Who Likes the 2007 Kinderspiel des Jahres? Apparently Not the Kinder…

Beppo der Bock might have won the 2007 Kinderspiel des Jahres, but if you poll kids themselves, a different game might have worn the crown.

Over a seven week period, Jürgen Kerber, owner of Spielewerkstatt Kerber—working together with the Landesjugendwerk der AWO, the Youth Club Lindenhof, the Youth
Club Alt-Buckow, and the Spielwiese—had nearly 600 children between the ages of 8 and 16 playtest all of the games on the Spiel des Jahres nominated and recommended lists, then have the players rate the games. Here is their top five list:

1. Burg-Ritter (HABA, ages 5+)
2. Burg Appenzell (Zoch, ages 6+)
3. Tsuro (Kosmos, ages 8+)
4. Make ‘n’ Break Extreme (Ravensburger, ages 8+)
5. Zooloretto (Abacusspiele, ages 8+)

As Jeff Allers, who translated this news item for me, said, “Note the absence of the actual children’s game of the year in the top 5!”

Burg-Ritter is a cooperative game in which players are trying to build three towers before the king returns to the castle. Each round you flip over a card, which shows pieces piled into a tower. All the players control a device that looks like an elastic ring with four elastic arms coming off it. Players control one or two arms (depending on the number of players), and they have to manuever the device in order to grab the needed pieces with the central ring and construct the tower before time runs out. If they don’t, the king advances toward the castle.

While I haven’t played the game myself, I did see it being played all over the HABA booth at Spiel 2007 by people aged 5 to 50, and they were all having a great time. I can easily understand why this would by players’ top choice.

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I have not played Burg-Ritter or Becko de Bopp… but you have to take these results with a grain of salt. I don’t consider 8-16 years old to be the right age to figure out if it’s a good “children’s” game! The SdJ Kinderspiel winner may be perfectly good with smaller children (the box recommendation is 5+). With that said, I’ve heard positive things from Dale Yu about Burg-Ritter… which means it falls into Haba’s sweet spot of creating silly games that have enough fun so that adults play them after the kids go to bed. Posted by Mark "Fluff Daddy" Jackson on Dec 16, 2007 at 07:45 PM | #

I like the look of Burgritter, too, but have ordered Beppo der Bock for the girls for Christmas (although it looks like it may not arrive until early January). Posted by Melissa Rogerson on Dec 17, 2007 at 12:58 AM | #

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