A while back I wrote an article about taking games with you when you travel (see here) and Nate Scheidler, Organizer of Chicago Boardgames Meetup Group, said that he packs a game called Pickomino.  Well, at the time I’d never played Pickomino and although I’d heard of it, I hadn’t heard anything about it.  This is really the reason I started The Game Aisle; I know how hard it is to decide which game to purchase when all you’ve got to go on is the box art.  So when a game junkie like Nate says that he takes Pickomino with him on a trip where he may be stuck playing it over and over, I took that as a pretty good sign.  Now I just had to get my hands on a copy!

Pickomino is a dice and tile game published by Rio Grande Games here in the US which has a knack for finding great German-style family strategy games and publishing them in English for the game-loving American public.  They work closely with the German publishers to ensure the essence of the game is carefully translated into English and have produce such games as Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Lost Cities.  Haven’t heard of these?  You’ll probably only find them in specialty game stores or on the game shelf of your true “gamer” friends.  Personally, I’m not a huge fan of city building, area control or abstract strategy games and my attention usually wanes after about 20 minutes of playing a game so I’m not a big purchaser of Rio Grande Games (although I have a great deal of respect for what they do).  And from people who like these kinds of games – I hear that Puerto Rico and Lost Cities are AMAZING.  Just FYI.

Back to Pickomino, I don’t feel that it is a typical Rio Grande game EXCEPT its inventor is the prolific German game inventor Reiner Knizia (he also invented Easy Come, Easy Go).  And he’s done a great job of adding in a little strategy and some interesting twists to a familiar-feeling dice game.  The goal of Pickomino is to collect as many roast worms as possible (apparently they are all the rage amongst the chickens).  You do this by rolling eight dice and collecting the highest possible point total — without busting.  The eight dice are numbered 1-5 plus one red worm, which is worth five points.  You bust when you’ve used up all the dice and haven’t rolled at least one worm or you don’t roll any new numbers on your turn.  If you don’t bust on your turn, you collect the tile that is the same number, or the next available one down, from the total you’ve rolled.  (If you don’t roll a high enough number for an available tile, this is also considered a bust.)  The tile will have 1-4 worms on it and the winner is whoever has collected the most worms on their tiles at the end of the game!  There’s also a little bit of stealing and you have to return worms if you bust so there’s a bit going on but it’s easy to grasp and explain to others once you’ve sifted through the directions – which took us two reads, but was well worth the effort.

Ironically, I like this game but I’m terrible at it.  I have the worst rolling luck – yet with it’s great catch-up factor I was able to come back from a 12 worms deficit to win last night!  A little stellar rolling by me and some poor rolling by my opponent and I was back in the game!

The Game Aisle game testers found Pickomino fun with 2 players as well as 4-5 (we didn’t try more than that).   There is a bit of adding so this is a great game to play with kids so they learn quick addition without the assistance of their iPhone’s calculator function!

Pickomino Stats:
~$20-$25 at Amazon.com and specialty game retailers
2 – 7 Players
15-30 Minutes
Ages 8 and up