Color is central to all Killer Bunnies games. Many game components are color-coded such as pawns, dice, and especially bunnies. Booster decks are identified and sorted by color, and many cards use colored graphical elements to communicate how the card is used.
Color in Quest and Conquest of the Magic Carrot[]
The primary use of color in the original Killer Bunnies game and its sequel is in the depiction of bunny cards, the fundamental card type. There are five basic types of bunny (such as Congenial Bunny or Truculent Bunny) in each game, and each type comes in several colors. In the Blue Starter Deck, each bunny is represented in blue, green and orange. Yellow and Violet versions are added in the Yellow Booster Deck included in the starter box. Having any three bunnies of the same color in the Bunny Circle is one way to form a Bunny Triplet which allows a player to play two cards per turn instead of only one.
Later expansions add red and pink bunnies in both the basic types and some more unique forms such as the Holographic Bunny. Each red bunny has a special power; for instance, the Red Lumbering Bunny has a Triple Lucky Clover permanently attached. Pink bunnies have superior versions of the same power. The Lumbering Bunny - Pink, for example, has a permanent Quindruple Lucky Clover. Other expansions introduce half-colored bunnies such as the Blue/Violet Sinister Bunny which can count as either color for for purposes of a bunny triplet.
The boxes on the right indicate the colors of dice to roll for this card, which then allows the player to draw cards with backs of a particular color.
Color is used in other parts of the games as well. First, as is obvious from the name, the booster decks which can be added to the base game are identified by color (Red, Twilight White, Ominous Onyx, etc.). The dice in the deck are also color-coded. This not only makes them visually interesting, it allows players to identify which dice are required for a given action by examining a series of colored boxes to the right of a card. Similarly, a pink rectangular box on the bottom left of the card art indicates that the card may only be played if the player controls a bunny in the Bunny Circle.
This card can be re-used, but only if the player has the pawn that matches the card's background color, in this case red.
Pawns, a game component added in the Orange Booster Deck, also come in particular colors that affect their relation to the game. Players holding a pawn of a given color can use it to form bunny triplets with bunnies of that color; they may reroll poor dice outcomes from the die of that color; and they may reuse certain cards with the appropriately colored background. In each case, the pawn's color is the key to its utility.
Color in KinderBunnies[]
As in the original game, bunny cards in KinderBunnies come in blue, green, orange, yellow, and violet. There is also a single red bunny, Adventure Bunny, who like all red bunnies has a special power -- in this case, immunity to Safety Hazard cards. While the bunny colors have no game significance on their own, when KinderBunnies cards are mixed in with Quest or Conquest decks the kinders can form bunny triplets with others of the appropriate color.
Color in The Journey to Jupiter[]
Color plays an even greater role in the second major Killer Bunnies game. As in earlier games, the five basic J2J bunnies each come in blue, green, orange, yellow, and violet versions, with red bunnies again introduced in the Laser Red Booster Deck. For each color, all the bunnies of that color reference a particular science fiction television or film property. Again, bunny triplets in the Bunny Circle allow a player to play two cards during the ground play phase of the player's turn. In addition, the graphincal elements of the earlier game carry over in Journey to Jupiter. Certain cards display colored boxes on the right of the frame to denote which dice must be rolled in their resolution. On the left side of the card, a pink rectangular box indicates the card can only be played if the player controls a bunny in the Bunny Circle, while a new blue box requires a bunny in a ship in space.
Beyond the possibility of forming bunny triplets, bunny color determines the Dice Power of a J2J spaceship once it has been launched into space. A ship's Dice Power indicates what die a player will roll to generate values for the ship's Movement, Laser (offense), and Shield (defense).
A ship with no color-matching bunnies will roll the violet d6. A ship with two color matches -- either two bunnies of the same color or one bunny and the ship itself -- will roll the orange d8. More matches mean a better die, and that leads to a stronger, more maneuverable ship during the space play phase of the game.
