Match Me!: What color is this?
Match Me!: What color is this? Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
90 Color cards (15 cards for each): Red, Orange, Yellow, Lime, Green, Pale Blue, Blue, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, Gray, White, Silver, Gold.
40 Subject cards. Each Subject card shows a number and a genre (for example, "01. Plant"; the component illustration marks these as "The number, and the genre"), followed by four Topic lines.
The components illustration also shows a black card printed "Question Card". The rulebook gives no text for it.
Set-up
Each player receives 15 Color cards with the same color on the back. Unused Color cards are put back in the box.
One player chooses 5 cards from their 15 Color cards at random, and places them face up. All players pick out the same 5 Color cards, and all discard them back to the box, leaving 10 matching Color cards in each player's hand. The rulebook illustrates these discarded cards as "These cards are back to the box."
The Subject cards are shuffled and placed face-down in the center of the table as a draw pile.
Each Subject card has four levels of Topics, numbered 1 to 4. The no. 1 Topics are easy, and get harder through to the no. 4 Topics, which are difficult.
The rulebook's example card lists these Topics, with the easiest at the top:
- Flower
- Vegetable
- Plant
- Tree
The start player is the one with a color in their name. If no-one fits, choose a start player randomly.
Rules of the game
The start player is the turn player. The turn player will advance clockwise each turn.
The turn player draws a Subject card and places it face up near the pile. If the turn player doesn't like the Subject card, they can draw again (once only in a turn), putting the next Subject card on top of the previous.
The turn player reads out loud the first Topic line on the Subject card, and then says a word or short phrase related to that Topic. For example, if the Topic is "Stationery", the turn player might choose to say "Pencil".
CAUTION: The turn player cannot use a word with a color. So for the Topic "Music", they cannot say "the Blues" for example, or for the Topic "Stationery" they cannot say "Red pencil".
When a new game starts, the first turn player chooses a level no. 1 Topic for the first turn. Each turn following, the new turn player should choose the next level Topic. For the final turn, the turn player should stay on level no. 4 Topic.
The rulebook shows an example Subject card (genre 21, "Tool") with the four levels of Topic, the first being "Stationery", the second "Interior", the third "Cookware" and the fourth "Tool".
The rulebook illustrates five example cards, each with one Topic circled as the one the turn player would read out. Each card's four Topics are listed here in order, with the circled Topic marked in bold:
- First card: Stationery, Interior, Cookware, Tool
- Second card: Entertainer/Comedian, Sports player, Author, Artist
- Third card: Resort, Summer Resort, Amusement park, Festival
- Fourth card: Thing in a house, Thing in a school, Thing in an amusement park, Thing in a business
- Fifth card: Liquid, Gas, Gel, Granules
Now all the players, including the turn player, play one Color card from their hand face-down in front of them. The chosen Color cards stay face-down on the table in front of each player.
CAUTION: The players must leave their played cards alone. They cannot swap played cards with hand cards. They cannot change the order of played cards.
Going clockwise, the next player is the turn player, and continues as above by drawing a Subject card. The turn player puts it face-up next to the previous Subject card, reads out the Topic and says a matching word or phrase. All the players choose a Color card face-down, placing it to the right of the previous face-down card.
In this way, the game plays out over five turns. By the game end, each player will have a line of five face-down Color cards in front of them.
Special Subject cards
Some special cards are included in the Subject cards.
- For example, for the Topic "Humming" on card "29. Music", the player hums any music instead of choosing a spoken word.
- For the Topic "Word symbols (Accents)" on card "36. Literature", the player says or writes symbols like "+", "-", "!", "?", or accents like " ´ " or an umlaut and so on.
- For the Topic "40. Players" where it says "1-4. One of the players in this game", the turn player chooses any player at the table and says their name out loud. The level on the card doesn't matter, it's all the same for this card.
End of the game
The game ends once 5 Color cards are played. Now all the players turn up their face-down Color cards one by one, to check with each other. If all the players played the same colors in the same order, the players win the game. Congratulations!
If there is even one mismatched color, the players all lose the game.
Work together and win the game!
Variant for the level
Agree one Topic level for the whole game (playing five turns at no. 4 is very hard!).
Change the number of Color cards players can hold. Does having fewer colors to choose from make it easier or harder?