Rainbow

• Designers: Mito Sazuki
• Artist:  別府さい (Sai Beppu)
• Publisher: allplay
• Players: 2-6 (2p variant in the rules)
• Age: 7+
• Time: 10-20 minutes (3 min per player)
• Played with a copy I bought

A restaurant game is a game you pull out when with friends to pass the time, especially with those who prefer gaming to small talk or want to learn a new game and play it in ten minutes.

Born as Neon (2010), Rainbow is a game that mixes the runs and sets of a climbing game like Tichu with the once-around of a trick taking game  All in ten minutes.

We play one hand and score it up, so it is legitimately short enough to play between ordering and getting your food in many restaurants.

The game is in their tiny box line and hyper portable.

It is a deck of 60 cards with 10 each of 1 through 6.  No odd special powers. No rotating cards. No keeping your hand in order. Just pick up your hand and go.

On your turn you may play a run or a set. If you play a set, no runs may be played. If you play a run, no sets may be played. You do not need to beat the current longest run or set, but you must play something legal. A single card is both a one card set and run, so it is always legal to play a single card. If lead with a single card, the next player who plays a set or a run determines what everyone else can play. You may always play a single card and cannot pass.

In the first hand, the middle is seeded with cards from the deck, so 1 through 6, equal to the number of players. The highest played set or run gets the highest number and so on down the line. Those points are your score. 

The awesome twist in the game is that you are playing to gain points from the cards in the middle but the cards in the middle are from the cards that were played in the previous trick. This sounds complicated, but is trivial to do. Let’s say I play two 1s, Noah plays three 6s, and Camilla plays three 2s.  You make pairs of the same cards when you can. So there are a pair of 6s (12 pts), a single 6 (6 pts), and a pair of 2s (4pts) in the middle and all other cards are discarded, assuming a 3p game.

Image by Daniel Thurot – note that if these cards are in the middle in a 5p game, the longest set might take the pair of 5s for 10 pts, second would take the single 6, then the pair of 3s, etc. There is no functional difference between a single six and a pair of 3s in scoring.

This is important because when Camilla played, she knew that there would be a 12 pt pile in the next hand. Maybe she wanted to win this trick to try to capture the 12pts when she leads the next trick. Or maybe she keeps her power dry knowing that whatever Noah leads, she can likely beat to claim the 12 pts.

This continues until two players are out of cards, so no one can blow through their hand and end the hand. The other two will keep scoring points until one of them runs out of cards.

Why get Rainbow?

1. It is adorably portable as one of their tiny box games.
2. It is beautiful with the new Sai Beppu art.
3. It is simple enough to teach by playing rather than reciting rules.
4. After the people understand the rules, they will want to try again.
5. It fits a niche you might not have covered.

The game can be played at many levels, is attractive, easy to learn, and is done in a jiffy.  By now, you should know if Rainbow is for you.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mitchell T: I brought Rainbow with me on a recent six week trip to New Zealand and Tasmania. We played it about a dozen times with a foursome. It is attractive, entertaining, and it typically rewards skillful play. I enjoy card games when the players determine the scoring conditions. That is the most interesting feature of Rainbow. We would play four rounds with the cumulative score determining the winner. 

Nate Beeler: I like to think of it as a small and somewhat clever design for a bidding game, where each hand you bid on the lot that was used to bid on the previous hand. In that way it doesn’t need to fight conventions to get shoehorned into a shedding or trick taking game and I can get my head around it. The design is clever, yes. But sadly, there’s nothing about it that particularly pulls me to try something different next time either. It isn’t bad, merely inoffensive.

Dan B.: I want to like it but I am not sure how much scope for actual decisions there is. I’d certainly play it again to see if more reveals itself but I am not sure I will do so.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Mitchell T
• I like it. Jonathan F., Erik Arneson, Steph H, John P
• Neutral. Nate Beeler, Dan B. Simon W
• Not for me…