For the first time in two years, the award ceremony took place in front of an audience, as it did in 2019 in the former main customs office in Hamburg. The award “Kinderspiel des Jahres 2022” goes to “Zauberberg” by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Bernhard Weber from Amigo. The game beat out “Auch schon clever” and “Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg” (both by Wolfgang Warsch, Schmidt Spiele), the association announced. In 2021, 70 new children’s games came onto the market.

Zum Spiel
Die Pressemitteilung des Produzenten AMIGO:
The magician Balduin lives at the foot of the magic mountain. With the help of his will-o’-the-wisps, he summons the sorcerer’s apprentices from the “Magic Mountain” to teach them the knowledge of magic. The will-o’-the-wisps show the budding magicians the way through the mysterious forest into the valley. But the mean witches also follow the trail of the will-o’-the-wisps and a race begins. Now the magical skills of the players are in demand. Can they manage to guide the “muttering” will-o’-the-wisps as skilfully as possible so that they only show the apprentices, but not the witches, the way to Balduin?

This is how you play “Zauberberg”:
All apprentices and witches are placed on their respective squares on the game board. One after the other, the players randomly draw different coloured balls from the bag and place them in such a way that they hit a sorcerer’s apprentice as they roll down the board. Together, the players discuss which starting point is most suitable for the ball. If the ball hits a figure, whether a witch or a sorcerer’s apprentice, it is moved down the path to the next free square that corresponds to the colour of the ball. Then it is the next person’s turn. The aim of the game is to get 4 sorcerer’s apprentices down the hill to the finish before 3 witches arrive there.

“Zauberberg” by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Bernhard Weber features an unusual 3D game board, a simple game mechanism and elaborately designed game material. This also convinced the expert jury of the “Spiel des Jahres e. V.”, which chose “Zauberberg” as the “Children’s Game of the Year 2022”. The cooperative game objective allows children to gain their first joint experience of strategic and tactical considerations.

So a game for 1-4 persons from 5 years, purchase price something at 36 euros. The jury found that everything was well thought out in this fascinating cooperative game, from the snappy structure to the detailed rules, so that children will want to be enchanted by “Zauberberg” again and again. The game “Zauberberg” is quickly mastered by children without the help of adults and can therefore also be played alone in the children’s room.

“We are delighted that our marble run game has now also been able to inspire the jury after so many children,” explains the Schliemann-Weber team of authors.
“The development really had it in it,” adds editor Holger Grimm. “Yet Corona wasn’t even the biggest hurdle we had to overcome. In cooperation with our producer, we worked on it for a long time until we could guarantee a balanced course of the balls. But as you can see: The work was worth it!”

Begründung der Jury
“In ‘Zauberberg’, the popular marble run is used in a new way: it becomes the setting for magical races: cooperatively, in teams or alone. The attractive game structure draws children to the game table and the innovative marble mechanism won’t let them go in a hurry. Here, animated discussions about the placement of marbles are followed by spellbound glances at the marble run. It’s a total package that never fails to enchant children.”

Keine leichte Entscheidung
“It was a strong year overall, with some good games not making it onto the list,” said the coordinator of the children’s game jury, Christoph Schlewinski at the awards ceremony.

Die Spielerfinder
Schliemann and Weber explained that they came up with the original idea for the game almost 20 years ago and were fortunately able to implement it shortly before the Corona pandemic. This meant that the game could be tested extensively by children before the kindergartens and after-school care centres also had to go into lockdown due to the pandemic. The jury explained that these lockdowns had made the development and testing of children’s games considerably more difficult.

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