Los Altos, CA; Paris, France - September 14, 2009. Today, Days of Wonder announced the winners of the Small World Design Contest. Over 250 aspiring game designers submitted 702 different entries in response to the call for new additions to the Small World board game. The team of judges was so pleased by the high quality of the entries, instead of a single prize, they have awarded: 1 Special Prize, 3 Grand Prizes, and 9 Secondary Prizes.

The Special Prize goes to Laurent Verrier of France who has been awarded a publishing contract for creating Tales and Legends of Small World. Days of Wonder will publish this unique design in 2010 as a separate expansion.

The Grand Prize winners are: Jörg Krismann of Germany who produced two new races, White Ladies & Kobolds; Paolo Mori of Italy, who developed the Cursed! Special Power; and Jason Oman of Australia, who created a new race of Priestesses. Each of them will witness the debut of their newly published creations this October, with an all expenses paid trip to the Essen Spiel Game Fair in Germany.

An additional 9 Secondary prizes have also been awarded and will be published along with the Grand Prize winners. Those prizes go to: Gustav Åkerfelt of Finland (Goblins); Philip Harding of Australia (Were-); Leif Steiestol of Canada (Hordes of); Daniel Zielinski of USA (Marauding); Travis Lauro of USA (Ransacking); Clay Blankenship of USA (Gypsies); Blaise Hanczar of France (Peace-Loving); Mike Haverty of USA (Historian); and Michael Ormesher of UK (Leaders). Each of them will receive complete published sets of their work and €100/$150 in cash.

The Grand and Secondary Prize entries will be released in 3 different Small World mini-expansions this year. The first two expansions will debut at Essen. The Grand Dames of Small World will feature the Priestesses, White Ladies, and Gypsies, along with Historian and Peace-loving Special Powers. Cursed! introduces the Kobolds and Goblin races along with 5 Special Powers: Cursed, Hordes of, Marauding, Ransacking, and Were-. Both of these Small World mini-expansions will be available for sale at Essen and shortly after in game stores around the world for the MSRP of $10/€8.

The Leaders of Small World is a special game play option that players can choose when picking a new Race/Special Action Combo. The Leaders expansion will be sent free of charge, as a thank you to all those who submitted an entry in the Small World Design Contest. Small World fans worldwide who did not enter the contest will also be able to get a copy exclusively from BoardGameGeek.com in November for a small shipping and handling fee.

About Days of Wonder

Days of Wonder publishes top-quality, family-oriented board and online games that are easy to learn and fun to play. Founded in 2002, Days of Wonder has a global presence, with offices in the US and Europe, and distribution in 25 countries. To date, the company has sold over 1.7 million board games and hosted over 17 million games online. In June 2004, Days of Wonder became the youngest publisher ever to win Germany's prestigious Spiel des Jahres, the world's most coveted game prize.