Rummino!

We don't have family game night nearly as often as we should, which is a shame because we have a ton of games put away that are collecting dust. Family Review Network offered me the chance to review a new game which I hope will encourage us to "get in the game" more often!

Rummino, by Marina Games combines the game play of Rummy with the strategy of word tile games. The game itself consists of 92 attractive letter and number tiles. At first when I saw all the letter tiles, I worried that it would be too much like Scrabble. I'm a horrible Scrabble player because I tend to get too caught up in making long, creative words rather than focusing on making a lot of points. Thankfully, Rummino is nothing like that. There are no words to create, so I could just concentrate on getting lots of points! I'd never played Rummy before, so that aspect of the game was new to me. I like the combination of the two types of game styles. Basically, you draw tiles, play them off sets and runs already on the table, and try to get the highest number of points. It was a little complicated in the beginning, but gradually I got the hang of it. This is a game that can involve a lot of strategy as well which is good, because I know it will be different each time I play it.

Rummino is recommended for ages eight and up, but even my two year old had fun with it. He played his own version, drawing (sometimes dumping) tiles out of the bag and announcing what letters and numbers they were. Way to go for family game night!