The Lord of the Rings – Duel for Middle-earth takes the 2025 DuAli
The best 2-person game of 2024 is ‘The Lord of the Rings - Duel for Middle-earth’ by the authors Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala, published by Repos Production. The game was awarded the DuAli 2025 by the Ali Baba Spieleclub. At the award ceremony during the GamingHour at the Spielwarenmesse, the game narrowly won ahead of ‘Sky Team’ and the two third-placed games ‘Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg, das Duell’ and ‘Boreal’. The Ali Baba Games Club is also celebrating a small anniversary with the award ceremony: the DuAli has now been awarded for ten years. The fact that it was not the tenth award ceremony is due to the Corona years.
Overall, the new winner scored an average of 43 points, out of a maximum possible score of 50. ‘The Lord of the Rings - Duel for Middle-earth’ thus replaces last year's winner “Caper Europe”. ‘Sky Team’ was only just behind with 42.4 points and the two third-placed games scored 39.28 points. ‘The fact that two games shared a place after so many tests and rounds played is also a first for us,’ said Martin Brock-Konzen, First Vice President of the association, ’but it also shows how close the competition was this year.’
18 games at the start
A total of 18 games were launched during the test period. To apply, a game had to have been released for the first time in German retail between November 2023 and October 2024. ‘This year, we once again had a very diverse field of applicants with very different games,’ says association president Christian Wallisch. The games were assessed by the members of the Ali Baba Games Club in the three categories ‘Look & Feel’, ‘Game Instructions’ and ‘Fun to Play’. They were able to award between 0 and 10 points in all three categories, with the fun factor being multiplied by three at the end. A maximum of 50 points was then possible.
The first award ceremony took place in 2015
The DuAli was launched by the association in 2014 and the first award ceremony took place in 2015, although the idea for the prize was born at the Spielwarenmesse in 2012. Since then, with the exception of the Corona years, the association has honoured the best 2-person game of a year every year. For the past three years, the award ceremony has been held at the same time as the Spielwarenmesse. ‘This is where the idea was born and this is where the award simply belongs,’ said Wallisch.
This is also reflected in the response from publishers. There are already applicants for the new evaluation period. Publishers, authors or even the distributor of a game can apply to the Ali Baba Spieleclub.
Further information on the application
www.ali-baba-spieleclub.de