10 at Purple Dragon Games on March 16^th for Art Night – games about painting, colors and all things artistic!
Sandy and Steve are in NOLA this week for a family wedding, but we are keeping the gears of the Berkshire Gamers machine turning smoothly while they enjoy the French Quarter and all the delights it offers. Now I want some beignets and chicory coffee…
 
IN: Sean, Wendy, Quinn, Emmet, Tim, Emily, Amy, Ethan, Zach, Patty
 
ON THE TABLES:

Canvas with the Reflections expansion (led by Quinn) 2021 – Artists collect clear art cards with different art elements and layer them together with a background card to create three paintings, which are awarded ribbons based on a variety of scoring cards which change each game. The expansion adds mirror art cards (which are reversible, doubling your selection of art elements), more scoring cards, and an additional type of ribbon, GOLD!

Patchwork (led by Ethan) 2014 – Two player game of building the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9×9 game board. Purchase polyomino patches to add to your quilt by spending buttons (points and currency) and advancing on the time track, or pass your turn to earn more buttons by advancing on the time track. The player with the marker lowest on the track (furthest “back in time”) takes the next action.

Sunset Over Water (led by Tim) 2018 – Over six days (turns), players gain Renown by hiking to beautiful locations to paint landscapes, which they’ll later sell. Each day, players choose a Planning Card, which allows them to travel through the Wilderness and paint (i.e., pick up Landscape Cards). At day’s end, they can sell paintings to earn Renown (i.e., turn in Landscape Cards to gain Commission cards worth points).

Tokaido (led by Tim) 2012 – Travel the Tokaido road (roughly translated as “East sea route”), one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places, At the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road, be the traveler who discovered the most interesting and varied things to win. Uses a time track style turn mechanic similar to Patchwork (furthest back on the road takes the next turn), so you can rush ahead to the location you want, but that may allow your opponents to make more stops on their journey, as you can only move forward in your trip.

Fresco (led by Amy) 2010 – Players are master painters working to restore a fresco in a Renaissance church. Each round players decide what time they would like to wake up for the day. The earlier you wake up, the earlier you will be in turn order, and the better options you will be guaranteed to have. Wake up early too often, however, and your apprentices will become unhappy and stop working as efficiently. They would much rather sleep in! You’ll need to buy paint, mix paint, work on painting the fresco, raise money (which you’ll need to buy paint!) by painting portraits, and perhaps even send your apprentices to the opera in order to increase their happiness. Points are scored mostly by painting the fresco, which requires specific combinations of paints, so you need to buy and mix your paints wisely, in addition to beating other players to the paints and fresco segments you would like to paint.

Starving Artists (led by Sean) 2017 – There’s no question: the life of an artist is hard. There’s no paycheck to paycheck to live by. What little money you do have you invest right back into paint. And without that paint, there’s no way to follow your dream. You don’t relish the idea of having to work at a desk, in front a computer, toiling away for some faceless corporate overlord. You really want to make it! In the game, paints are the only currency, and each day (turn) your nutrition level goes down as you buy canvases, paint them or work for more paint. At the end of each round, put completed paintings up for sale for more paint and food. Complete enough paintings to stay alive long enough to become the most famous paint-by-cube artist in the world.

Regicide (led by Tim) 2020 – A cooperative, fantasy card game for 2 to 4 players, played using a standard deck of cards. Players work together to defeat 12 powerful enemies (the face cards). On their turn a player plays a card to the table to attack the enemy and once enough damage is dealt, the enemy is defeated. The players win when the last King is defeated. But beware! Each turn the enemy strikes back. Players will discard cards to satisfy the damage and if they can’t discard enough, everyone loses.

Muse (led by Tim) 2017 – Described to me by friends who tried it at PAX Unplugged 2019 as Codenames crossed with Dixit, which seems pretty accurate! Played as teams (ala Codenames), each round the opposing team chooses one art card out of six for the Muse (clue giver) to get their team to guess, and one of two Inspiration cards, which restrict the clues the Muse can give (like “Name a nonfictional location” or “Hum a tune”). As the Muse, you need to be creative to give the right clue within the constraints of the inspiration card you’ve been dealt, hoping to lead your team to their masterpiece.
 
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Sean