, 2023: The Spiel des Jahres jury announced the annual winners for Kinderspiel (Children’s Game), Kennerspiel (Core Game) and Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) on Sunday evening. Dorfromantik – The Board Game by Lukas Zach and Michael Palm, published by Pegasus Spiele, won over the jury and has been awarded the title 2023 Game of the Year.
Pegasus Spiele is proud to have celebrated eight awards from the Spiel des Jahres jury between 2012 and 2022, most recently for Living Forest, which won the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2022. In 2021, the jury awarded MicroMacro: Crime City (with partner Edition Spielwiese) the Spiel des Jahres and Dragomino the Kinderspiel des Jahres. For 2023, Pegasus Spiele has secured the illustrious Spiel des Jahres again with Dorfromantik – The Board Game.
Dorfromantik, the 2021 video game by Toukana Interactive, delighted the gaming community with its cute villages, burbling rivers, rustling forests, and wheat fields swaying in the wind. This peaceful building game inspired the core design of Dorfromantik – The Board Game by Lukas Zach and Michael Palm, who delivered the experience to the tabletop in Autumn 2022.
In this fully cooperative tile placement game, one to six players work together to create an idyllic countryside that fulfills the wishes of the townspeople. Each player in turn will draw and place a single hexagonal tile, and the group is encouraged to work together towards achieving their goals. Ideal tile placement will score points for all completed tasks, in addition to the longest railway, the longest stream, and large enclosed areas of landscape marked by flags. At the end of each game, progress is marked along the meandering paths of a campaign tracker, which gradually unlocks additional tasks, unique tiles, and more game materials hidden in five sealed boxes. New challenges and clever scoring opportunities motivate players to explore all the different ways to increase one’s high score.
The Spiel des Jahres jury shared these thoughts about Dorfromantik – The Board Game:
„Dorfromantik takes the pressure out of everyday life. This co-operative, feel-good game presents new and exciting goals each time you play but there’s no danger of losing. Easily solved objectives are slowly replaced by trickier ones but nothing takes you out of your comfort zone. Working as a group to solve a puzzle means that everyone gets a chance to come up with the best idea. The campaign encourages you to play another game – and you can find new players in the time it takes to explain the rules.“
Fans of Dorfromantik will be glad to hear that the world of Dorfromantik continues to grow: In August, the mini expansion The Big Mill will be published, which adds an acrylic mill piece and two new cards. This October at the board game fair SPIEL Essen, Dorfromantik – The Duel will be released. This standalone, competitive game introduces two new task types that can also be used with the base game, in addition to two separately playable modes.
