Rainbow Car

Some things about Team Gem Room: we watch a lot of the cartoon Bluey with our kids, and last year we drove close to 3,000 miles in about two weeks.

In one episode, Bluey’s kid sister plays a car game of looking for cars in every color.

We had a lot of time to generate and playtest rules in those 3,000 miles. We had time to play again last week, when we drove another 300 miles.

Thus, we present to you: Rainbow Car.

The goal of Rainbow Car is to see and call out vehicles in 6 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Bonus points are assigned for pink or anything extraordinary (like cow print). Points don’t really mean anything, but you can keep track of them if it improves your experience. Try 1 point per completed rainbow.

EASY MODE (kid-friendly)

Find vehicles in all the colors. That’s it! Have fun.

HARD MODE (for adults or bigger kids with more patience)

Find vehicles in all the colors in order.

HAVE MERCY MODE (color mixing)

(We developed this mode after 4 hours without seeing an even partially purple vehicle ground the game to a halt.)

Have Mercy mode may be applied by group consensus. In Have Mercy mode, sightings of secondary colors (orange, green, and purple) may be substituted with sightings of their root colors in close proximity. For example: a red truck towing a blue truck may substitute for a purple vehicle. Or yellow and red cars parked side by side may count as orange. Or a construction crane painted both blue and yellow may count as green.

WILDCARD MODE

Really stuck but don’t want to have too much mercy? Try substituting whatever color you’re stuck on with a wildcard - like a car with a different color on every panel and oversized eyes painted on the bumper (a real thing Kali saw yesterday) or any other vehicle that makes you say “wow, now that’s something you don’t see every day for sure!”

WHAT COUNTS AS A VEHICLE?

Well, mostly you know it when you see it, but there are edge cases. Here’s an incomplete list of things that might be counted in Rainbow Car:

Cars

Trucks

Big-rig trucks

Motorcycles

Construction equipment on wheels

Boats

Canoes/Kayaks

Rafts

Bicycles

Bicycles built for two

Rollerblades

Unicycles

Skateboards

Assorted equipment worn by a person in relation to actively using a self-propelled vehicle (such as a helmet or protective gear worn while in motion)

Have fun on the road!