SNAP Review – Dragomino: My First Kingdomino

The egg is hatching! It’s a cute baby dragon! But this other one is just a broken shell…

We review Dragomino, a simple game, in just five minutes. Listen to the review, or read on below.

Game

Dragomino (AKA “My First Kingdomino”) is by Bruno Cathala, Marie Fort, and Wilfried Fort, and published by Blue Orange Games. 2-4 players ages 5+ can play in just 15 minutes or so.

Like Kingdomino, you’ll play special dominoes into your own area, matching land types for a better score.

Art

Just like Kingdomino, the land tiles are beautifully illustrated by Maëva Da Silva & Christine Deschamps, and each one is subtly different from each other.

But now, we have dragon eggs! When they’re flipped over, some reveal broken eggshells, but some have very cute baby dragons. Each dragon is different, but all of them are adorable.

All the land types and egg colors match up well. Forest and prairie eggs are both green, but with subtle details that make them easy to tell apart.

Mechanics

Players draft domino tiles and place them into their land. Everyone starts with the same “exploration domino” to build off, and the youngest player gets the Mommy dragon figure (and the first turn).

Lay out four dominoes, then each player takes turn drafting one. In a 2-3 player game, the undrafted dominoes are discarded at the end of each round.

Try to match one or more land types along the edges of your domino. For each matched edge, grab an egg token of the corresponding type: desert, snow, prairies, forests, mountains, or volcanoes. (How can they even live in there?)

Flip over the egg to hatch it! An adorable baby dragon is worth 1 point – but an empty egg shell is worth nothing.

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There’s a consolation prize, though – Mommy Dragon comes over to investigate the empty shell.

After all the dominoes in the box have been drafted (or discarded), add up your points – and Mommy Dragon is worth 1 extra point. The player with the most dragons wins!

Expectations

(Anitra) I’ve played Kingdomino with kids as young as 4, so I was skeptical for the need for a “my first” version of the game.

But I did expect the mechanics to stay nice and simple. The game is easy to understand, even if you haven’t played Kingdomino before.

(Andrew) I expected that there would be less planning and strategy, and more luck involved, since this game is targeted towards a younger audience. We saw this with the use of the randomized dragon tokens.

Surprises

We did not think that Dragomino would be so engaging! But then again, who doesn’t like hatching cute baby dragons?

Dragomino simplifies the mechanics from Kingdomino, while adding a hefty dose of luck. As we mentioned, this is important especially when playing with little kids, to level the playing field. It also removes the need for arithmetic.

The dragon eggs provide an opportunity to talk about probability: some lands are more likely to produce dragons, and some are more likely to produce empty shells. The volcanoes have 7 dragons and 2 broken shells, but the desert has 7 dragons and 7 empty shells.

Asher expected that there would be dragons in the game; it’s in the name and there’s one on the box. But he didn’t expect the dragons would come in eggs, instead of being involved in some other way.

Rating

Dragomino is a game that will be great for your younger kids, but with staying power for years to come.

We rate Dragomino 4 eggs out of 5. Find it on Amazon or at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Dragomino from Blue Orange Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?