Chroma Mix Preview

Having been in the board game world for several years now, I see the same themes for games used over and over again. Not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but it happens. So when I come across a game with a unique theme that I’ve never seen before, I get excited. Enter Chroma Mix. When the designer reached out about having us preview this game, I knew I had to try it. A game about mixing ink to create different colors? Cool!

Disclaimer: We were provided with a prototype copy of the game for the purposes of this preview. What you see pictured below may not be what you find in finalized production copies. -L

Chroma Mix is a card game of hand management in which players are trying to fulfill one of three win conditions. Played over a series of rounds, players will be taking turns playing, drafting, and upgrading cards and using unique abilities to try to win the game. To set up for a game, give each player one copy of each starting card for their hand. Place the remaining stacks of starting cards in face-up piles on the table, creating a Supply. Similarly, place the stacks of Rank 4 cards in face-up piles on the table as well to form their own Supply. Shuffle the Rank 2 and Rank 3 cards in their separate decks, and deal out a Market of 6 cards for each Rank. The remaining Rank 2 and Rank 3 cards are stacked face-down next to their corresponding Market row. Choose a player to go first, and the game is ready to begin! Pictured below is the setup for a 2-player game.

On your turn, you will perform one of four different actions: Print, Mix, Refill, or Swap. When you choose to Print, you simply play a card from your hand into your Play Area (the table in front of you). Many cards have Instant Effects (like adding cards to your hand) and are performed immediately after the card is played. Some cards have Continuous Effects that will grant you special abilities on your future turns, as long as the card remains in your Play Area. If you decide to Mix, you will return exactly 2 cards from your hand to the Supply/Discard Piles and collect one card from the Supply/Market that equals the Color Composition of the cards returned. For example, you can return a Soft Cyan card (1 Blue) and a Pale Magenta card (1 Pink) to collect a Lavender card (1 Blue and 1 Pink). Two important notes about Mixing: you have to have the exact Color Composition in order to Mix, you cannot ‘overpay’ and have excess colors left over. The other note is that cards used to Mix must come from your hand – you cannot take cards up from your Play Area to perform the Mix action.

The third action option, Refill, allows you to take any number of cards from your Play Area back into your hand. This might seem counterintuitive, but it is super useful! If you take a card back into your hand, that means you can Print it again on a future turn, thus granting you its Instant or Continuous Effects again. By timing your Refill actions right, you can create quite a powerful engine. Another thing to keep in mind, in order to Mix you need to use cards from your hand. Refilling lets you get cards into your hand to use for Mixing. And finally, if you ever feel ‘stuck’ and don’t have viable options, you can always choose to Swap. Simply exchange one card from your hand for any Rank 1 card in the supply. Not super useful in the grand scheme of things, but it at least allows you to do something on a turn when you feel stuck.

The game continues in this fashion, with players taking turns performing their actions, until a player has satisfied one of the three win conditions. All other players will complete the current round (in case a tie is possible), and the game ends. The player who met the win condition is declared the winner, or a tie is broken as described in the rules.

Overall, I am pretty impressed by Chroma Mix. The gameplay itself is straightforward, but the strategy really elevates the game. To start, you have to decide early on which of the three win conditions you want to achieve. Yes, that might change over the course of the game, but that initial choice will inform your first few rounds. There is a delicate balance between Printing and Mixing, as you really have to think about how to use each card in your hand. Do I Print a card and get its powerful Continuous Effect? Or should I forego that Effect and use it to Mix a ‘stronger’ card? And eventually you’ll need to Refill cards to your hand – which cards are you willing to pick up and use again? Remember, a Continuous Effect only applies when the card is in your Play Area, so which Effects can you afford to lose until you get the chance to Print that card again? It’s all strategy, and that strategy is constantly changing based on the the current Market and the cards in your hand/Play Area.

The only gripe I have with Chroma Mix really has to do with the win conditions. There are three different ways in which a player can win the game. My issue is that they don’t entirely feel balanced to me. I, personally, feel like one of the options is way easier to achieve than the others, thus making the game feel not entirely fair. And maybe that’s just me, or in my plays that’s how the cards ended up. But it just feels like that win condition is too simple. Other than that, though, the game is pretty slick.

I’ll briefly touch on components, but since this is a prototype copy of the game, there are probably already changes on the way. I love the color scheme with its printer-esque style – it’s certainly thematic and immersive. The iconography is uniform and it fits the aesthetic of the game. Instead of flavor text on the cards, I personally would prefer a text explanation of the Effects/abilities of the card. Until you really know what each icon means, you’ll be referencing the Player Aid frequently for explanations on the iconography. If, instead of flavor text, the card had these abilities written on them, it would save players a bit of time from having to go to the Player Aid and finding their specific card. Speaking of the Player Aid, I do love that it’s included here – it saves you a trip to the rulebook for card explanations. My one suggestion would be to clearly mark where the different Rank cards are, and then alphabetize the card within each Rank. That would make it a little easier and faster to find what players are looking for! Beyond those little editing things, the components themselves are nice quality – thick cards, colorful art, and already good production quality.

All in all, I have enjoyed my plays of Chroma Mix! It’s a game with a unique theme and familiar mechanics that was really easy to pick up and learn. Mastering it, though, will be the challenging part! I am already looking forward to future plays of Chroma Mix, and to me, that’s a sign of a good game. It’s live on Gamefound right now, but the campaign ends this Friday!! So if this preview has intrigued you, I would highly recommend you check it out before it’s too late!