Board Game: Rainbow Pirates

YAR.

The Game: Rainbow Pirates
The Publisher: Sweet Bros
Time: 15 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Gus, Megan

Gameplay: It's a card game! You've got sets of cards numbered 1 to 7, each with a distinct color and artwork (so like, 1 is red and is the "Mom" card), some wild cards, some Rainbow Pirate cards, and some black cards that allow actions like stealing other folks' cards or checking the first four cards in the deck and rearranging them. 

Step one: Shuffle

On your turn, you rearrange your cards, putting them down in front of you (your "island") in matching sets of three or more, or in sequential sets of three or more. Rainbow pirates just get put straight onto the island and don't join sets, they just chill out until it's time to score (or someone steals them). You can play black cards on your turn, but each black card has a counter. The Pirate Thief, for example, can be countered by His Mom (the "1" card), so if you try to use it on an opponent they can play a 1 card and cancel it.

Islands taking shape

You end your turn by either taking the two face-up cards on the table, or drawing two from the deck. I like that that ends your turn, because it's a nice clear signal to the next player - you drew, now you're done, on we go. 

I WAS JUST TAKING A PICTURE GUS I'M NOT TRYING TO SEE YOUR HAND

 The game goes until someone goes out, which requires two full rainbows (cards 1 through 7) and no cards in your hand. It can also end if the draw pile runs out, but that didn't happen for us. At that point, you score on point for every card in your island, 5 points for every Rainbow Pirate, and 5 points if you went out first. Easy-peasy.

My victorious island

Opinions: I mean, it's very similar to any number of other "make sets or runs of cards" games, so that's not a big innovation. I have to say, though, it's been a while since I've played a game that we could just pick up and play without having to poke through the rules little by little and figure them all out, and it's nice to do that every so often. Plus, the artwork is really fun and colorful, the game play allows for some strategy but it moves pretty quickly, and it's absolutely replayable. 

Gus, victorious. Victorigus?

Keep? Yarp.