Coloretto is an odd sort of trick taking game, where the cards are different coloured chameleons that you try and collect in sets of the same colour. This game can be awkward for colour blind players, but there are also different patterns on the cards to tell them apart. The cards are good quality, and although the art is basic it is colourful and considering the theme it would be difficult to make the game look beautiful.

You set the game up with one ‘row’ card per player in a row near the deck. On your turn up draw a card and decide what to do with it, if it is a chameleon you place it on one of the rows. When one or more of the rows contain between one and three chameleons you can empty the row and take the chameleons on it instead of drawing a card. The chameleons go face up in front of you.

When you empty a row you are out of the current turn, and the other players continue to either load up a row or empty a row. Once all of the rows have been emptied you start the process again with all of the players back in the game. There is an end of game card in the bottom third of the deck, when you draw it you complete the round and this adds a little bit of unpredictability.

There are two other types of card in the deck, a multi-coloured chameleon that acts as a wild card and a +2 points card. You can choose the colour of the wild card at the end of the game, while the value of the +2 points card can be huge if you collect four or five of them, especially in a game with a high player count. You could go for the +2 points card as an alternative to collecting big sets of chameleons.

At the end of the game you count up how many of each colour chameleon you have. The first three colour sets count as positive points, and any other chameleons then count as negative. You allocate your wild cards at this point and then add in your +2 points cards. The maths is easy, and there are several key cards in the game that you keep for reference, and show how many points you get for a set.

Having more cards in a set will score you incrementally more points, so it is best to collect a big set of five or six chameleons of the same colour if you can. Once you have three or four of a colour however, it is in your opponents interests to stop you from picking up any more of that colour. This is where the tactics in placing chameleons on the rows is all important.

If one player is collecting blue for example, and you draw a blue, you could place it on a row that already has yellow and pink on it, assuming that the player in question isn’t collecting either of those colours. He then has to judge whether it is worth picking up a fifth or sixth blue when it involves picking up colours that will score negative points for him.

You cannot have more than 3 chameleons on a row, so they fill up pretty quickly. Coloretto has an element of risk taking, given that you could empty a row with just one chameleon of exactly the colour you want on it, but your collection of cards could end up being quite small. It also has some luck depending on whether you empty the last row or fill it up hoping for a good card draw.

You deal one chameleon card to each player at the start of the game, which is placed face up in front of them. This gives each player an immediate stake in a particular colour, and gives your opponents an idea of how they can screw with your options of what wagon to take. A player could simply ignore their initial colour though, suffer the minus point, and then concentrate on other colours.

Coloretto is an intuitive game, and very easy to get more or less anyone to play. It is bright and colourful and players are likely to want to play best of three games, just for the fun of the game play and the opportunity to use a better strategy in the next game.