June 14, 2021 – The Kinderspiel des Jahres 2021, the best kids board game of the year awarded To Dragomino. This is an award part of the Spiel des Jahres awards. That is an award for the best game of the year and this is a sub-award that is specifically targeted games good for children.
Jury Statement:
“Dragomino” is an impressive example of how you can turn a family game into a children’s game. This sister game to “Kingdomino” brings an interesting fantasy atmosphere to the table. Children will feel confident playing after just one game. The clever balance of luck and tactics means children will always want to dive into the world of the domino dragons.
The winner was designed by Bruno Cathala, Marie Fort and Wilfried Fort. The artists for the title are Maëva da Silva and Christine Deschamps. The publisher is Blue Orange Games.
As the jury points out, Dragomino is a spin-off of a previous Spiel winner, Kingdomino. It expands into a version for children who are going to go in search of dragon eggs. The base of the games, as well as another spinoff Queendomino, is about drafting and tableau building into set collection. You have your own personal grid and each turn you need to draft two panel domino-like tile to add to your grid. By putting like terrains together with the right bonus tiles, you will get big points and hopefully win the game.
FOR MORE: Buy Dragomino on Amazon
This is the most prestigious award in the space and given the Covid crisis they are announcing the awards a bit differently this year. Instead of having one show, they are announcing the winners of the three different awards (kids, strategy, overall) over a longer period of time. This award announcement, made via the Spiel des Jahres site, was first. The nominations for all three were released a few weeks ago on May 17th.
Big congratulations go out for publisher Blue Orange Games who is a publisher that always has some interesting and exciting kids games as part of their slate. For example, take a look at Block Ness, one of their recent titles that is a great spatial reasoning and area control game for kids.
The Spiel des Jahres awards began in 1979. Check out the full list of winners and nominees for the awards here. Board games started to get so robust that new categories were necessary. The award expanded from just the traditional Spiel des Jahres, to include the Kinderspiel des Jahres (best kids game) in 1989 and Kennerspiel des Jahres (best strategy game) in 2011.
The Game of the Year 2021 and Strategy Game of the Year 2021 will be awarded on July 19, 2021.
Source: https://www.spiel-des-jahres.de/en/dragomino-is-kinderspiel-des-jahres-2021/
Images: https://blueorangegames.eu/
