Colorado Board Game Review

Flip and write, roll and write…anything and write is something our gaming group really loves, and while Colorado seemed a bit complicated when reading through the rulebook, once our group got going we realized it was a very simple game with some really deep strategic elements. In a crowded genre, however, can Colorado stick out and stick around? Let’s take a look!

In Colorado, players will be trying to create suited sets of cards numbered between 1-3. On their turn, the Caller will ask another player at the table for a specific card, perhaps a Blue 2. If the player asked has a blue 2, they are required to hand it over. If the player does not have a blue 2, but has a blue card or a 2 card, they must hand over one of those. If a player has no color or number related to what was requested, the Caller randomly draws a card from that persons’ hand.

Once a card is received, it is played face down in front of the Caller and added to their tableau. Every card has abilities on the bottom of the card, and ALL players will get to pick one of the two actions on the card and do it. This might allow players to do any of the following (not inclusive of all options):

• Gain one nugget from the supply OR spend nuggets equal to a card value to play it from their hand
• Cross off a location on their player board OR cross of a location on their train track
• Draw 3 cards OR discard two cards of the same color to play one other card

As you play more cards in front of you on a single turn, you also get to use the abilities on those cards as well, so you can see how some chaining could happen. Why are we doing all of this? To get points!

Points come from a variety of places including crossing regions off on your player board, catching criminals by crossing off wanted posters, finding Teepees and crossing them off in your regions, and more. The person with the most points wins!

There was some initial disappointment that all the players had the same player board to work with, so there was nothing unique about any of the boards. We also all kind of wished the player boards were double sided so that at least there were two different options to play with. As it stands, there is only one player board and that board will be the same no matter the game.

That being said, the turn-to-turn gameplay is really fun. This game is a lot longer than you think it will be, and there are ways that you will get hampered and lose that feel out of your control. However, it’s just a lot of fun. We laughed a ton, and enjoyed trying to make the best use of the cards in our hands, chaining them together to perform as many actions as possible on a given turn. The game requires a ton of awareness of where you’ve crossed things off, where you can cross things off next, and how other players are performing as there are bonus points for being the first to finish the various tracks on the central board.

I love games that force you to be aware of the things around you – I think this is one game where you want to play it more and more so you can try to perfect a strategy that works for you. I also like the choices you are given. For example, you might call for a card that gives you a set of three so you can enter a new region on your board, but you might actually call for a card of a different suit simply so you can potentially get access to an action you really want. That choice, again, is so much fun in my opinion.

Colorado is a fantastic experience and despite entering a very crowded genre of games, it’s one that will be at the top of our roll / flip / play and write experiences that we own!