Art Gallery, the debut work of the Italian game designer Francesco Frittelli, was published this year by the Viennese games publisher Piatnik. As with the publisher's Pixel Art Memo, the game also relies on famous paintings by world-famous artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci or Vincent van Gogh in terms of presentation. You can find out how much we liked the museum tour in the following review.
The world-famous Art Gallery is known for housing the most magnificent works of art and delighting people with its world-class tours. As tour guides, we roam through the museum rooms and study the paintings carefully, as preparations for the new exhibition opening are in full swing. Who will choose the best route through the museum and decide on a harmonious sequence?
Simple gameplay
The goal of Art Gallery is simple. At the end of the game we have to get the most victory points. To do this, we move through the museum with our tour guide, cleverly using our action cards, collecting painting cards and using them to form rows of symbols that are as long as possible. The game takes place over several rounds, each consisting of four moves. The main focus of the game is on the action cards numbered 0 – 8, which we use to influence everything in the game.
On our train we move our tour guide around the museum. To do this, we play any action card and move our pawn according to the card value. It doesn't matter whether we move clockwise or counterclockwise. Then, depending on where we are in the museum, we place a bid for the painting in front of us or for painting tiles in the museum shop. To do this, we place another action card face down on the action space in front of the painting or shop and place our colored marker on the order space so that it can be determined who owns which card on the action space.
We start our round with 9 action cards. In each of the four turns we play 2 cards. This leaves one action card left at the end of the round. The person who has the action card with the highest card value receives the starting player marker and begins the next round. Then we distribute the paintings and tiles. While the person with the highest bid wins the painting, in the shop it's all about the order of the colored markers. The rule here is “first come, first served”. In order, the players may acquire 1 – 2 painting tiles from the four numbered stacks (1, 3, 5, 7), depending on the card value of their discarded action card. This means that if you play an action card with the value 6, you can then take a tile from fields 5 and 1 or 1 and 3, for example. Any excess card values are then discarded.
Large rows of symbols give points
However, wild bidding for paintings is not so easy because all paintings have different symbols in the upper left corner of the card. At the end of a game, the symbol row that generates the most victory points counts for each of the four symbols. This means that we want to create rows of symbols that are as long and as rich in points as possible in order to generate as many points as possible. Here you have to decide when, for example, you interrupt a series of symbols so that another can continue.
We also have to constantly be on the lookout for painting tiles in the shop that correspond to one of the paintings we have collected. If we have a tile that matches our painting at the end of the game, we receive additional victory points. But even without a matching painting, painting tiles are still worth one victory point and can therefore provide a nice additional source of income for victory points.
Map rotation
Once all the paintings have been distributed, the colored markers for each action field are used to see which player made a bid first. In order, the players can then take one of the played action cards from the respective action field and add it to their hand for the next round. This means that the action cards rotate round after round and you never know which cards the other players still have and which paintings they could potentially bid for. Card rotation also plays an important role at the end of the game. Here we want to have a hand with the highest possible card values, as these also contribute important victory points.
The game ends as soon as there are no longer enough painting cards available to fill all painting spaces or when, depending on the number of players, 2 - 3 painting tile stacks are empty.
Information about Art Gallery
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| Number of players: 2 – 6 Age: from 10 years Playing time: 45 - 75 minutes Difficulty: Family game Long-term motivation: medium Classification: Rondell, Bidding Mechanism, Set Collection Author: Francesco Frittelli Illustrations: Fiore GmbH Publisher: Piatnik Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2023 Language: German Cost: 38,95 Euro |
Conclusion
Art Gallery is a rock-solid set collection game that uses its action cards in clever ways. Because these are used for the movement action as well as for the commandments of the paintings themselves, Art Gallery has a set of rules that is easy to understand, but offers a lot of depth in the game, where you can sometimes get lost in deep tactical thoughts. For example, opponents can be confused by low bids on paintings or multiple bids can be made for a painting.
However, sometimes you can plan as much as you want and it still doesn't work out. For example, it can happen that it is only after your second turn that you realize that an opponent is pursuing exactly the same goals in this round. At best, you would then have to adapt your strategy, which is not that easy due to the limited cards, because with each turn you have fewer action cards and therefore fewer options. This can be a bit frustrating at times.
However, Art Gallery's simplicity makes it a perfect game to introduce casual gamers to slightly more complex games. The basic mechanisms are quickly internalized and the potential for tactical moves is quickly there. Children can also quickly internalize and understand the game because - apart from the numbers - everything is regulated with symbolism. Whether it is thematically appealing is another question. We definitely liked it, both thematically and playfully.
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Piatnik 6694 - Art Gallery* |
30,08 EUR |
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