Customer Reviews

Katamino

5 star:		(5)
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The enrichment teacher at our school had everyone hopping with Katamino. The bright colored polygons fit together in different configurations. You can 'play' singly, or in pairs. My daughter (7th grade) had fun beating her college-level brother. Spatial intelligence is one area that needs more boosting. Katamino is the ticket!

Our kids like it, the adults like it, and a bunch of kids at a recent sleepover had fun with it, too. Two people take turns drawing pieces and then race to see who can fill in their half of the gameboard. There are a number of different variations on the game, but that's the version we use most. It's probably something we'll only use on occasion, but will have fun with when we do. I like it because it teaches our youngest how to visualize shapes going together. My architect husband has a head start on spacial relations and usually breezes through this game. If you liked Tetris you'll enjoy Katamino.

Katamino is a wonderful game which provides intellectual stimulation while sharing some quality time with family and/or friends.

We all love this game. You can play it by yourself, or against one person. My son (5) loves it and currently prefers to play this game than read night time stories! My husband, who is not big puzzler, is captivated by the game. Friends come over of all ages and they want to play the game. There are many variations in game playing. The blocks, called pentaminos - as they are each 5 units in size, can be laid out to make up a pattern as shown in the book. They can be stacked into towers as shown in the book. The board has a dividing bar that is placed to make the playing rectangle space on the board smaller or larger. The larger the playing space the harder the puzzle. With the bar in the 3 position, there are 3 rows of 5 squares, or 15 units, to arrange 3 pentaminos in to cover the rectangle. Move the bar over one and there are 4 rows of 5 squares, or 20 units to place 4 pentaminos in. And so on until the entire board and all the pentaminos are used. There are also some unit size blocks that can be used to fill the board for younger children. The blocks and board of make of solid wood and the paints are bright fun colors. This game feels good in your hands and is super fun to both play and challenge yourself.

We've had this for quite awhile now and love it. It is nicely made with solid wood pieces in brightly colored finishes.

One way to play is to place the bar by a row number. Then a list of colored pieces are given that must fit in the available space. You can start out with just a few rows open which limits the difficulty. As you move up to using the entire board, it becomes more and more difficult to find the right placement for all pieces.

There are also picture shapes to create (not using the board) but using specific colored pieces - like Tangrams with blocks.

It is a great way to spend some quiet time stimulating brain cells. Easy enough for a small child to make some progress but difficult enough to stump a seasoned puzzler.