Art Society product reviews

I seem to be a sucker for tile placement games and couldn't pass up a good bargain on getting this game. Each player takes a board, plus matching tokens and bidding paddles. The first player chooses some of the numbered tiles without looking at the image, so based purely on size (one per player plus one extra) and then reveals them all. Everyone then selects one of their bidding cards. The highest number gets to select which tile they want, then everyone else selects one. When you place a tile on your board, they must touch one that is already there but, if the frames match you get a free, mini tile which is VERY useful for filling in gaps and you also don't want their prestige to match or you will have made a faux-pa.

Given that you can choose what combination of tiles to bid on, it gives good variety but also a bit of planning because you want to make sure you pick one that might fit on your wall but also have a backup or two incase someone outbids you and takes the tile you wanted. Of course, picking them blind means you could get the perfect shape but it would then cause faux pa! I thought there was a really good balance of strategy and random effects in play here, with more than one way to score and a couple of things that could cause you to gain negative points. I think the best part is how the prestige changes through the game as the tile you have left over ups the worth of the red/yellow/blue/green prestige and that effects their final worth.

I'm really glad I got myself a copy and I can't wait to see what our future walls look like.