Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI has continued its triumphant tour of the 2025 board game awards scene by securing this year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis, the biggest community-voted board game award in Germany.

SETI took top spot at the long-running award above third-placed Bomb Busters and second-placed Endeavor: Deep Sea – the winners of this year’s hugely high-profile Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres awards respectively.

The win further fills out SETI’s trophy cabinet following a hugely successful 2025 which has seen it scoop the Dice Tower Awards for game of the year, best strategy game and best new designer, the Golden Geek heavy game of the year and thematic game awards, and best expert game in the Dutch language Nederlandse Spellenprijs.

SETI publisher Czech Game Edition and the game’s German language publisher HeidelBÄR Games scored a double win on the night, having also seen their Matúš Kotry-designed title Little Alchemists take home the best children’s game award.

The publishers had previously triumphed in the 2021 Deutscher Spiel Preis through a win for The Lost Ruins of Arnak, and were runners up in the 2016 contest via HeidelBÄR’s previous incarnation, Heidelberger Spieleverlag, with the more than 16 million selling word game Codenames.

CGE announced in October 2019 that HeidelBÄR would take care of German language localisations of its titles including Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords and Pictomania.

While nominally a ‘family games’ award like the SdJ, Deutscher Spiele Preis-winning games have varied heavily in complexity and play time over the last few years.

SETI is the most complex game to win the award since Mombasa in 2016 according to the ‘game weight’ ratings compiled on BoardGameGeek.

Other recent winners have included Ark Nova, The Crew, Planet Unknown, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Wingspan and Terraforming Mars.

Last year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis was won by woodland-themed tableau-building card game Forest Shuffle, which also saw off Spiel des Jahres-winning competition in second-placed Sky Team.

The high-profile award has been running since 1990, when Catan designer Klaus Teuber’s Hoity Toity came away with the inaugural prize. The winner is announced annually at the Spiel Essen game fair, which took place this year between October 23 and 26.

Votes are only counted from people who live in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for games published between May 1 and April 30 each year.

Deutscher Spiele Preis 2025 – Full Results

First place: SETI by Tomáš Holek, published by CGE / HeidelBÄR Games

Second place: Endeavor: Deep Sea by Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray || Frosted Games / Board Game Circus

Third place: Bomb Busters by Hisashi Hayashi || Pegasus Spiele

Fourth place and below:

• Castle Combo by Grégory Grard and Mathieu Roussel || Kosmos
• Faraway by Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat || Kosmos)
• Civolution by Stefan Feld || Deep Print / Pegasus Spiele
• Blood on the Clocktower by Steven Medway || Funtails
• Slay the Spire: The Board Game by Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano || Nice Game
• Apiary by Connie Vogelmann || Feuerland Spiele
• Dune: Imperium – Uprising by Paul Dennen || Dire Wolf Digital / Asmodee

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