Remember playing the board game Rummikub as a kid? Boy, I do! We would sit around at the ranch, tiles all over the place paying Rummikub, or Rummi for short. The cats would climb up on the table and try and bat the tiles off the table or if we were playing on the floor, run through them at lightening speed messing up the whole game!
Since I'm in college, and I have to actually "work" when I am home, we don't play board games as much as we used to. It's been a long time since we dusted off Rummikub, but it was always a favorite.
I was on Facebook the other day when I discovered... you guessed it, Rummikub! They did a great job! I'm slightly addicted to it actually. You start out as a beginner player, and the more games you win, the high level you become. You can play against anyone in the world, in fact I've often played against non-English speaking players, but that's okay because you don't have to chat.
The board is set up with a grid, which keeps your tiles all nice and even. There is a place for three of a kind and a place for runs, which is your 1 through 13 tiles. You have your own tiles, all neatly arranged by color which you can sort by runs, again 1 - 13 or groups, like 3,3,3. This is a really helpful feature.
Now, you don't have to play against real people, you can play against bots until you learn the game. You can play with 2 - 4 players, even create your own room, and customize it. You can set it for friends only if you want so "strangers" can't come in. A game cost 5 or 10 credits, you start out with 100, and you earn 10 credits for winning. If you are playing against a friend, you win an extra 5 credits if you beat them. When you first start, you go through credits pretty fast, but don't worry, they give you 20 free credits a day. It doesn't take long before you are good enough to have a stockpile of 500 credits like I do!
There is a timer. You can play on the "no hurry" speed like I like, which gives you a full 2 minutes to make a move. This is great for coming up with strategy, gives you plenty of time to think. There is also 60 second speeds 45 seconds, and as fast as 30 seconds. I'm not brave enough to go past 60 seconds!
Never played Rummikub? It's easy! I won't go into the directions here, but if you want to try it for yourself, the game has great directions built in. Want to play, just search for Rummikub on Facebook! Enjoy!
