In Pantone: The Game, the player who is currently the artist chooses a character card, then designs a representation of that character using only color swatch cards. The other players subsequently take turns trying to guess who it is. If no one can guess the character during a round, a hint is given at the start of the next round, with each hint reducing the number of points awarded to both the artist and the player who correctly identifies the character. Whoever has the most points after each player acts as the artist three times wins.

Included in the box are 132 Character Cards, 60 Swatch Cards in 15 of the PMS colors and a Swatch Card tray for easy selection of your colors. All players (up to 20!) are dealt four of the Character Cards. Everyone looks at their cards and picks one to discard, allowing for characters you may not know or think you’ll have a difficult time representing. The remaining three cards are kept hidden from other players in your hand.