Rumis or Blokus 3D in the US, is a 3D building block, board game. Your goal is to have the most of your color pieces seen from a bird's eye view. Simply, cover your opponents pieces upwards while positioning your blocks in a manner that is difficult from other players to cover.
Although a casual game, strategy is hard to grasp for many gamers because it uses a part of the brain that many games ignore: spatial reasoning. Spatial reasoning is a right brain skill, while logic and puzzle solving involve the analytical, left brain.
The online Flash version only has one building plan, the board game has six building plans including a pyramid, and the interesting asymmetrical stairs. The Flash version doesn't do justice, on how good this game is because the childish nostalgia of playing with blocks is impossible to experience without the tactile and visual sensation of playing with bright, colorful blocks.
Rumis and Blockus are nothing alike and were designed by different People. However the US publisher of Blokus also publishes Rumis, and chose to tie in the stronger Blokus brand to Rumis. Blokus 3D has excellent distribution and you can find a copy in most major retail stores. The game plays best with three and four players.
Tabletop tuesday? Looks like
Tabletop tuesday?
Looks like an engaging video game, anyway.
Softboard Games
When available I show the digital "port" of board games -- softboard games.
Spatialisation
I don't think gamers have difficulties thinking three-dimensionally. That's been the whole point of games since the Playstation ad Nintendo 64. Gamers are especially at that kind of thinking, and also at eye-hand coordination precisely because they are gamers.
Real versus virtual 3D
Narushima,
You would think that gamers are good with 3D stuff but we use Rumis as a lab exercise in a game design class. I played with over 60 game design students and it is a hard game for them...heck it is hard game for me.
You have to realize that when you play a video game the environment and the rules are managed by the AI. Board games you manage everything.
I'd imagine this would be
I'd imagine this would be considerably harder than sliding around the 3d environment of a FPS. Really, humans work in 2d thought most of the time, not 3d. Possibly why adults rarely look upwards as they walk around.
On tabletop tuesday, I actually thought the name refered to tabletop roleplay games rather than anything tabletop. Ok, cool.
Well,
You played the game with gamers, but did you try it with people not used to play 3D games ? Because if not, you really can't say for sure.
nm
nm
For me, superior to Blokus.
I've played Rumis perhaps 3 dozen times now, but have not played the flash version. It's a solid game and I can see playing it occasionally for years.