Review and Giveaway: Rummino game (CLOSED)

My daughters take after my husband in a lot of ways – one of which seems to be their love for games of all kinds. Puzzle games, board games – they love all of them. And now that they are getting a little bit older, they’re much more able to play ‘real’ games instead of just the mind-numbing kid versions that I try to avoid like the plague. They love to play dominoes – even my 3-year-old knows how. Card games are some of their favorites as well. They certainly take after their father in that they love and are good at games that take a lot of concentration and quick though – like a new one that we’ve been playing recently, called Rummino.

What it is:

Rummino is a new game from Marina Games that uses tiles instead of cards to play Rummy. You simply lay out the tiles to form sets and runs, scoring points with every turn. From the website:

Rummino is a whole new way to play Rummy! Combining the play of Rummy with the strategy of word tile games, Rummino is a one of a kind master strategy game. The perfect game for family game night, Rummino is easy to learn & fun for the whole family to play! With its ease of learning combined with the strategy involved, this game keeps everyone entertained from the 8 year old learning to play games to the skilled adults desiring a challenge. Watch your opponents moan & groan as you use one tile to score 36 points!

You can play Rummino with two to six players, and the game is recommended for ages eight and up. It comes with 92 tiles, a storage bag to keep them in, and instructions for how to play the game.

Courtesy of Marina Games and the Family Review Network, we received a copy of Rummino to try out and review.

Here’s my our take on it:

I was excited to see what my family would think of this new game. You see, I would describe it as a combination of Rummy (a favorite for both my husband and I), Scrabble (one of my hubby’s absolute favorite games) and Dominoes (a game that my husband and kids love to play together). I was a little concerned that the age level would be somewhat beyond my 6-year-old, but she reads amazingly well and does a good job with other games so I figured that we’d give this one a try. Knowing my oldest daughter’s knack for puzzle and word games (that she gets from her father), I knew she’d have no trouble with it.

However, I am not the word and puzzle game expert in the family – something I didn’t really think would be a problem with a game aimed at 8+ year olds. And I immediately could grasp the general gist of the game when we opened it. What I found though is that the nuances of the rules – exactly what tiles you’re allowed to play where and when, and the scoring were a bit difficult to understand. At least for me.

The older girls and I played an ‘open-faced’ hand where we could all see each other’s tiles. I read through the instructions several times, but have to say that I don’t think the instruction sheet is very well organized. It gives a list of ‘quick’ rules but then goes into almost too much detail afterward, and I kept getting lost in the explanations. All I wanted was a quick and easy list of how to play – without having to dig through a whole bunch of text to figure it all out.

Not one to give up, I had my husband read through them, and played an open-faced game with him. He got a lot of the nuances that I’d missed – trying to explain the game to young kids while I was first learning it myself was probably a mistake to begin with. After playing it with my husband, I understand the rules much better and we’ve explained them to the girls a lot more easily too.

It really is a fun game now that I know how to play it! The girls love being able to draw their own tiles and keep them organized, and figure out where to best play the tiles in their hands. One thing I do really like about this game is that you can play it with as much or as little strategy as you want, depending on who you’re playing with. And it’s practically a new game every time you play, because you start off and build on new sets of tiles every time. Even my 3-year-old has fun drawing tiles and finding the matches to build sets – even if she doesn’t really know that’s what she’s doing. I like games like this one where the whole family can play together with everyone involved in some fashion. And there’s practically no set up needed, so you can pull the tiles out and play a quick game even if you just have a few minutes. We’ve played it both while keeping and not keeping score – it’s fun either way and creates some extra variety.

The bottom line:

Rummino by Marina Games is a challenging and exciting game for both adults and kids. It’s easy to play, once you know the rules, and you can customize them to fit the age groups you’re playing with. It’s very much a game the whole family can enjoy together.

Where can you find it?:

You can purchase Rummino online at Amazon – the retail price is $19.99.

Would you like to try it?:

I have the opportunity to give away a copy of Rummino to one lucky reader! If you’d like to play this fun game with your own family, here are the rules:

1. Enter by leaving a comment here to let me know who you’d like to play this game with. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Friday, November 6th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like extra entries, you can:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
• Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
• Either Twitter about, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site(s) you chose (one extra entry per method).
• Become a ‘fan’ of this site on Facebook – there’s a link in the sidebar or you can click here.

So that’s a total of 7 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #39 as the winner:

Congratulations to Wehaf (no blog) who said, “We love rummy and rummikub; this looks like another great version. I’d like to play with my boyfriend.“! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

This post courtesy of: Marina Games and the Family Review Network*. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post.