Gigamic Katamino Classic Puzzle and Game

Product Information

When considering Katamino, I am reminded of the two MazeScape puzzles I reviewed last year. They were unique, clever puzzles that I enjoyed working on over the course of a few weeks. Those, however, were strictly puzzles. What about Katamino? Games featuring polyominoes have gained in popularity in recent years. Patchwork was one of the first to catch my eye, but there have been a great many others like New York Zoo, A Feast for Odin, The Isle of Cats, Ubongo!, and My City. My fellow Meeple Mountaineer, David McMillian even penned a polyomino Step Ladder article a few years ago.

For example a Penta 6 is created by laying the slider between the number 6 and the number 7 on the game board (see below). Continue solving PENTAS, each time adding the Pentamino shown in the next column and moving the slider up one space until you have completed PENTA 8 of Line A.

Use all the pieces, except for pentaminos 1 and 12. One of the 2 players chooses 1 maroon rectangle, 1 maroon square and 2 red squares from the small pieces. Along with a large, full color booklet, the star of Katamino is the brightly colored set of wooden pentominoes all set in a wooden frame. The twelve Pentominoes in the Katamino wooden frame. The piece must lay flat and completely inside the grid area. The second player then selects a pentamino and does the same. The winner is the last player to place a Pentamino completely on the grid. If you take five identical squares and arrange them in different 2D shapes, you’ll end up with 18 different shapes. Twelve of these look the same regardless as to how you orient them, while six can be flipped over to create a mirror image of themselves. Choose one each of the mirrored image shapes and add them to the twelve others and you’ll have what is known as a set of Pentominoes.

For even more challenges, try to complete as many PENTAS as possible with all the pieces, progressively moving the slider up to increase the difficulty. This Katamino edition has thousands of possible combinations! Intermediate puzzles start with five pieces and advanced puzzles start with seven or nine pieces. But Is Katamino a Game? Katamino rule book’s board for Golomb’s Game

Introduction

For example, a PENTA 4 indicates a challenge for which the slider is placed between numbers 4 and 5 of the game board: 4 Pentaminos must be arranged together to cover the four lines of the game board. Position the slider on the board between the numbers 4 and 5 and make as many PENTAS 4 as possible by finding 4 pentaminos among the 12 that can be assembled. This sole game really doesn’t do much to change the fact that Katamino is really presented as a series of 2D puzzles, each set within a 5x grid.

When you are ready for more challenges, start again on Line B, Line C and so on, until you have completed Line G. Once the 7 Lines are completed, the player has solved 42 PENTAS and completed their SMALL SLAM. Congratulations! You should try the more difficult challenges! A PENTA is a group of several pentaminos which perfectly fills the rectangle bound by the positioning of the slider. Take, for example, this simple three-piece puzzle The same initial three pieces with a fourth added.

The introductory challenges start with a set of three pieces. After you’ve used those pieces to create a 3×5 grid, you’ll add a new, specific piece and move the wooden bar down to the 4 slot. A three-piece puzzle. There are 12 polygon pieces included in Katamino. Each of these pieces covers 5 spaces on the board and is called a Pentamino. The pieces are painted in bright, kid-friendly colors. The frame is solid, with a grid painted onto the bottom to help you count/visualize the number of squares needed to be filled.