In our family of three, my husband and I absolutely love playing games with our 7 year old son. We're so happy that he's at an age now where we can enjoy the same games as he does. No more Candyland!

When we purchased this game several months ago it was a risk. Our son had just turned 7, and the age rating on this game is 8+. We know that some games for 8 and older are beyond him, and some are not.

What You Get
Tutankhamen comes in a small box. When you open it up, you will find inside one plastic golden pyramid, 6 wooden player tokens (gold, silver, black, white, brown, and tan). 90 gold plastic tribute coins, 70 artifact tiles, 1 triangular Tutankhamen tile, 1 artifact reference sheet, and 1 rule booklet.

This game is suitable for 2 to 6 players, although it's pretty lame with just 2. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to play.

Setup
Have each player pick a token. Then, mix up the artifact tiles and turn them face down. Set the pyramid on the playing table and find the triangular Tutankhamen tile. Place this tile on the ridge at the top of the pyramid. Randomly select an artifact tile and turn it face up. Put it right up against the pyramid. Continue randomly selecting tiles one at a time and placing them against the tiles already connected to the pyramid. You should form a snaking trail that winds over your playing table, hopefully in a fashion that allows all players to reach all tiles with ease. Now distribute tribute coins to all players. If you have 3 players like we do, each player receives 26 coins to start with. If you have a different number of players, you will distribute a different number of coins. Place all player tokens at the beginning of the artifact trail (the end farthest away from the pyramid).

Game Play
Choose a player to go first. On each turn, a player decides how far down the artifact trail he wishes to go. Players can only move forward along the trail, never backward. So, once he passes up an artifact, he cannot go back and get it. At whatever artifact the player chooses to stop, he removes that artifact and places it face up in front of him for all to see. His token then sits in the spot where the artifact use to be, and his turn is over. Every player takes turns in this manner, until someone either runs out of tribute coins (explained below), or all artifacts have been removed from the trail.

If at any time all players have passed by an artifact without selecting it, that artifact is removed from the game.

Scoring
To win the game, you must get rid of as many coins as possible, as quickly as possible. Here's how it works:

There are 15 different artifact types. Artifacts match only if they have both the same picture and the same color. They must match exactly. Once all artifacts of a certain type have been either collected or removed from the trail, they are immediately scored. Whoever has the most of that specific artifact scores the number of points shown on the artifact tile. Whoever has the second most, scores half that number. If two or more players tie for first place on an artifact set, they each score half of the number. In the case of a tie for first place, no one else may score on those artifact tiles. Whoever was in second place gets nothing.

Whatever your score on an artifact tile, that is the number of tribute coins you get to take out of your pile.


Special Tiles

Bag of Gold
If you collect a bag of gold tile, you must play it immediately. To play this tile, you give it to another player and take one of his artifacts. You may only take one of his artifacts if you already have one of the same type. He must give you the requested artifact. As compensation, that player immediately loses one tribute coin and the bag of gold tile is now removed from the game.

Pharaoh
Pharaoh tiles act as wild cards. After collecting one of these tiles, you hold onto it, face up in front of you, until you decide to add it to an artifact set at the time of scoring. It can only be used once.

King Tut Tile
Should a player reach the pyramid at the end of the trail, he places his playing piece on the ridge of the pyramid in front of the King Tut tile there, and gets to give up one more tribute coin.


Winning the Game
The first person to run out of tribute coins wins the game. In the event that all artifacts have been removed from the trail, and no one has run out of coins, the person left with the fewest coins wins the game.


What We Like
We really enjoy this game. The pieces are of nice quality (very durable tiles and attractive wood player tokens. The graphics are colorful, it comes in a nice small box, there's plenty of strategy involved, and we all love the Egyptian theme. It's one of those simple games that also has some surprising depth of strategy that keeps us all interested.


Complaints

Rulebook
Although this game is simple, the rulebook is put together in a confusing way. I had to read through it a few times to fully understand how to play.

Where to Put the Coins?
In previous printings of this game there was a hole in the pyramid through which to deposit your tribute coins piggy-bank style. Evidently, Out of the Box received too many complaints about tiles moving slightly when you deposited coins, and they stopped punching a hole in the pyramid and now recommend folks just put the coins in the box lid. And, speaking of confusing rule books, they forgot to change this in the rule book so I thought I had a defective copy until I called up the company and they explained it to me. It doesn't help that you can see an outline on the pyramid where the hole is supposed to be.

If you go to their web site, they now have an updated rulebook explaining that you are to score by placing the coins in the box.

Much earlier editions of this game were published in a bigger box and had a separate scoring board that you moved scoring tokens along, rather than getting rid of tribute coins. I'm almost tempted to go hunting for one of these, in spite of the less convenient size.


Age Appropriate?
The box says this game is suitable for 8 years and up. We play it just fine with our just barely 7 year old. He seems to understand it fairly well, although some of the depth of strategy is lost on him.


Final Thoughts
This inexpensive, compact game is pretty fun to play with either adults or kids. There is enough strategy to keep you coming back for more, but it's light enough to play when you just want something quick and fun for the family or small group.