Kid Game Review: Mummy's Treasure

Mummy's Treasure

• designer: Marco Teubner
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2009
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/6.64
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $12.00 (maukilo.com)

Mummy's Treasure is a simple yet very enjoyable dice game with an Egyptian theme... it's structured like Yahtzee but the "scoring" is pure Tetris.

Players take turns rolling the five special dice - just like Yahtzee but without all the bookkeeping! - and collecting Egyptian symbols in an attempt to claim the top piece of one of the scoring tile stacks. Match the symbols on the piece & you get to place it on your board.

Of course, as the game builds (quickly!) to the conclusion, you have less & less space to work with - and players find themselves forced to aim for particular tiles in order to complete their board/mosaic. (As in most spatial games, playing a time or two will give you a better idea of what shape spaces you need to leave yourself in the end game for the quickest win.) The first player to finish their board wins; if no player can finish their board, the player with the least empty spaces wins.

The concepts are simple enough for a five year old to join in (roll dice, match symbols, place tiles) but you can also play this is a nice filler with gamers. Game length is dependent on the number of players (it's about 5-10 min. per player) with our 4 player games clocking in at about 20 minutes once everyone understands the game. I enjoy this with or without kids at the table... but it's easy enough for kids to play without adult supervision.

My son & I worked out a system to "gamer-ize" the 2 & 3 player versions of the game, which have less tension than the 4 player game. Read about it here!