Pyramido Review

Pharaoh Mido wants a pyramid. Not a plain basic one, though. He wants a fancy pyramid. Pharaohs are high maintenance. Pyramido has players building Mido's pyramid. Each round, players will draft one of three tiles and replace it. They'll place it in front of them to create the layer of the pyramid for that round, starting from the bottom up. The first round is 4x5 then 4x3 and so on. After each layer is built, there is a scoring phase where players will score points based on the amount of symbols with one of their tokens on it as well as scoring the lowest amount twice. Then play repeats like this for 3 more rounds. Then the highest score at the end will be the winner.

The Good: The game gets more restrictive as you go. During round 1 you feel like you have limitless choices and can try and get all of your pieces out but by the 2nd or 3rd round you need to decide where your points will come from. By the last round, you draft 1 tile and score. The resurface pieces are nice because they can allow you to fix a mistake or use it to score more points for a block. I loved how all visible symbols score on lower layers as well as long as your piece is out.

The Okay: Drafting tiles is a mechanic I love but beyond the resurface move, you cannot do anything to minimize luck. There are 4 stacks of tiles with 3 to choose from. You know what's coming next but you'll never know if it'll be there when it comes back to you. This can hold you back from scoring a lot of points potentially. You also need to be careful to not run out of resurface tiles if you don't have a full layer. If you run out and cannot complete a layer, you're out of the game.

The Not So Good: For a game about building a pyramid, I do wish that there was more verticality. Building on top of layers is nice but at the end of the game when you've built your 1/4 inch pyramid it feels a little underwhelming. Obviously for the sake of keeping the box small it makes sense but I like to build big structures.

Final Thoughts: Pyramido was a surprise to me. I was interested in the game when I saw it at Gen Con and when I was given an opportunity to review it I of course jumped at the chance. I didn't really know how it worked beyond building pyramids so when I understood the mechanics and how the scoring system worked I was sold. It's a fast playing game that can easily be taught and it's approachable to a lot of players. I highly recommend this game. Especially if you're looking for a quicker filler-type game.

Thanks to Jeux Synapse Games and Flat River for providing a review copy.