The Cards

Loco comes with 30 colored cards and 25 colored plastic chips. These all come inside a small box, making Loco very easy to transport and quick to clean up.

The cards are colorful, and since there is no theme to follow, they are easy to read and get the job done very well. They’re not winning any awards for illustration or design, but they have large, easy-to-read numbers and bold colors that make the game easy on the eyes.

The chips are also nice. Fantasy Flight could have used flatter, cheaper chips – I’ve seen ‘em, I even own a couple sets – but they chose to go with nicely-molded chips that make the game seem like it’s worth more than the paltry sum you might have to pay for it. The colors match the cards, so they are also bold and attractive.

The Game

If you have ever wanted to shake a player like a rag doll for a short attention span while you explained the rules for a game, Loco will be like a breath of fresh air. Before play starts, two cards are removed from the shuffled deck and the rest are dealt to the players. On each player’s turn, he does two things:

1) Play a card – anything in your hand.
2) Take a chip – anything available.

That’s it. It seems like there should be some serious complications, but there are not. The only thing to remember is the scoring phase, but even that is ridiculously simple.

When a player plays a card, he places it atop the pile matching the color of his card – red cards go on the red pile, blue on blue, and so on. Each card has a number on it, from 1 to 5. There are also Loco cards, with a value of zero. For some reason, when you play a Loco card, you have to say, ‘Loco.’ There is no particular reason for this. Apparently Reiner Knizia likes that word, and thinks you should say it a lot.

At the end of a round, players add up their points for each chip. The score for each chip is the number shown on the top of the pile corresponding to that chip’s color – if a player has three red chips, and the 2 is the top red card, that player gets 6 points. If a player has four yellow, and a Loco is the top yellow card, that player has no points.

For such a simple game, Loco provides many avenues of strategy. You may want to play your high-value cards early on, to draw out those Locos. You might want to save your high cards for later, when the piles are getting worthless and you have lots of chips in a single color. You might want to build a strategy around acquiring a little of every color. You may want to simply play the spoiler, putting yourself in the lead by devaluing the piles that everyone else is collecting. Until the final card in a color is played, you never know even know when the round will end, and anything can happen between your turns. Careful planning and foresight combines with a desperate hope that your opponents won’t screw up your plans.

Observations

Loco is easily the simplest published game I have played since Chutes and Ladders. But just because the rules are simple does not mean this is an empty game; on the contrary, Loco is a colorful and fun game with surprising depth and interesting game play. You can play a hand in less than ten minutes, and the game provides great reasons to keep playing. With colorful cards and easy rules, Loco can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, and at such an affordable price, is just the kind of game to pick up for family game night.

Style: 3 – There really isn’t much to the game, but what is there is very colorful and easy to read.

Substance: 4 – Simple rules create interesting strategy, fast-paced game play, and fun for the whole family.

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