Colourbrain: Award-Winning Simple Family Board Game

Product Information

RACE TO THE FINISH: Whenever the other teams get the answer wrong, you score points! The first team to reach ten points wins the Disney game and gets to live happily ever after. Apart from a few very subtle tweaks across the editions, all follow the same ruleset: read a card out aloud to all teams; each team determines what colour or colours to answer using 11 differently coloured cards before the correct answer is revealed; and points (or groans) allocated. What’s more is how unfair it can feel. Eight cards out of eleven taken is effectively a guaranteed loss, right? We haven’t seen the game won on a steal round before, and that’s simple due to the statistical impossibility of it. It could happen, and it would be epic, but the pretence of a massive steal doesn’t work for me. Personally, I’d play it as play against anyone. But hey, maybe it’s just lost on me. Final Thoughts For all of the above reasons, unless you’re playing with adults or teaming younger players with adults my recommendation would be to go for the Junior or Disney versions – it’ll be more of a level playing field (or possibly weighted in their favour!).

ColourBrain Disney Edition — Family friendly gaming – Big ColourBrain Disney Edition — Family friendly gaming – Big

To play, a card is placed so all can see the card’s question. These cards are double sided with one side being a question and the other a picture which will give the answer. Teams must choose the colours of cards which will answer the question. This may require multiple cards to be played. Teams choose and play their card simultaneously. Once one team has played their cards, they shout “COLOURBRAIN!”, as an indicator to others that they have 15 seconds before the answer will be revealed. Any team who had a correct answer gains a point on the pad. However, should all teams be correct then no one scores and the next question is worth an extra point. The final element of the game is the steal. The team in last place can play this against those in first place to steal eight of their colours for the next round. We ended up stretching the rules for our youngest who loved the game, knew the answers but couldn’t work quite fast enough and just ended up with her cards face up on the table relying on the honesty of her family and friends not to copy her answers, the fix lies in the team mechanic and allows young ones to play with older siblings or parents handling the cards. Disney Colourbrain has a way to stop you having that one in eleven chance of guessing correctly every time. Guessing multiple colours. Simple, but effective. Suddenly Woody’s bandana is three colours, not two like you though. And Nemo isn’t just orange and white. There’s a third colour there too.The only element of this game I didn’t understand entirely was the steal. It made no sense to me, personally. As the last place team, you can steal eight cards from the first place team. That’s all well and good, but logistically it didn’t work every time. If there were two points up for grabs, and one team on nine and another on eight, either could win. I target the leaders who know nothing about Tangled and I’ve lost regardless. Colourbrain aims to be the quiz for those who aren’t good at quizzes. It does this by handing you all the answer cards in the form of 11 colour cards. Helpfully these are coloured and written on so that there is no debate about what colour a card is. Sound easy? Well, it might be if not for the fact that you’re playing under a spell of silence. You’re not allowed to tell your fellow players what cards you’ve got. That makes it a whole lot harder… and massively more exciting when you achieve it! You have to look at what's currently on the board, and what's in your hand, and make a judgment as to what will help get the group closer to being able to match all the piles, and when you've correctly guessed which way the wind is blowing, it's so satisfying for everyone. Admittedly some of the questions are deliberately guesswork and destined to gnaw away at you – “Cripes, what IS the colour of the entertainment wedge in the original Trivial Pursuit? Damn my failing memory..”

Disney Colourbrain | Board Games | Zatu Games UK

The second reason I would steer away from the original box is that of the 300 questions, I would expect only 60-70 that a 10 year might possibly know (literally just went through them all). Noted that the age on the box is 12+, and this is the rare case of a games publisher probably pitching it about right – although do be aware even 14 or 15 year olds won’t get a lot of the cultural, cinematic or musical references on the question cards. It’s bank holiday weekend and while that usually means a trip outside to enjoy the expected sunshine, things are going to have to be a little bit different this time around. We’ve all got our favourites, but here’s a look at some fun board games that make for perfect family bonding time. Monopoly

As board game rulesets go, it’s wonderfully uncomplicated, and totally inclusive for kids and adults alike, that is until you get questions that require a certain cultural, historic or geographic knowledge.