Abstract Academy Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Abstract Academy, a two-player card game published by Crafty Games. In Abstract Academy, players are trying to score the most points by playing cards into a grid.

Back in college, I was a fine arts major and received my BFA in painting (no joke). I remember one specific class where the professor had us all work on the same piece of canvas as we created an abstract painting. Personally, I thought the exercise was a little dumb, but on the plus side, it prepared me for today’s review of Abstract Academy from Crafty Games. Designed by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, and Shawn Stankewich, Abstract Academy will have you trying to earn points as you paint a canvas with your opponent.

Abstract Academy is played over three rounds, each of which are pretty similar. On a player’s turn, they will play one of their three cards to the grid on the table and then draw a new card. Each card has several paint swatches in red, blue, or yellow. The cards will need to be contained in a 4×4 grid; however, the grid borders are not determined at the start of the game. That means that cards you play early in the round might not end up in your scoring area.

The rounds ends once all 16 cards have been played to the grid. The two rows closest to each player are their scoring rows. They compare the colors and shapes in their scoring rows to the goal cards, claiming any they accomplish. If there is a tie for a scoring card, the player with the teacher’s pet card gets to claim it. Then a new round begins.

Sometimes a simple game in a small box can surprise you with an entertaining experience. And that’s what happened for us with Abstract Academy. After reading the rules, I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this title, but it ended up