Your art gallery is expanding! As the curator, you have fine taste in art, but for the gallery to succeed you'll need to pay close attention to what your visitors want to see.
Build out your art gallery with new exhibits, based on the categories your visitors are most interested in: abstract, landscape, portrait, or still life. With enough prestige, you can earn the right for your gallery to display famous masterpieces!
Components
- 32 Starting Exhibit Cards
- 48 Main Exhibit Cards
- 20 Masterpiece Tokens
- 45 Visitor Pawns
- 65 Prestige Tokens
- Instructions
Object of the Game
In ArtSee, the curator with the most prestigious gallery wins.
Anatomy of a Card
A The individual art pieces in this exhibit. Each exhibit has two or three individual art pieces, each of a different category.
B This exhibit's featured category of art: abstract, landscape, portrait, or still life. The featured category is indicated by the background colors in the exhibit. The card back also indicates the featured category.
C The arrow indicating which adjacent column (left or right) will score when you add this exhibit to your gallery.
D The area for this exhibit's visitors. Each exhibit can hold any number of your visitors.
Important: The fronts of the exhibit cards in your hand remain hidden from your opponents until you play them. The card backs, however, must remain visible to your opponents at all times.
Clever players will use this information to their advantage, paying close attention to what cards you could play.
Setup
1 Separate the exhibit cards into two decks: the starting exhibit deck (black borders) and the main exhibit deck (white borders). Shuffle each deck separately.
2 From the starting exhibit deck, deal each player two cards to form the start of their gallery. These cards should be placed face up in front of the player, side by side.
3 From the starting exhibit deck, deal each player three cards to form their hand. The card fronts should remain hidden from opponents until played, but the card backs must remain visible at all times.
4 Return the rest of the starting exhibit deck to the game box.
5 Remove a number of cards from the main exhibit deck, based on the player count. Return these removed cards to the game box.
- 2 players: remove 4 random cards of each category
- 3 players: remove 3 random cards of each category
- 4 players: remove 0 cards » 5 players: remove 3 random cards
6 Shuffle the rest of the main exhibit deck, then split it into two face-down draw piles, roughly equal in size. Place these draw piles in the center of the play area.
7 Separate the masterpiece tokens by category, then place them in the center of the play area. Within each category, arrange the tokens according to their numerical values.
8 Place the prestige tokens off to one side of the play area to form the general supply.
9 Give each player a number of visitor pawns in their chosen color as their personal supply, based on the player count. Return the rest to the game box.
- 2 players: 5 visitors each
- 3 players: 7 visitors each
- 4 players: 8 visitors each
- 5 players: 9 visitors each
10 Determine the start player by figuring out which player has seen the most famous piece of art in person (or choose randomly).
Game Play
The game is played in a series of turns, beginning with the start player and proceeding in clockwise order. This sequence continues until the end of the game.
On your turn, there are five steps:
- Play a Card
- Welcome Visitors
- Earn Prestige
- Claim a Masterpiece
- Draw a Card
1. Play a Card
In this step, you choose one exhibit card from your hand and play it in your gallery.
You may add to an existing column or start a new column.
If you wish to add to an existing column, play the new card on top of any other cards in that column. Spread the cards in the column vertically, with the new card at the front of the column, ensuring that the art pieces from all cards in the column remain visible.
If you wish to start a new column, play the card to the left or right of all existing columns in your gallery. You may not start a new column between existing columns in your gallery.
2. Welcome Visitors
In this step, each of your opponents checks their own gallery, looking for any columns where the front exhibit card (i.e., the most recently played card) has the same featured category as the exhibit card you just played into your gallery.
For each matching exhibit card in their gallery, an opponent may (but is not required to) place one visitor from their personal supply onto that exhibit card. If they run out of visitors in their personal supply, they simply cannot place any more for now.
Important: You (the active player) do not get to place any visitors. Only your opponents get to place visitors on your turn.
3. Earn Prestige
In this step, you can earn prestige in two different ways. As you earn prestige, take prestige tokens from the general supply and keep them in your own play area.
-
Check to see how many of your visitors are on the exhibit card you covered with the exhibit card you played this turn. Earn one prestige for each visitor on the covered exhibit card. Remove those visitors and return them to your personal supply.
-
Check the direction of the arrow on the exhibit card you played this turn, then find the adjacent column in that direction.
In that adjacent column, count the number of art pieces that match the featured category of the exhibit card you played this turn. Earn one prestige for each art piece that matches the category.
Important: If the exhibit card you played this turn is in a column on the left or right end of your gallery, it might point toward one of your neighbors.
If it does, count the number of matching art pieces in the nearest column of that neighbor's gallery instead.
4. Claim a Masterpiece
In this step, you may claim one masterpiece token. Each masterpiece token has a featured category (abstract, landscape, portrait, or still life), a claim requirement (ranging from five to nine), and a prestige value (ranging from zero to four).
Total up how much prestige you earned this turn, both from visitors and from matching art pieces.
If that total meets or exceeds the claim requirement of a masterpiece token in the general supply, you may claim it! You may only claim a masterpiece token if it matches the featured category of the exhibit card you played this turn.
When you claim a masterpiece token, you must immediately place it in an empty slot, either between any two columns in your gallery or on one end of your gallery.
You may not place it in a slot where you already have another masterpiece token. If your gallery does not currently have any empty slots, you may not claim a masterpiece token.
Important: Each player may only claim one masterpiece token of each category. You may want to forgo claiming a masterpiece token this turn if you think you can claim a more valuable one of that category on a later turn.
Each masterpiece token in your gallery counts as an art piece of that category. When you play an exhibit card in a column adjacent to the masterpiece token and the arrow points in its direction, you earn one extra prestige if it matches the featured category.
If you place a masterpiece token on one end of your gallery, your neighbor on that side also earns one extra prestige when they play an exhibit card in the nearest column of their gallery and the arrow points in the direction of your masterpiece token.
5. Draw a Card
Draw one card and add it to your hand. You may choose the top card from either of the two face-down draw piles.
If one of the draw piles becomes empty before the other, move the top card of the remaining draw pile over to the empty draw pile, so that there are always two draw piles (if possible).
Important: Since you can see the backs of the top cards in the draw piles, you know in advance what their featured categories are.
End of the Game
At the end of the turn when both draw piles are empty and all player hands are empty, the game is over. This means that the player seated to the right of the start player will take the last turn of the game.
During final scoring, each player earns prestige equal to the prestige values of the masterpiece tokens in their gallery.
In addition, each player earns bonus prestige based on how many masterpiece tokens of different categories they have in their gallery:
The player with the most total prestige wins!
If there is a tie, the tied player with the most visitors remaining in their gallery wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.
Continue Reading
