If you play table top games you know that there are as many themes as one can imagine. In addition to the usual suspects, like fantasy, war, comic book and movie franchises, tabletop games also cover much more obscure subject matter, such as quilting, beer crafting, and pig farming. So, while it was not wholly unexpected, I was still a bit surprised to find several games with an art theme to them. Never one to pass up an opportunity to try out a game, I’ve had the opportunity recently to play all three. Here’s a quick overview and review of each.
Masters Gallery, 2-5 Players
In Masters Gallery, players are art collectors and critics whose degree of interest in certain artists’ paintings raises or lowers their value accordingly. Masters Gallery is a card game with simple mechanics, designed by the famous Reiner Knizia. Players take turns placing a card from their hands into their respective collections. There are five different artists represented in the game. Once a certain number of cards from any single artist are played to the table, the round ends. The top three artists who have the most paintings on the table have the value of their art increased. Players who played cards by one or more of those particular artists score that number of points for each card so played that round. Those values remain in place at the start of the following around and are built upon or remain stagnant depending on the cards played by players in the next round. This continues on for four rounds. At the end of that time the player with the most points wins the game.
What I like most about Masters Gallery is the fact that the game is easy to get into and has a relatively short playtime. At first it seemed like there wasn’t much strategy involved. But after several rounds it became clear that the game is about market manipulation and knowing when to end the round if you can to best suit your gallery. The goal is to increase your values and minimize those of your opponents. Masters Gallery is a game that could easily be played in line at a con or at a pub since it is quite portable. The components and art design are adequate, but nothing to write home about. All in all it was a solid game.
Cubist, 2-4 Players
In Cubist, players take the role of an artist trying to build sculptures out of dice. Players roll two dice each turn and use them in one of their two work spaces. Once players have the correct amount of dice in the correct order, they are able to take the card representing the completed sculpture. Each completed sculpture provides a number of victory points depending on the difficulty required to complete it. Also, some of the sculpture cards provide additional dice to be stored and used in the future or to be added to the building of a single museum, which all players can add dice to. This museum serves as a way to earn additional points, but also triggers the end of the game once it is completed. A player completing five sculptures also ends the game. Once the endgame is triggered players tally up their points and the one with the most wins.
While there are several games which require you to roll dice and add them to cards to score points, Cubist separates itself because there’s a three dimensional aspect to the sculptures. In addition to placing dice next to each other, some of the sculptures require you to build dice on top of one another. The placement rules provide the opportunity to employ strategies that will best enable you to complete sculptures before your opponents do. Each sculpture is like a puzzle, and the dice you roll are the pieces. So while Cubist (like any dice rolling game) has a good amount of luck involved, it does a great job of allowing you to feel like you have enough control because you have ample opportunity to mitigate the luck factor. I think any good dice game has this trait, and Cubist shines in that regard. While the cards in the game are nothing more than drawings of the sculptures, the dice themselves are quite beautiful and enhanced our enjoyment of the game. In fact, at one point during my explanation of the game an impromptu round of Tensies broke out. While that may have been a bit of a nut punch to my ego, the laughter served as a bit of a cushion, nay cup, to soften the blow. But I digress. Cubist was fun and you should check it out as soon as you can.
Petite Pastiche, 2-4 Players
Each player is a painter attempting to duplicate famous works of art. Doing so requires players to mix colors (in the form of cards) in order to match the ones required to complete each painting. There are primary, secondary, and tertiary colors from which to choose. To determine which colors are available to them each turn, each player will place a tile to the table adjacent to one of the previously laid tiles – think Dominoes or Carcassonne. Once a player completes a painting, that painting scores a number of victory points based on the rarity of the colors involved. Once a player has painted a certain amount of victory points’ worth of paintings, the game ends and the player with the most victory points wins.
As with the two previous games in this review, Petite Pastiche has a relatively simple set of rules. However, of the three, this game requires the most strategy to excel in my opinion. And while the strategic choices are not overwhelming, they provide a sufficient amount of brain burn to satisfy even a seasoned gamer. The artwork in this game is quite impressive. Of course, it should be easy to say that given these are some of the most famous paintings of all time, but it is the marriage of components with the art that takes it to a higher level. The game even comes with tiny easels to hold your paintings while you’re working on them. We weren’t 15 minutes into the game before we started channeling our inner Bob Ross. Every time I used white splotches of paint I had to emphasize the H while taking the card. Also, black became “midnight” black. Anyway, I digress yet again. Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed Petite Pastiche and can see this being a go-to game in my collection. The combination of beautiful artwork and simple rules will make it easy to convince someone to play.
Well, there you have it. All three of the games mentioned above are quite different even though they revolve around the subject matter of art. I hope this overview/review will convince you to check them out if you haven’t, or to bring them back table again if you haven’t in a while. Thanks for reading and keep on nerding on.
For these and other cool games, check out www.dicedropgames.com.
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