Nominations for the 2014 Spiele des Jahres, Germany’s prestigious Game of the Year Award, are out and there are at least a couple of surprises.

The three nominees for SdJ 2014 are CAMEL UP, CONCEPT and SPLENDOR.

I’m super excited to see CONCEPT get a nomination. It was one of the best new games I played at The Gathering in April. It’s a brilliant idea beautifully executed, and one I’ll write more about later. Suffice it to say, it was the one game I put on order with my FLGS as soon as I returned home.

CAMEL UP is the game I played the most at The Gathering this year. I think I must have played seven or eight games, at least, and I taught at least half of those. It’s a fast and furious game of wagering on camel races and playing the odds, with a very clever physical gimmick to handle the die rolling. I plan to add this game to my collection as soon as it’s available in the US (which shouldn’t be long, now that it’s SdJ Nominated). It’ll be a perfect game for Madison Board Games & Beer nights.

Read more about these and the Nominees for Kinderspiel and Kennerspiel des Jahres over on BoardGameGeek News.