Art-themed board games are somewhat underrepresented in the smorgasbord of titles available to us, so I approached Old Masters by Keep Exploring Games, also known as Colors of Paris, with some excitement.
At first glance, it looks very pretty and not overly complicated, as many games are wont to be. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you’re looking for an accessible game, this fits the bill. Suitable for friends and family, game time clocks in at an hour or less, depending on player count. It’s quick to set up and tidy away, with instructions that are clear and concise.
Art-themed board games are somewhat underrepresented in the smorgasbord of titles available to us, so I approached Old Masters by Keep Exploring Games, also known as Colors of Paris, with some excitement.
At first glance, it looks very pretty and not overly complicated, as many games are wont to be. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you’re looking for an accessible game, this fits the bill. Suitable for friends and family, game time clocks in at an hour or less, depending on player count. It’s quick to set up and tidy away, with instructions that are clear and concise.
Old Masters is a worker placement game in which you play as painters in Paris, participating in a friendly competition. The game ends when one player has completed two paintings. Prestige points are totted up, and the highest score wins.
Components
Each player has a double-layered cardboard mat, with recesses for your tool markers and pigments (see Gameplay for more details), and a space for prestige points. These are good quality. The communal play board is of similar construct, with a rondel in the middle that rotates each turn, and meeples are wooden with a nice tactile feel. My favourite touch is the little easels on which you display the paintings, which adds to the theme. The numerous pigments are plastic cubes, which are decent, and the painting cards are aesthetically pleasing.
Gameplay
Each player takes it in turns to place a meeple on the communal board until all have been placed, then the actions are carried out one at a time. To complete your paintings, you need to acquire pigments – three of the spaces on the board allow you to take primary colours. Other actions allow you to acquire paintings, paint your pigments onto them, mix secondary colours (required for the higher point value artwork) or upgrade the paint, palette, or paintbrush tools.
Improving these allows you to gain more primary colours in a single action, mix more secondary ones, or paint more pigments onto your paintings. There are also bonus prestige points and extra meeples available the further you head up these tool tracks. A final action on the lower section of the board gives you the option to combine each of the secondary colours for a black pigment cube, worth six points. Upper board actions allow for – among other things – the gaining of white cubes, which can be used in addition or in place of coloured pigments for upgrading tools, or as a substitute for any colour on your painting, albeit at a points cost.
At the end of each round, the rondel is rotated and you get to leave one of your meeples on the board, where it will be guaranteed to be able to perform the new action next turn. Some spaces are able to house two meeples, but others only one, and at least two spaces on the lower board are out of commission per turn. This allows you to partake in some advance planning to both benefit yourself and block other players from taking their preferred action. Blocked spaces increase as the player count reduces, which works well.
Once you paint all pigments onto your picture, you get to flip it over so everyone can admire the artwork. While you may be the first to complete your two paintings and end the game, others may have gained points by obtaining the black pigments or from improving their tools, so it pays to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing.
Advanced Rules
Old Masters has two add-on modules that I’d recommend playing with once you’ve completed your first couple of games. The first one is the introduction of bonus cards. Instead of choosing the Paint action, you can take one of the bonus cards, pay the cost in white pigments, and gain the benefit. There are five of these, and they typically allow you to replicate an action on the board that is currently unavailable to you. A secondary benefit is that you can rid yourself of some pigments before the 12-cube limit kicks in at the end of each round.
The second module adds in some asymmetry, which I’m always a fan of, as your tactics will likely end up following a different path each game. You slot in a chunky cardboard painter tile to the left of your player board, and they give you an ongoing benefit, such as painting extra cubes, or increasing your cube limit.
Considerations
While Old Masters is a game ostensibly about painting, that is not the only way to win. By upgrading your tools or collecting black pigments, it is possible to acquire more points than the value of two paintings. I’m not against this, as it’s quite a common mechanism – points cards vs. terraforming in Terraforming Mars, or visitor cards vs. fulfilling wine orders in Viticulture, for example – but worth thinking about as you play. I found that completing paintings quickly can stop someone from speeding up the tools tracks, but if you can’t do that, you may have to alter your strategy.
If I had a criticism about the game, it’s that the pictures are repeated. There are four instances of each painting in the game. For a game about art, it would have been more thematically pleasing to have a deck of individual artworks. While it doesn’t detract from the gameplay, it would be a nice-to-have.
Final Thoughts
Old Masters is an easy-to-learn (and teach) game that is equally as good to play with your kids as at a dedicated board game evening. Set-up and tear-down time is quick, and it looks great. There’s some good player interaction when deciding where to leave your meeple when you rotate the board.
I like the alternative points-building method of getting the extra meeples and prestige points from the tool tracks and black pigments, and having to balance your personal strategy with that of others.
The asymmetry of the second advanced module is a nice touch, and changes how you approach each game, which keeps it fresh. This is one of those games that you can easily play to get your Euro-game fix, without it having to take up too much time. If you haven’t got an art-themed game (and even if you have!), you should add Old Masters to your collection.
