Art Society Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Art Society, published by Mighty Boards. Art Society is an auction and tile laying game that will have you creating your own art gallery.

Hello fellow art collector. I see you’ve got your eye on this particular painting. Why yes, it would look fantastic next to the cityscape in your gallery. Well, you better be willing to pony up the big bucks, because a few other interested parties have got their eye on this one…

OK, pointless intro aside, Art Society is the newest offering from publisher Mighty Boards (Vengeance, Excavation Earth) that is designed by Mitch Wallace (no relation to Martin Wallace, I’m guessing). In this auction and tile-laying game, you’ll be trying to create the most prestigious gallery.

Each round, one player takes on the role of lead auctioneer and chooses a number of tiles (players +1) to put up for auction each round. I say auction, but you should know that you are not auctioning off each tile, but the draft order for choosing a tile.

Each player will place one of their bidding cards (numbers 1-20) face down and reveal them when everyone is ready. After they are revealed, each player drafts a painting tile in order from highest bidder to lowest.

When placing your painting, there are a few rules to be aware of. It must orthogonally touch an existing painting and you gain a bonus if it’s next to a painting with a matching frame type. However, any paintings of the same type score nothing if they are next to each other. In short, Matching frames = good, and matching types = bad.

If you can’t or don’t want to place your painting, you can hand it off to your assistant, assuming he’s not currently holding a tile, to be placed on a later round. If your assistant is already filled, then you either can swap it with a painting in the museum of the same type, or you dump it into your excess pile, which will be negative victory points at the end of the game. It’s also worth noting that you gain bonus decor tiles for matching the frames.

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