Rummikub Original - Manufactured by HASBRO

This game is just fantastic. It's a tile based version of Rummy, the popular card game. In fact there are various card games like Gin that are variants of the theme.There are 104 plastic tiles - all the size of a standard domino. Of these there are four colours consisting of two sets of 13 numbers (1 through 13). And two joker tiles which can count as anything.Each player has his/her own rack which is hidden from sight of the other players. The basic idea of the game is to place down sets of numbers (i.e. same number but different colours) and runs of numbers (same colour in numerical order) in sets of three or more.After the initial jostling once there are sets layed out the fun part comes in the logic needed to freely rearrange tiles whilst maintaining valid sets!.... it can get very very complicated...and frustrating. I'll spare you the finer details of the rules - this is well explained in the rules pamphlet inside the box. The idea is the use all your tiles in your rack first; once a winner is then declared the losing players add up all the values of their remaining tiles (jokers have a big penalty!) - each round is cumulatively added to the score - the person with the lowest score on close of play is the winner.The main pros of this game are that the game is highly addictive but also highly educational. It operates at a very lateral area of thinking rather than requiring literacy or numeracy skills. Do not be put off by the numbers, this is not a mathematical game. I would say that if you played this game regularly its a fantastic way of keeping your mind occupied in lateral thinking that is not often used in day-to-day habitual jobs. Another positive of the game is that its sturdy and durable and lasts the test of time. There is no paper money that tears and folds (e.g. Monopoly) and there is no car board susceptible to gradual wear over time (i.e. Scrabble).One minor criticism is that I don't personally like the new packaging, I think its always good to keep the original colour scheme with classic games - the original packaging for Rummikub was green (as you can see by one of the customer images - that's how it should be!)

Was introduced to this game by friends and quickly became hooked. It's simple to learn, harder to master and is a wonderful learning aid for kids from 9 to 90. We ignore the time limit and instead impose a "reasonable time" on everyone so it's not too stressful for the less mathematically minded and everyone stands a fair chance. Yahtzee was always our favourite but this has now taken over and is an essential for our family get togethers and school holidays. Can't understand why it took me so long to discover. Everyone we introduce it to buys their own and I bought this set for a friend's little girl to play when she returned home from holidaying with me. She couldn't wait to get it out of the box and teach her dad. Classic.

Rummikub is a version of the well-known card game of rummy, using four sets of "dominos" or tokens instead of packs of cards. The tokens are in four colured sets numbered 1 to 13, plus 2 jokers. The game is best played with four participants, each player starting with 14 tokens picked at random from the pool. The object is to get rid of all the tokens in your "hand", by creating runs or sets of tokens. The four plastic boards supplied for holding your tokens (illustrated on the box) are not as robust as in previous versions and I am not sure how well they will last.This is a great game for ages 8 to 108. Includes clear "how to play" rules. One tip: the printed rules suggest you can retain tokens in your hand and not play them until you feel like it. This can potentially give a devastating advantage: fairer, especially to younger ones, to have a rule of honour that you must play if you can (obviously no penalty if you did not realise you could play).

I've looked at buying this game for a while as I love playing board games with my kids (my way to spend some quality time with them which doesn't involve the TV). Father Christmas brought it this year and I was excited to add to our number of regular games (UNO, ludo, cards, dominoes, pairs). My kids are young (7&8) but know numbers and colours well enough and this game challenges them in creating sets and runs like we do in cards. I read the instructions and they're very complicated with counting scores all the time so we didn't bother with all of that. We follow the rules of the game but don't keep count, the first one put get rid of all their tiles is the winner! Both my younger kids can do all the trading and swapping about that the game allows when you've got quite a few tiles on the table. In short it's addictive, fun, challenging and great for kids (who whoop me regularly I'm afraid). Definitely worth the buy, only given 4 stars because of the over complicated rules - but that's ok because we ignore all the counting stuff! Please buy if you want to spend quality time with your kids; they'll love it.

excellent quality .played it at a friend's and ordered as soon as I got home .Already ordered 3 more as presents ..obviously highly recommended. A brilliant game for all ages ...Our 7 year old grandson enjoyed playing and soon learned the basic rules of play. Our 4 year old grandson joined in a game today and is looking forward to playing again !It will help younger children with number and colour recognition,sorting and putting numbers in order and groups etc and with a bit of imagination can be adapted to simple games for children under 7.I have made a drawstring bag to store and select tiles from as spreading them on a table takes so much space .