Pictures wins the 2020 Spiel des Jahres; The Crew wins Kennerspiel des Jahres

This year's winners of the pretigious German board game awards have been announced. Pictures wins the Spiel des Jahres (game of the year). Pictures is designed by Daniela and Christian Stöhr, with art by Dominik Mayer. It will be published in North America by Rio Grande Games. Pictures is a deduction party game. In Pictures, each player is given one of the following: two shoelaces, a set of wooden blocks, a set of colored cubes along with a frame, or a set of sticks and stones. Then, a 4 x 4 grid of pictures are laid out and each player is secretly assigned one. Multiple players can be assigned the same picture. Players then will attempt to use the components they have been given to indicate which picture they have been assigned. 

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is the 2020 winner for Kennerspiel des Jahres (expert/connoisseur game of the year). The Crew is designed by Thomas Sing, with art by Marco Armbruster. It is published in North America by KOSMOS. The Crew is a cooperative trick-taking game, where players are assigned a specific card they must take during the round. However, players cannot communicate other than a once per round indication about their hand. The game includes 50 missions of increasing difficulty.