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For Kids. Dragomino / Dali the Fox
Domino with Dragons
By CHRISTOPH SCHLEWINSKI
Dragomino: Downscaling family or expert games to children‘s level has worked quite success-
fully in the past, for example
in Stone Age Junior, which
won “Kinderspiel des Jahres“. Dragomino is based on King-
domino, “Spiel des Jahres“ 2017,
which was easy enough to play for children and young people from seven and up. So there wasn‘t much
left to do in transforming it into a kids’ version from ages five and up – and it was done.
Instead of using the open display of the original to decide turn order, this game is more target-group oriented. Sim- ply place four domino-style double tiles in the center of the table, and whoever has the dragon mom is the start player.
In Dragomino it is also important (but not necessary) to place matching tiles, for that allows you to draw dragon eggs, which might hide baby dragons: And these score you
points. If a drawn egg is emp- ty, that‘s bad luck, but you get the dragon mom as compensa- tion. Although it can happen
that she changes hand frequently during a round. A nice touch:
Whoever holds her at the end
of the game receives a bo- nus point.
You play through all the tiles – and whoever
has the most points wins.
Everything is so simple,
clear, and above all nicely designed that children immediately feel comfortable and confident. The egg drawing is thrill- ing, the constant back and forth of the dragon mom provides some fairness, in 15 to 20 minutes everything is over, usually followed by another game. For the chil- dren‘s version, both the turn order and the restriction to a five-by-five display have been eliminated, which I consider exactly
right, as this gives the children a lot of free- dom to simply try something out. And if they like the prin- ciple of this domino game, the step to Kingdomino with its restrictions is an easy one. For the target group of five years and older, Dragomino is a nice, relaxing highlight
to try out. (cs)
Bruno Cathala, Marie Fort, Wilfried Fort: Dragomino (Pegasus), Illus­ tration: Maëva da Silva, Christine Deschamps; for 2 – 4 children; about 5+ years; duration: about 15 minutes; price: about 25 Euro
Egg Thief
By CHRISTOPH SCHLEWINSKI
is all pretty good. But there are some unfortunate snags:
If you let the dice rattle through the
barn‘s chimney as pre- scribed, they often don‘t
come out properly and have to
be finger-picked. The flaps, from which the eggs slip out, also don‘t always do
what they are supposed to, and so the nice flow of the game is interrupted again and again.
It‘s still exciting for the kids, but less would have been more. As it is, Dali the Fox is itself rather like an egg:
slightly uneven. (cs)
D
That guy has a nice hobby, by the way: painting eggs. Dali the Fox likes these, too, and wants to steal them from him.
The kids play the fox and have to gam- ble as they roll the dice to get the eggs. They can either stop and bag the eggs or continue and get more – and risk los- ing their loot. The three dice show col- ors, and one of them farmer Salvador on top, who blocks one color per turn.
The child whose turn it is picks a color from the other dice and slides
a matching egg out of the barn. For some of the eggs, you have to mix colors to get them out. But: If you can‘t get a new egg with one roll, all the eggs you have collected so far are gone. The only way to keep them is to stop. As soon as
ali the Fox: As soon as you pull open the box lid, there
it is: Farmer Salvador‘s barn.
a child has got ten, the best egg collector is established. And another thing is es- tablished: Dali the Fox is an eye-catcher, because the barn really looks amazing. The basic mechanics of Can‘t Stop, the suspense of gambling for the kids, this
Vincent Bonnard: Dali the Fox (Pe­ gasus), Illustration: Cyril Bouquet; for 2 – 4 children; about 6+ years; duration: about 10 – 20 minutes; price: about 20 Euro
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