The Spiel des Jahres is awarded annually to a game that is both original and accessible. It's not just one of the most prestigious prizes in board gaming, but also an excellent predictor of which games will go on to stand the test of time. In an industry where the number of titles released weekly seems to be rising exponentially, that's no small achievement.
Previous winners include Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Catan, Dixit, Azul, Kingdomino and Sky Team, alongside many other household names.
JinxO is 2026's winner of the Spiel des Jahres and has caused quite a lot of controversy for being considerably simpler than many previous winners. However, more complex doesn't always mean more fun, and I say that as someone whose top 10 games are all pretty complex.
Since I obtained my copy, it's become a staple of both casual gaming nights with non-gamers and a lovely icebreaker during heavier gaming nights.
Grid Expectations
The rules are very simple. You have a 3x3 grid, three rounds and each round comprises three questions.
The first question is asked. It might be something like "Name three fast food outlets", in which case you choose three of your nine squares to write answers that you think the other players will also come up with. Let's say you write McDonald's, Burger King and KFC.
The next question might be "Things you put in your mouth every day". You might say toothbrush, food and drink.
The third question might be "Name gods from mythology", and you might put Thor, Poseidon and Zeus.
So what makes JinxO unique compared to other games where you have to adjust your mentality to fit the herd?
Well, you don't just score points if other people have the same answers as you, or if yours is in the majority. You score different points depending on how many other people have the same answer as you and where you placed each answer in your grid.
If at least one other person has the same answer as you, you score one point. However, if only one other person has the same answer, you score an additional two points for getting a JinxO. So you and the other person who gave the identical answer, if you're the only two people to have that answer, both shout "JinxO!" and score an additional two points.
So if you know someone else around the table well enough to think you can get on their wavelength, you might deliberately choose something that you think only they will say. Or you could just get lucky and find that only one other person has your answer. Either way, JinxOs are a very lucrative way of scoring and will often account for around a third of your points across an entire game.
BingO
The other consideration is where to place your answers. If you get a bingo, as in three in a row, either horizontally or vertically, you get additional points depending on the position of that row or column.
So, answers that you're incredibly confident about, for example McDonald's when asked to name fast food outlets, might be your most likely answers to match with somebody else. In that case, you'd probably want to put them somewhere that gives you a good chance of completing a higher-scoring line.
Conversely, if you're trying your luck because you know one of your friends is a Marvel fan who loves Thor, you might think they'll write Thor. You're hoping for a JinxO, but it's a bit of a risk. You'd probably want to put that answer somewhere that, if you're wrong, you're not sacrificing a more reliable point on the vertical or horizontal line. So in this case the placement acts as a bit of damage mitigation.
Across the game, I'll tend to put my five strongest answers along the top row and right-hand column, leaving the other four squares for answers that are a bit more of a shot in the dark, either because I couldn't think of anything or because I'm trying for a JinxO.
So, for such a light game, there's a little more tactical consideration involved than the online controversy might have you believe. There's just enough meat on the bones to keep you thinking about optimising your answer placement, if you enjoy that sort of thing, without scaring off gamers who find Big Potato games are at their comfortable crunchiness limit.
So Let’s Address The Giant Cow In The Room
“Is this just Herd Mentality with extra steps?” Well yes. But, that’s not the right question to ask. A far better one would be “Would you play Herd Mentality ever again if you had both?” My answer is that I doubt it.
When we eventually run out of JinxO questions, though, we fully intend to raid our Herd Mentality games for their questions and add them to JinxO, just to extend the variety. So, in that sense, Herd Mentality hasn’t quite been put out to pasture yet.
