Bohemians – I’m Just a Poor Boy, I Need No Syphilis…
When you wake up, it must be sometime in the afternoon as you can hear the buskers playing in the square below your window. Your head throbs from a combination of too much cheap wine, too little food and too many late nights arguing about the merits of Kant over Jung while trying to impress the divine Juliette… or Jules… ah well, they both inspire you to greater heights of artistic endeavour. It’s a shame no-one appreciates your painting enough to actually buy them, but you are young and Rive Gauche and they are stupid and conformist – so goes the life of Bohemians…
Yeah, right, I’m about as Bohemian as a Burger King, but I can dream… and play Bohemians! Bohemians is the debut release from designer Jasper de Lange, published by Portal Games (who brought us 51st State and Alien Artefacts) and featuring art from Tomasz Jedruszek, Mateusz Kopacz, Roman Kucharski and Hanna Kuik, whose distinctly different art makes this a very striking game. Set in Paris in the late nineteenth/early 20th century, it can be played by 1 to 4 players and is… wait for it… a deck builder! But a deck builder with some interesting and thematic twists to the tried and tested formula.
Plus Ca Change… Tout La Change…
Each player starts with their own unique playboard, ten-card habit deck (each with an artisanal theme of musician, painter, poet and sculptor) and job (Cabaret Attendant, Journalist, Busker and Beggar). Each job has its own starting benefit – for instance, the Cabaret Attendant starts with a random ‘Muse’ in their deck – each deck of habits is slightly different and each player board has two different colours and half symbols at the edges, so there is a certain amount of asymmetry to play with – not on same level as Root or Dune, but not usually expected with deck builders.
Play itself is in three phases: Waking, Day and Sleeping. The player board is divided into four time slots: early morning, late morning, afternoon and evening.
In the Waking phase, the player draws five cards and places Habit cards in the four time slots of the day – these could be things like Wandering the City Aimlessly, Sculpting/Writing/Painting/Composing Without Cease or Simply Enjoying Life. Each card will be a different colour, either pink, blue, green, orange or grey, and have different half symbols on either side of the card – eyes, hearts, locks or masks. During this phase, the player is trying to match as many symbols and colours as they can as these will bring them inspiration during the day. Players should also be wary that, though they be artists and bohemians, one slot in the day should be filled with their job – it may not bring them inspiration, but it will keep the wolves and other such hardships from the door. There may be other cards to place as the game progresses, but for now, it’s business as usual. Arty business.
La Jour… La Nuit… L’Amour…
In the day phase, each player takes it in turns to describe their day and tot up their Inspiration – each fully matched symbol (double symbols need to be completed to get anything) and each colour matched card gets an Inspiration point, which can be used to obtain three types of card: Habit, Muse and Achievements.
Habits are like the cards in your starter deck, with symbols and colours (and gorgeous art – I should mention that everything about this game looks just stunning) but often abilities that allow you to draw more cards, discard cards or generally pursue your artistic whims. They cost between four and seven Inspiration points and you can buy as many as you can afford (oft times, not many – you are a struggling artist, after all).
Muse cards are… let’s say personalities… who will enhance your day and your Habits. They are played underneath the day slots during the Waking phase and often have time or colour constraints, but will provide enhancements ranging from giving extra Inspiration to cancelling out your need to work. Each one of these costs seven Inspiration points and has the added advantage of allowing you to draw another card if you draw them into your hand during the Waking phase (it’s a simple fix to the problem of drawing a hand with no Habit cards to fill your day). Again, you can buy as many of these as you like, but don’t let Juliette know about Claude because… it’s complicated.
The last card you can purchase are Achievements. These do not go into your deck, but get you one step closer to winning – four of these (or five, if there are four of you playing) beside your board mean you are L’Art de Triomphe and the game ends – they also give you a discount on L’Atelier board – this is a board where you can store your unspent Inspiration (another unusual thing to see in a deck builder) to activate useful abilities like drawing extra cards or banishing less welcome cards. The cost of Achievement cards starts at eight, but rises with each Achievement purchased – impressing your peers is in a different league from charming the masses. The fact that the cost rises with each Achievement can really upset your competitor’s plans… but all’s fair in love and art.
