To create your own island full of dragons: That is the aim of "Dragomino", which won the critics' award for the "Children's Game of the Year 2021", the so-called "Blue Pöppel".

It is important to develop cute dragon babies by cleverly placing tiles.

But not only their cuteness secured first place.

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    "Dragomino" is a child-friendly adaptation of the popular adult game "Kingdomino". The game was particularly convincing with its very low entry threshold for smaller children, said jury coordinator Christoph Schlewinski from the Children's Game of the Year association at the online award ceremony in Bielefeld on Monday. "Because placing tiles next to one another so that they match the color is just right for children from the age of five." The game has a great overall package of a classic game mechanism that is completely child-friendly and gives you an exciting and always new story tell, added jury member Stefan Gohlisch.

    In “Dragomino”, the players have to use placement cards to build their own small island from different landscapes.

    As with classic dominoes, the landscapes should match each other.

    Then the players earn a dragon egg.

    There can either be a small baby dragon in it, which scores points, or the egg is empty.

    Creators are no strangers to game developers

    The game was developed by the French authors Bruno Cathala and Marie and Wilfried Fort. The German version of "Dragomino" was published by Pegasus-Spiele. Cathala had already won the “Game of the Year” award in 2017 with “Kingdomino”. He has been one of the most successful game developers since the beginning of the 2000s and has already received a number of awards. So far, however, he had little to do with children's games. "My head is too complicated for kids," he joked at the online award ceremony. So it came to the collaboration with Marie and Wilfried Fort, because the couple has specialized in the development of children's games.

    They were nominated twice for the Critics' Prize, and their card game “Fabelwelten” was also in the running for the “Blue Pöppel”. The memory game "Mia London" by Antoine Bauza and Corentin Lebrat was also on the list. In total, the jury of specialist journalists, together with children and families, played and assessed around 100 games for three to eight year olds. Usually the three games are presented by school classes in Hamburg before the announcement. Due to the corona, the winner was announced in the live stream this year instead.

    The "Blue Pöppel" has been awarded annually since 2001. Back then, the gold panning game “Klondike” by the Basel playwright couple Stefanie Rohner and Christian Wolf was the first “children's game of the year”. This time, the high concentration of French authors was noticeable: six out of ten games that were shortlisted in 2021 come from France.