Home > Categories > Games & Puzzles > Stand-Alone Games > Unikato review
The family game of visual perception, creative thinking and logical/deductive decision making.
Take turns to place your Unikato tiles so that they connect to each other. The main rule is that the adjacent tile(s) to the connector tile(s) must have only ONE feature of difference.
The first player to use up all of their Unikato tiles by connecting them to other tiles... WINS!
Unikato exercises visual perception, creative thinking and logical/deductive decision making, and is great for the whole family - from 8 to 108.
Contents:
• 4 player tile racks
• 27 Black play tiles
• 27 Grey play tiles
• 27 White play tiles
• 1 tile bag
• 1 Game book
Product reviews...
This game I LOVED! So simple when you read the rules, but so challenging when you come to play. Sometimes you can be lucky and draw the right tiles to end the game in only a few turns, while other times we found ourselves staring blankly at the racks hoping we could draw a new tile that would fit somewhere.
The only problem I had with this game was that, because it was 'ex-damaged stock' from the supplier, there were two missing tiles that were noticable in their lacking. Not having these two tiles did stall the game somewhat in places.
All in all, this was a game that sounds so simple you think its going to be dull as chalk but once you get into it you find its not at all as simple as ythought. There is real challenge in here and it captured out attention quickly and securely.
Definitely aimed at a younger market, this game is similar to a number of 'brain teaser' puzzles I came across a decade ago. Tis does nothing to reduce it's appeal for me though, quite the contrary... the familiarity made it instantly understandable and easy to explain to novice players.
Though it was described to me as "...kind of like Dominoes..." it was easier for me to think of it along the lines of Scrabble, since that is a lot more common in NZ... you build your run one tile at a time, and the tiles must link according to a single basic rule. Once you have placed your last tile, the game is over. Simple rules, yet a very complicated game comes from it.
I played this against my 10yr old son, and he was able to catch on rapidly, very quickly running his tiles down to only 2 or 3 for about 10 minutes worth of play time. It was only through some very careful strategy that I managed to win our first game. It goes to show that youth is no handicap in this game.
Overall, a very fun game indeed. I can easily see a magnetic version of this doing well in the "games your kids can play while you drive" market. Even the fact that our review copy was missing two tiles didn't hamper it at all, though the missing tiles did prevent some moves later in the game when tiles were running short and every tile counts.
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