Rummikub family game review

Rummikub is a game where you make lines of different coloured number tiles and then group them into pleasing patterns. No, you haven’t been transported back to preschool but you are playing the brain burning family game Rummikub.

In Rummikub you must get rid of all the tiles in your hand, which have a number from 1 to 13 and a colour (either red, green, blue or black). To get rid of tiles you must place them into the communal centre of the table by putting down sets of groups or runs, that are at least three tiles big. A group is a set of tiles that all have the same number on them all with different colours but a run is where you have a group of consecutive numbers all in the same colour. If you can’t do anything on your turn you have to take another tile from the bag and your turn is over (a punishment so bad it almost rivals standing on Lego). However not all hope is lost as, if you can add tiles on to the pre-existing sets in the centre of the table or shuffle all the tiles about to make new sets of groups or runs that you can add to, you can escape this terrible punishment.

This game does one thing very well, the feeling you get when figure out how to shuffle all the tiles, into new groups or runs ,to let you add more tiles from your hand, is amazing. This game gives you the power to feel very clever and at the end of the game when more people have put down more tiles, you have even more ways to organize them to your liking. This however can sometimes slow the game down to a standstill as people are overwhelmed by all the different methods of manipulating the tiles that they could take.

However, this is slightly overshadowed by the fact that if you want to even start shuffling tiles around (which is the fun part) to start with, you must collect tiles at the start by randomly pulling out of a bag to make sets and runs that add up to 30 points or more. This means almost every game one person is unlucky enough to not get the tiles that lets them get to the 30-point threshold and so have to sit most of the game out just drawing tiles.

Also, while Rummikub excels in the mid-game it can really loses its pace towards the end. The game leads up to a slightly anti-climatic end where everyone is trying to get rid of those last few, hard to place, tiles in their hand and so everything stagnates. Like me in a running race, it starts of strong but by the second lap it can barely crawl across the finishing line.

But Rummikub’s saving grace is how simple and accessible it is to teach and play. I have many fond memories of playing this with my Grandma who would normally not touch board games with a barge pole. It is a game that practically anyone and everyone can learn to play which is a major plus in my books.

Overall, while not the best game in the world, Rummikub shines through with its easy to play nature and gives you the tools to craft incredible gaming moments. If this review appealed to you then I would definitely give Rummikub a go and see where it takes you.