Ominoes Hieroglyphs Review
The Ominus Valley is proving a rich source of discoveries. Fresh from uncovering the Ominoes dice a mere 2 years ago, a new chamber has been found, filled with tiles and a mysterious, mechanical frieze. What wonders lie within for the archaeologist able to put the pieces of the puzzle together first? Eternal glory? Perhaps! After all, what else are games about?
Players: 2-4
Time: 40-50 mins
Age: 10+
Designer: Andrew Harman
Artist: Andrew Harman
Publisher: YAY Games
Ominoes was one of my favourite games from 2016. That’s right, in the year of Great Western Trail and Terraforming Mars, one of my top picks went to a small dice game from a UK indie publisher. Now they are back with a sort of sequel in the form of Ominoes Hieroglyphs. But while the theme and iconography is shared between them very little else is.
Ok, so, they are both basically abstracts. But Hieroglyphs uses tiles where it’s predecessor used dice and it ends up all the more cerebral for it. The aim is to lay out tiles into the central ‘frieze’ to create sets of 4 or more identical symbols. Doing this causes all those tiles to flip which, if you’ve chosen a clever spot, might create a second grouping and another flip in what is this game’s big high-five moment. Although since this is a competitive game, you’ll probably have to high five yourself. These flips earn you the tokens you’ll ultimately need to win. Flipping ace.
Other high quality flips involve the special altar tiles that will be placed out as the game progresses. Flip off next to any altar and you get a bonus token matching that altar. Connect up sets next to multiple altars that flip over twice and the game will be firing tokens out at you like a slot machine.
This is your opportunity to feel really good about yourself and the game is in spotting the best places for you to lay tiles each round to hopefully trigger these big scores. How you use these tokens, trading in sets of different ones to build your own little cardboard pyramid, means doing well in one area still leaves you scrambling for the other token types. It is a perfectly neat puzzle.
Ominoes stole my heart by combining a nice puzzle with the most hilariously entertaining player interaction. Ominoes Hieroglyphs is missing this interaction and is the lesser for it. Not that there isn’t any: each player changes the central Frieze each turn, but it’s the kind of indirect interaction that simply makes it harder to plan your turns rather than the rewarding silliness of Ominoes. Hieroglyphs neither asks you to build something nor to take ownership of the central element, and there’s little way in which other players will really know what you’re hoping to do on your turn. You might not know yourself.
Low interaction games work when your own task is sufficiently compelling that you don’t need the extra layers that other players could bring to it. But Ominoes Hieroglyphs only asks you to collect sets. Too often the process of collecting those sets is one of taking what you can get rather than pursuing something you choose: players can lay down any number of a single tile type, which often translates to just playing your largest set.
There are turns where this isn’t the case, when something glitters beneath the dust. Like when you gather multiple tokens in a single turn! This is especially true in the Expert variant, where the grey tile types can instead be spent to manipulate the frieze before you place, potentially setting you up or triggering even more flips. I think. The rulesheet is a little unclear at points.
It never comes close to Ominoes in my opinion. Which is fine, they shouldn’t really be compared as they are such different games. But Hieroglyphs didn’t really reach any heights at all for me. Even your best turns don’t stick around in your memory for long and it’s missing the thrilling tension a race (to build your little pyramid) needs. I’ve enjoyed it most at 2, since more players only randomised the frieze more and made the game last longer.
Ominoes Hieroglyphs has a novel central mechanic, the tile laying/flipping puzzle, but doesn’t have the framework or polish to make for a truly exciting and memorable experience. Get Ominoes instead.
Rating: Flipped
Our copy of Ominoes Hieroglyphs was provided for review by publisher Yay! Games.
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