If you like bingo and Helly Kitty, The OP has the game for you! In partnership with Sanrio, Lotería: Hello Kitty® and Friends is an all-new, officially licensed version of the culturally rich card game! The game works just like Bingo but instead of five rows of five, there are tablas with 4×4 grids with well known Hello Kitty characters, symbols, or phrases. The game comes with adorable tokens and the player with the first with four tokens in a row to win!
Lotería is known for its images over numbered ping pong balls. This means that you could find Lotería tablas in every theme possible from fruits and vegetables to culturally significant items. The game itself is traced back to Italy in the 15th century and then was brought to what is now known as Mexico in 1769. At the time only the colonial elite played it but it began to gain popularity at Mexican fairs.
It was further popularized and spread through publication in 1887 by Don Clemente Jacques! This article by Teresa Villegas has a longer history with images of really famous Lotería tablas. When the caller (singer) would draw a card, they would sing or recite a verse that was associated with the image.
What’s in the box?
Lotería comes with 54 cards to call out during the game, 12 tablas for up to 12 players, 100 tokens, and a rule sheet.
Everything in this version is really high quality and well printed. The art is as always super cute, bright, and just happy! Plus the game is incredibly portable so you can play it anywhere with anyone. I just stuck all the tokens in a bag.
Some of the cards are fan favorites like Keroppi™, Chococat™, and My Melody™. Character names accommodate different objects so you can easily identify desserts, vehicles, and more thanks to Tuxedosam™ Cucurucho de Helado (TuxedoSam ice cream cone), Hello Kitty Hamburguesa (Hello Kitty hamburger) and Pompompurin™ Café Camioneta (Pompompurin Café Truck)! When the a player has a winning patter, you yell Supercute, which I think is just delightful.
Each player starts with one tabla. One player is the caller (traditionally called the singer) for the round and draws cards one by one to announce to the players. The first player with four tokens in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row, squared pattern, or all four corners must shout Supercute and is the winner!
You can also play by creating a verse or riddle about the image on the drawn card which requires players to guess what the card is and then to place a token on a corresponding space. Drawn cards are placed together so when Supercute is called, the group can see if they understood the riddles properly!
This game is just a whole lot of fun for kids and great for those of us who have Hello Kitty love. Even if you don’t know much about the universe though it’s great and the cards have Spanish on them so you learn something new!
The game also fits perfectly into The OP’s line-up with Monopoly: Hello Kitty and Friends and they even have a 1000 piece puzzle!
Loteria: Hello Kitty® and Friends is for 2-12 players, ages 4 and up and you can pick it up from The Op’s online shop or your local game store for $19.99!
Images and review copy courtesy of The OP
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