DuAli 2026: Everdell Duo is the best 2-player game
Everdell Duo from Pegasus Spiele won a convincing victory at the DuAli, the award for the best 2-player game of the year, and was therefore honoured with the DuAli 2026 by the Ali Baba Spieleclub. The 2025 evaluation period proved to be record-breaking in many respects, as the association announced at the award ceremony during Gaming Hour at the Spielwarenmesse.
With 44.45 points, Everdell Duo not only prevailed against the assembled competition, but also achieved the highest score ever at the tenth DuAli awards. The members of the association test and evaluate the submitted games according to three criteria: appearance/feel, game instructions and fun factor. Each member can award up to ten points per category. The fun factor is tripled at the end because it is the most important criterion. This means that a maximum of 50 points is possible. The previous record holder was 7 Wonders Duel, which won the DuAli in 2016.
Record number of participants
But this was not the only record broken. With 26 entrants, the number of participants was also higher than ever before. ‘We had a really wide selection and very different games,’ explained club president Christian Wallisch, who was delighted with the popularity of DuAli. Second place went to Eine Stadt für Amytis (A City for Amytis) from Game Factory. With 42.88 points, this game would have won in other years. And third place also broke the 40-point mark with 41.58 points. Rival Cities from Deep Print Games ultimately had to settle for a very good third place.
Trend towards good 2-player games
‘The high scores of the top 3 show that we also had a very high quality of games this year,’ said Martin Brock-Konzen, press spokesman for the Ali Baba Spieleclub. A total of seven games scored over 40 points. ‘This is quite remarkable and shows that the trend towards good 2-player games is continuing,’ Brock-Konzen summed up.
Award ceremony at the Spielwarenmesse
This year marked the fourth time that the award ceremony was held at the Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. ‘We are delighted to be able to present our award here as a partner of the fair,’ said Wallisch, expressing his gratitude to Christian Ulrich, spokesperson for the board of Spielwarenmesse eG. Holding the ceremony on site brings the gaming scene closer to the fair, and as the finale to the Game Inventors' Fair, which was organised by the Spielwarenmesse throughout Friday, the DuAli ceremony fits perfectly into the programme. ‘We hope to be able to honour many more deserving DuAli winners here,’ said Wallisch.
Meanwhile, the DuAli is entering its next round. The current period applies to pure 2-player games that are available in German stores for the first time between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026. Publishers, authors or the German distributor of a game can apply to the Ali Baba Spieleclub.
The Ali Baba Spieleclub describes how this works on its website www.ali-baba-spieleclub.de in the ‘DuAli’ section.