Modern Art

A game by Reiner Knizia.

Review by David Roe, June 24, 1994.

We've been playing this an awful lot recently, and have come to the conclusion that its a fabulous game - simple yet intricate - easy to learn but difficult to master.

A Quick Summary

The Board

The board is simple. Five artists are represented accros the top - they are named - Lite Metal, Yoko, Christin P. Karl Gitter and Krypto. - Below the artists are twenty boxes - five artists by four rounds in the game.

	__________________________________________
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| | L |   | Y |   | C |   | G |   | K |  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	|                                        |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	|________________________________________|

The game is played in four rounds, the winner being the one with the most money at the end. In addition to the board is a deck of cards, money chits and little screens to hide your cash.

The Cards

There are 70 cards - each is a painting by aone of the five artists - each also has an auction symbol, which I'll come to later. There are 12 Lite Metal, 13 Yokos, 14 Christin P. etc.

The Rounds

At the beginning, each player receives 100,000 in cash and a hand of cards (the number depends on the number of players - eight for a five player game - nine for a four player etc.) Each round proceeds as follows - a player places a card face up in front of him and auctions it to the highest bidder. The nature of the aution is determined by the symbol. The player of the card may buy his own card if he wishes, in which case, he pays into the bank. Otherwise, the buyer pays the player of the card for it, and places it in front of his screen. Play normally passes to the person on the left, who puts out a card for sale and so on.

The Auctions

What makes the game interesting is the types of auction. Each card has one of a set of five symbols.

Symbol 1 - Open auction. Eveyone bids until one bid remains.

Symbol 2 - Round robin. Starting with the player on the left of the card player, each player bids once or passes, each bid must be higher than the preceeding bid. Thus the owner always has the option to buy his own card for one higher than the highest bid (since he bids last).

Symbol 3 - Closed bid. Eveyone secretly puts an amount of money in their hand, and all bids are revealed simulateously - nasty.

Symbol 4 - Set price. The owner sets a price for the card, and each player - starting with the left, has an option to buy at that price or pass on. If no-one buys the owner must buy it herself at that price, so they must set the price equal to or less than the money they have.

Symbol 5 - The double. The player may do one of two things. Firstly he may match the double card with another non-double card by the same artist from his hand, and auction both together acording to the second card's symbol. This is as normal, except two cards are being sold at the same time in a 'job lot'. Alternativly, she may choose to play the double on its own - each player - starting with the left may now choose to pass, or play a non-double card by the same artist on it and conduct the auction himself. In this case the two cards are sold as before but the money is split between the player who put down the double, and the player who matched it. If the card is matched and sold by another player in this way, play then passes to _that_ players left. So a player who declines to or can't match a double will skip his go. The matching player also sort of misses, in that he must play a matching artist - but at least gets to sell a card. If no-one matches the card, it passes backto the player who played it who buys it for free.

The End of the Round

The round is over when a fifth card by any one artist is brought into play. Lets say Cards have been bought as follows in the first round in a five player game.

Lets say, its player C's turn. He places a Christin P. in front of him, thus ending the round. - This round-ending card does not get sold, it is simply discarded.

At this point the sold cards are valued. There are three tokens which are placed on the board underneath the appropriate artist. - A 30,000, a 20,000 and a 10,000. Thus two artists will be worth nothing at all. The artist who's card 'ended the round' - in this case Christin P. automatically gets the 30,000 marker. The next highest number of cards gets the 20,000 and the next the 10,000. In the case of a tie, as we have here between Lite Metal and Karl Gitter, the artist furthest to the left of the board breaks the tie. Thus after this round the board would look like -

	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| | L |   | Y |   | C |   | G |   | K |  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	|                                        |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |20K|   |   |   |30K|   |10K|   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |

All the sold cards are now cashed in, note that the Yokos are worth nothing at all.

The players take their money - more cards are dealt and play proceeds in the second round.

Lets say after the second round the scores look like this.

	| | L |   | Y |   | C |   | G |   | K |  |
	| |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	|                                        |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |20K|   |   |   |30K|   |10K|   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |
	| |20K|   |30K|   |10K|   |   |   |   |  |
	| |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|   |___|  |
	| _____   _____   _____   _____   _____  |

Now -

In order to be worth something an artist must score that round in which case, any previous scores also count. If Gitter scored 30K next round he would be woth 40 overall.

The game is over when the fourth round is ended, and the player with the most cash wins.

What Makes It Good

The real way to get big cash is by selling cards. If an artist scores well, a double by that artist may be worth anything up to 240,000 in the last round. This may lead players to simply not take the risk of buying cards that may end up weak or worthless. However, you cannot simply let other players snap up big, prolific cards for very little. In addition, since cards are dealt between rounds - (in a five player game, eight at the beginning, three after the first, and three after the second, but no cards after the third), its hard to know which artists to push. The use of the double card can be brutal. If a player looks like ending the round then a judicously placed double can force them to pass their turn or play a different card. Another popular tactic is to buy three cards of one artist for which you have a double card. With three cards out, you play your double. If its matched the round will end and neither will be sold - but no great loss your three are highest scoring. More likely, everyone will have to pass rather than let you end the round and you get a card for free that will likely score very high.

(Ken - the above observations about the power of double cards are apparently based on a poorly worded rules translations - the same one I've got as it turns out. Mistranslations are the bane of Euro-gamers and should be avoided where possible but translating rules is a tricky business.

Tim Trant points out that in the case of a double card the player directly on your left must either match it and auction both cards, or you get to keep it for free.)

The wealth of tactics involved and the quickness of the game - about an hour a game - give it an addictive quality that I dont remember since Brittania.

The components are of a very high quality - the cards depict very good imitations of various artists, including Pollock and Lichtenstein. The cards are high-quality plastic coated, and stand up well to wear. Its all quite attractive, and comes in a good box - unusual for German games.

(Ken - Steady, Dave! Aside from some of the very small houses, like Moskito, German game manufacturers seem to have consistently high production values.)

I'd recommend it to anyone, and its available in the UK from SFC Press, who I have no association with whatsoever.

Review by Dave Roe, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

droe@cs.tcd.ie
June 24, 1994

The Game Cabinet - editor@gamecabinet.com - Ken Tidwell