Coloretto – Review

Coloretto is designed by Michael Schacht and was published in 2003. Since then, several publishers, including Rio Grande Games, have published this game.

This card game is about collecting sets of colored chameleon cards but be careful not to collect too many colors!

Coloretto is:

• Designed by: Michael Schacht
• Published by: Rio Grande Games
• Number of players: 3-5
• Playing time: 30 minutes
• Player ages: 7+

The game comes in an easily transportable box about the same size as a small paperback book.

Michael Schacht also designed the China board game.

A Quick Overview

Each player in this card game attempts to collect chameleon cards. Collected cards are then grouped according to color.

The goal of the game is to collect as many cards of the same color as possible. The winner is the one that has the most number of points at the end of the game. Scoring is the tricky part of this game.

There is a triangular scoring pattern where 1 card of one color scores 1 point. 2 cards of the same color score 3 points (1+2). 3 cards of the same color score 6 points (1+2+3). The maximum is 21 points for 6 or more cards.

There are 7 different colors of chameleons. Before the game begins, the deck is shuffled. Next, the last turn card is placed 15 cards from the bottom of the deck.

Each player then is given a card to begin the game. No player may start with the same color.

Game Play

Game play for Coloretto is very simple. On their turn a player has one of two choices:

• Take a card from the draw deck and add it to a Row Card pile
• Or take the entire amount of cards on a Row Card

Simple.

Each Row Card can only have a maximum of three cards on it. There are as many Row Cards as there are players.

Once a player has taken cards from a Row Card, the player may no longer participate until all players have taken cards from a Row Card.

Then a new round begins.

As I mentioned earlier, scoring is the tricky part of the game.

Once the last round has been played, players add the values of the top three colors they have. Players then subtract the values of the other colors they collected.

For the three colors in which you have the most cards, you score 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, or 21 points for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 or more cards in that color. Then you subtract a similar amount for the other colors you collected!

Summary

I like this game because it is fun and it is fast. Even though the box says about 30 minutes, I’ve found that even 5 player games can be played in about 15 or so.

There isn’t much strategy here but you do have to respond to the card draws. There is a push-your-luck element that is very enjoyable and players love it.

Happy gaming.