Art Society

• Designer: Mitch Wallace
• Publisher: Mighty Boards
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Art Society, you are an art connoisseur trying to impress your peers by putting together the most fashionable art collection of them all! Bid on the hottest works of art, then arrange them on your drawing room wall into a tastefully curated gallery that’s the envy of the local art scene. But beware! Fashion is fleeting, and trends are difficult to predict. The paintings that you and your fellow collectors do not buy will eventually make their way to the museum, changing the worth of your collection. In the end, whose wall will be the talk of town?

To set up, each player gets their player board and the 20 bid cards in their color.  A starting painting is given to each player, and it must be placed to cover one of the two starting stars on the player board.  An initial bid card is also dealt to each player.  All of the artworks and decor should be organized; though using the box insert really seems to be the best way to do this.

The game is played in a number of rounds, each with five phases:

1] Prepare the auction – the auctioneer chooses N+1 pieces of art from the supply and places them face down on the table (because the painting type and the frame type should remain a secret).  Once the set is chosen, they are flipped over. Value tokens can be used to show the value of the paintings once flipped.

2] Bid – each player plays one of their bid cards face down, and when all have chosen, they are flipped over.  Ties are broken in favor of the higher card underneath.  In high to low bid order, each player chooses a painting from the auction and then places it on their wall (or gives it to their assistant).

3] Place tiles – place the new painting inside the grid on the player board so that it touches at least one other tile along a flat edge.  It cannot be rotated, the colored icon for painting type must always be at the bottom.  If you place it adjacent to painting(s) with the same frame type, you will gain bonus decor tiles which are also placed immediately.  While you are not restricted from placing paintings of the same type adjacent to each other, this “faux pas” will cause them not to be scored at the end of the game.  

Your assistant is to the right of your wall, and the assistant can hold one painting or decor tile.  You can use this to temporize the placement of a tile.  This held tile can be placed on any later turn, either before or after the regular tile for the round.    If you choose a tile that cannot be placed legally, you can give it to your assistant or you can exchange it for a painting of the same type which has been discarded from a previous auction.  If you cannot exchange it, it goes next to your board as an excess painting.

4] Increase painting prestige – Whichever painting was not chosen by the players will cause an increase in prestige for that type; move the corresponding marker up a number of spaces equal to its value.  If it would land on another marker, move it backward to the first available space.  This unchosen painting could then be used in an exchange in a later round.

5] Round end – check to see if one of the 3 game end conditions is met: 1) a player has no empty space on their wall, 2) a player has 2 excess paintings next to their wall, 3) the players have used all their bid cards.  If so, go to final scoring.  If not, pass the auctioneer’s gavel clockwise and play another round.

When the game ends, you first must rank the paintings.  Take the highest prestige marker and place it in the x5 space at the top of the board, continue to do this and fill the x4, x3, and x2 spaces.  

Scoring goes as follows:

• Paintings: Paintings are valued from 2-5 points based on type; score each painting so long as it does not touch another painting of the same type (a faux pas)
• Decor: Decor tiles have 1-3 shields on them, score 1 point per shield
• Eyeline bonus: in the bottom third of your wall, there is a lighter colored strip (also denoted by yellow markers on the margin) – in this line, any paintings of the highest prestige type score 3 points; even paintings in a faux pas score here
• Full gallery bonus: +5 points for a full wall
• Corner malus: -2 points for each corner left exposed
• Excess painting malus: -2 points for each excess painting

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the highest value of bid cards left in the hand.

My thoughts on the game

Art Society is a fascinating game that has a bit of auction action to it but also has a nice spatial puzzle bit as well.   Trying to get all the different pieces of art onto the wall is tough, and then the added restrictions of trying to avoid faux pas and trying to maximize art in the eyeline area just adds to the complexity.

As with many auction games, I think that the costs will be group specific.  There is no restriction on what tiles are chosen by the gavel holder, and our group fell into a pattern where the auctioneer would know what specific tile he wanted, and then he would pick four tiles of that same shape in order to make sure he got the desired shape (and to give the most options as far as frame and type).

This worked fine, and appears to be legal by the rules, but also gives the game a bit of a fragile feeling. Later in the game, when it is impossible to put out four of the same shape (because there aren’t that many in the supply), we did get some more interesting auctions with more variety in the size and shape of the art on offer.   

The length of the game is also quite variable, again related to the particular size of the paintings offered by the auctioneers.  If players keep putting 7+ paintings up for offer, the wall fills up quite rapidly indeed!  Be sure to keep an eye on players to see how close they are to being able to finish their wall – and don’t forget that they might be able to get multiple squares worth of decor on a single turn if they get the right frame!  

As you play the game, don’t be afraid to take advantage of your assistant!  In fact, I’ve come to the point where I pretty much use the assistant whenever possible.  There seems to be little downside to waiting to play your paintings – you can pretty much play them on any later turn, either before or after you play the painting you bought that round.  Thus, you can try to maximize placement or prevent faux pas by giving yourself as much time to learn what you also have to place in the future.  I’m not too worried about the whole excess painting risk – each one only nets you a net minus 1 point (as you get to place a 1pt decor in its stead).

I do like the well-used auction game trope where the unchosen lot from the auction ends up increasing the value of its relatives.  This definitely adds a little bit more interest to the auctions, especially to the player who is choosing last, and therefore ultimately getting to decide which painting goes to the museum.  We did not see this subtlety in our first game, only realizing later that a well timed “1” bid to choose last can make a huge difference if it helps you get the right color into first place in the end game rankings.

Mighty Boards seems to be making a name for themselves for making games that just look great on the table. The art is fabulous.  I love the way that the illustrators have taken many famous and recognizable pieces of art and given a playful interpretation of them in the game.  There are 116 different painting tiles in the game, and I feel that at least half of them feel familiar to me.  The production quality is superior.  Even the cover has lovely inset pieces of art on it.  My only quibble (and this is probably a “me problem”) is that the game must be stored flat on its back given the way that the tiles are stored in the insert.  If you store the game on its side, everything falls out of the insert.  I know this from personal experience!  But, the custom insert that is built to hold all of the painting chits and make it easy to grab during play is super nice!

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Dan B. (1 play):Having only played one two-player game, it’s hard to judge this, as auction games don’t generally shine with two. However, it worked well enough and the placement aspect was still interesting. I’m definitely interested in trying it with more players.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Steph H.
• I like it. Dale, Dan B.
• Neutral. Ryan P
• Not for me…