There is one last category of card which you cannot buy, but you will probably get, being the aspiring artist that you are – Hardship cards. Remember I said that you have to do your job? Well, sometimes you get so involved with your art that you forget to go begging in Montmartre, so you don’t get the handful of centimes needed to rent your garret… and you get a Hardship card. Look, you can’t have the rainbow without the rain, can you? Hardship cards are probably the most thematic of the game with the most staggering art (nightmare surreal) and the reason why this game has a 14+ rating, though if you want to explain what Syphilis is to an eight-year-old and why its effect is find another Syphilis card in the deck and give it to another player, then so be it. Other cards are similarly down to earth – Homelessness, Malnutrition, Mania, Opium Addiction – and each will have its forfeit, from not being able to play Muse cards to only being able to buy Achievements, though some can work with the habit cards to your advantage.
Though I may be controversial here, I really like this mechanic – it captures the ‘everything is beauty and truth until I’m living under a bridge with nothing but an empty bottle of absinthe for company’ honesty of what being an artist really means. And you will get Hardship cards, because as you race to get those four Achievements, you will have to forego everything to get that recognition… that is the tragedy and the ecstasy… (and Jasper, if you are reading this, would you consider this as a title for your first expansion?)
In the Sleep phase, everyone clears their player board of played cards and the player marker is passed to the next player, who also gets to remove one card from either the Habit or Muse market… then it’s time to wake again. Will the next day bring La Gloire de Mon Pere or Le Mythe de Sisyphe? Seulement temp connaitre…
Seul Encore, Naturellement
Way back at the beginning, I said that this is a one to four player game and indeed it is, with quite an interesting yet simple solo mode. You can decide to just play it as a standard game, trying to gain five Achievements but with the difference that you discard an Achievement card every turn – if you discard all Achievements first, you lose. But where is the fun in that when you can take on the demands and temptations of the Time Spirits
Out of the box, there are three Time Spirits – Claws of Decadence, Wheels of Industry and Chains of Decency – which each have a different mode of play and different win and loss conditions. It essentially turns a deck builder into a boss battler, only here the boss is literally The Boss.
This is not a race for Achievements anymore, so you won’t use these, and each of the Time Spirits will be able to load up your deck with even more Hardships than before, which could be problematic as, if you have six or more hardships in your routine at any one time, you lose immediately.
I’m not going to say too much about the Time Spirits as a) I don’t want to do any spoilers and 2) I haven’t played them all yet, but they will usually have forfeits that you have to overcome through inspiration and a much more pricey action to perform to bring the whole thing crashing to the ground – for instance, the Wheels of Industry will have a forfeit appear every turn, depending on the top Habit card of the market – if another card of that colour is revealed on following turns, it will being a Hardship card, so it is up to the player to keep these wheels out of play by paying five Inspiration or risk being overwhelmed by hardships – no one ever said it was going to be easy, but when was anything easy ever worth fighting for?
Je T’Aime ou Moi Non Plus?
Bohemians is undoubtedly a good-looking game, with four artists working together to give the whole production a really enticing look, and I am a sucker for a good looking game (Carl Chudyk gets a pass because his games are so good). It is also a very enjoyable game to play – matching and combo-ing to your heart’s content while narrating your own Parisienne days – and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. And this may be a deal breaker for some. Sure, this is a playful puzzler, but it is a deck builder and a fairly pure deck builder despite its matching mechanic (which is also used in After Us, but is a bit more developed here) so it will not go too deep, and compared to other thematically artistic arty games like Luthier or Lacrimosa it feels a bit light. But you don’t always want to compose a magnificent octopus.
The lightness may affect its longevity, for sure. What I would say is that there is a lot of non-threatening asymmetry, an interesting approach to solo play and a lot of room for expansion. The Achievements could provide more variety; the different symbols could have more relevance; there could be additional work abilities that are in effect throughout the game. All these things are doable and would just add a bit more spice to the game. Still, that’s just my opinion, and I enjoy it as it is. For now.
So, there you go: Moulin Rouge meets Puzzle Fighter with a dash of gallic charm. Alons-y!
