Pop Art

• Designers: Jeffrey Chin, Andrew Nerger
• Publisher: R2i Games
• Players: 1-8
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gL4Leu
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Create and arrange silkscreen prints in your gallery and become the next pop art sensation of the 1960s.  Layering a foreground card on a background card blends their colors. Depending on which cards you layer together, you’ll also craft unique goals that score your prints’ colors or illustration types.  Select and combine a foreground and background card from your hand and add them to your 3×3 tableau. Then pass the remaining cards to the player on your left, and draw a foreground and background card. Once all players have completed their tableau, the game ends. The player with the most points wins!

Shuffle the two decks (foreground and background) and each player is dealt 3 from each deck to start the game.   The table can decide to add one or two Critics’ Choice cards to the game as well.

Players now simultaneously combine one Foreground card with one Background card from their hand, and then once combined, place that card anywhere in a 3×3 grid in front of them.  Pass all the unplayed cards to your left hand neighbor.  

When everyone has done this, pick up the cards that were passed to you and add one card from each deck to again have a hand of three of each.  Then repeat the process, again creating a joint card and then playing it anywhere in a 3×3 grid.

Once a card is placed, it cannot be moved in the grid.  When the grid is complete, each player scores their own array based on the scoring criteria seen in the grid.  If you are playing with them, also award points for the Critics’ Choice cards.  The player with the most points wins. 

My thoughts on the game

A few years back, I played Canvas, a game by the same designers of Pop Art, which had you combine 3 layers of cards to make three different paintings that would score.  I adored the idea of the layered cards but the game felt somewhat unfulfilling.  But there was so much potential in the game that my copy hung around the Gaming Basement for a few years, always ready for another try.

Pop Art just arrived on my doorstep, and after my first game, I knew that Canvas was on the trade/sell pile.  It is better to me in all aspects, and it has been such a joy to play.  In this new version, players only make two-layer cards – while still having to contend with getting the right characteristics on the cards as well as the most beneficial scoring combinations.   To make things a bit more gamier, you’re building a 3×3 tableau, and the spatial positioning of the cards can also be important.

Cards are gained through a draft system, and this helps the game move along nicely as everyone is working on their own little 6 card puzzle each round.  I’ve found it necessary to just lie everything down on the table and mix-and-match them until I find the best combo for me.

As with most drafting games, there is the chance that the game spirals a bit out of control if one player takes longer than the rest.  I’d advise you to not pass your cards on early because there are plenty of scoring cards that rely upon the tableau of a neighbor, and it would be best game-wise if everyone is working on the same turn at the same time.

As we’re all gamers here, we ignored the warning in the rules and have been playing with the advanced scoring cards since our first game, and this added bit of complexity is perfect for us.  Though Pop Art is still a cozy card constructing/crafting game, there is enough game in it to keep the game group happy.  I can see this one being the go-to opener/closer for awhile.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Doug Garrett (Garrett’s Games Podcast): Shelley and I LOVE this game. Dale is correct that this takes Canvas’s idea of layered cards and makes it chef’s kiss perfection. The scoring is easy to understand, the addition of the bonuses take things up the extra needed notch when you’re not playing with non-gamers, and it just looks great on the table. We talk about this one on Episode 1062 of our weekly podcast, and will have a video review posted the week of September 20.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Doug G
• I like it. John P
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gL4Leu