Farben

About this board game

Farben is a storytelling and memory game for 3–5 players, with sessions lasting about 75 minutes. Each color becomes a clue, and every word invites a personal connection.

At the start of each round, choose one of your twelve color cards and associate it with a word card. Then tell a story explaining why that color fits the word. A word such as “school” might inspire memories of a Goth phase, stressful exams, or an early bus ride taken to spend time with someone special.

Once everyone has shared a story, players tuck their color cards beneath the word card and set it aside. After ten words have been played, the game moves into its scoring phase, when the stories become memory aids.

• Choose a color card to match a revealed word.
• Tell a personal story connecting the two.
• Hide the played colors beneath the word cards.
• Recall the colors associated with a selected word to score points.

On another player’s turn, one visible word is selected for you. Without looking, try to name all the colors played for it by the other players and yourself. You earn points for each color you correctly remember.

The memory challenge works in both directions: you can also score during other players’ turns when they successfully recall the color you assigned. The stories gradually make the color associations easier to remember, rewarding attentive listening as well as creative connections.

In Farben, victory goes to the player who best remembers which colors were assigned to specific words—and whose own color choices are remembered by others.