BERLIN, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Analog board and card games are becoming increasingly popular in the midst of digital times and have been this year's main attraction at SPIEL'18, one of the world's largest fair for games that will be open to visitors until Sunday.

Germany's most prestigious award for board games, the "German Games Prize 2018" went to "Azul" by Michael Kiesling for succeeding "in giving so much depth to a simple selection mechanism that it triggers an almost endless replay stimulus."

Speaking to Xinhua at the fair, game author Kiesling said that "analog board games are booming. It is nice to see that many young people are more involved with board games than with their smartphones. It is also important that they sit down and play together."

The industry association of German publishers (Spieleverlage) also acknowledged that analog games come with "a social interaction" that digital games cannot offer, according to chairman Hermann Hutter.

A record number of 1,150 exhibitors from 50 different countries will present around 1,400 new games at this year's SPIEL '18. The fair expects more than 180,000 visitors from all over the world until Sunday.