Coloro
- Board's Eye View
- 42 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Coloro is a simple but appealing two-player abstract tile-drafting game designed by Ralf zur Linde and published by Steffen Spiele and Helvetiq.
The game comprises a bag of 36 attractive wooden tiles in six different colours. Each colour also sports its own origami shape, which adds to the game's visual appeal and makes the game playable by those who may be colourblind. The tiles are laid out randomly in a 6 x 6 grid. There's also a direction marker and the first player places this anywhere on the grid, taking the tile it's placed on. The second player moves the direction marker anywhere on the vertical column it's on and they take the tile to which it's moved, rotating the direction marker so that it next moves horizontally.
Play proceeds in this way with players collecting tiles, each stacking them in front of them by colour. The game ends when the direction marker can no longer be moved, and the win goes to the player who has the highest stack of tiles in any colour.
This is an easy-to-play game that involves more tactics than you might expect at first glance. Canny players will try to plan a couple of moves ahead, anticipating their opponent's likely choices. There's strategy too over the order in which you choose to stack the colours because ties for the height of stacks are resolved in favour of the player with the most leftmost stack. And just be warned - there's a high probability of the tie-breaker rule coming into play.
Coloro plays quickly. Most of our games have run to around 10 minutes; 15 minutes if either of the players dither over their choices. It's a game that you're likely to play back to back, with players looking for an immediate replay - always a good sign.
