Ominoes

About the game

What is Ominoes?

Winner of the UK GAMES EXPO Award for BEST ABSTRACT GAME 2017 1864, Ominus Valley, Egypt — a hoard of 6,000-year-old game cubes is found. No one knows how to play this mysterious game — until now when this ancient game is reborn as Ominoes. In this abstract strategy/tactical game, 2-4 players want to collect their favored gods — Horus, Ra, Apep, and Khepri — in groups to earn points. They do this by rolling custom dice that both determine actions and are placed on the game board to count as a piece of the player's color. On a turn, the active player does the following: Roll: Take a die and roll it. Move: Move a die on the board that matches the rolled color exactly three spaces. Place: Placing the die just rolled on the board, possibly scoring a group. The dice have four faces matching the players colors, with unused colors in a two- or three-player game being scorable by anyone. The other two faces — "Yay-Ra" and "Ominotep" — allow the player to move or reroll any die, respectively, and they count as wild once on the board. Groups of four (or more) dice of a color are scored immediately and give their player points equal to their number. The first player to 13 points (or 21 points in a two-player game)wins! Quick to learn, easy to play but with layers of light tactics. Ominoes is 15 minutes of play.

How it plays

Mechanics

On the shelf

Categories

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

• How do setup and the first turn work in Ominoes?
• When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
• How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?