The Gallerist

The Game

Vital Lacerda is a popular game designer. I am guessing The Gallerist (2015) is his bestselling game, since it has the most number of ratings among his games on BoardGameGeek.com. You play art gallery managers in the game. You discover new artists, buy their artwork, make them famous, sell their works to make a profit and increase the influence of your art gallery. At game end the richest gallery owner wins. Running an art gallery is a business after all. You have to make money. Money is victory points. 

There are four art galleries on the board. The game supports at most 4 players. There are four groups of actions on the board, with two options per group (the white squares). On your turn, you may place your pawn in any action group then pick one of the actions to perform. This is not a worker placement game. Other players' pawns being present does not block you. However once you complete your action, they have the choice of also performing an action by paying influence (a currency). This is a unique element in the game. Players tend to hope others will come to where their pawns are, so that they get to perform an action on other people's turns. When you remove your pawn from an action group, you may leave behind an assistant. When another player's pawn comes and kicks out your assistant, you also get to perform an action. Basically you'll often get to perform actions on other people's turns. You want to always have some influence so that you can afford to perform these extra actions. 

This is a player board. The upper half is your art gallery. There are four walls for you to display art pieces. There is a small work area on the right, big enough for four employees (assistants). The column on the far left are the assistants you can recruit during the game. 

These are two secret objectives dealt during game setup. You fulfil the one on the left by having sold specific types of art by game end. You fulfil the other by having on display specific types of art. 

When you discover a new artist, you flip over the artist tile to reveal a fame track. This particular artist is a sculptor. The white cube marks the fame level. As she gets more famous, her works become more expensive for gallery owners (i.e. players) to buy. The star icons indicate how much you can sell her works for. When the fame level hits the top, the artist becomes known as a master. Artists reaching master level is one of the conditions which triggers game end. The marker below the artist is a signature marker. Every artist has only two of them. When you buy an artist's work, you claim a signature marker. When you sell it, you return the signature to the board. This means at any one time there can only be two of an artist's works in circulation. 

The track on the right is used for tracking which artists' works you own and how much they are worth. The signature marker at the bottom means this is an artist you discovered and he still owes you a piece of commission work. When you discover an artist, he will be grateful to you and he will commit to sell you a piece of art at his base price, even if he later becomes famous and could have charged more. 

This part of the board, which I call the Facebook Like section, is for players to increase the fame of artists. You spend your influence (a currency) to help artists. It increases the value of their works.  

This part of the game board is all about long-term investments. You need to send assistants here, and they will be locked here for the rest of the game. The top half are bonus points you can score at game end, depending on how well you meet specific conditions. The bottom half is for bidding for imported art work. There is one each of the four types of art work, and everyone will get to pick one, except for the player who bid the least. How much you have bid determines whether you get to pick first. 

At the bottom of this table you see some bonus points. This is for area majority competition for each column. If you have the most assistants in a particular column, you score the highest number. 

Your art gallery is divided into two parts, the gallery itself (solid line) and the lobby (dashed line). Everyone's lobby is connected to the plaza outside, which is where visitors appear. During the game you need to collect tickets (a type of currency) and spend them to move visitors from the plaza to your lobby, and then from your lobby to your gallery. You need visitors because without them you can't sell art. They help you make money, gain influence and increase the fame of artists you support. Every time you sell a piece of art, you must discard a visitor from your gallery. That means you need to keep replenishing visitors. 

The lobby is not just a transit point. In order to claim game-end bonus points and to bid for imported artwork, you need to have specific types of visitors in your lobby. Visitors in your lobby can be moved out by other players. Only visitors in your gallery are secure. There are three types of visitors. The pink celebrities increase your influence. The brown investors help you earn money. The white collectors make artists more famous. 

This section at the bottom left of your player board is for placing your game-end bonus tokens. You have only six slots. When you place a token, you gain a one-time benefit according to the icons printed on the space. 

Three conditions cause the game to end. Once two of them are fulfilled, the next round will be the final round. The first condition is the bag running out of visitors. Most of the time you draw visitors from the bag to place in the plaza when you buy art. The second condition is two artists becoming masters. The third condition is the board running out of tickets. You have some control over how soon the game ends. 

When the game ends, artwork still in your gallery and not yet sold are worth points, based on how popular the creators are. You don't necessary have to sell them all. Selling art is important during the game because you need cash flow. You also need to sell to free up space in your gallery, so that you can continue to buy. By game end, your influence level is also translated to points. 

The Play

I did a 3-player game with Allen and Han. Allen and I were new. Han had only played once, and it had been a while ago. The rules were a little overwhelming to digest initially. There were many nitty gritty details and many small icons no look up in the rulebook to see what they meant. It took a while to get familiar with the iconography. 

Discovering artists, buying their works, making them famous and eventually selling their works to make money are a very logical process. When playing The Gallerist you have to manage a few such processes running concurrently. You will be managing multiple pieces of art by different artists and they will be at different stages of the process. You need to manage the currencies - cash, influence and visitors - to make sure you are not short in any, which could otherwise hurt your tempo. Your assistants are a currency to take note of too. 

The blue artists are regular artists. The red are the talented ones. The base prices of their works are higher, and they become masters more easily. At game setup, only one regular artist has been discovered. You need to discover the rest. 

We had started competing for the game-end bonuses. What we picked would affect how we play, since we would try to fully utilise the bonuses. 

The art galleries we used were at the top left, top right and bottom right. The unused art gallery at the bottom left was blocked with an unused easel. The easels in the game are just for aesthetics. You can play without them. They are just an indicator for how many imported works will be available, which is number of player minus 1. 

We started discovering talented (red) artists. Those stacks in the rightmost column are the works of art. When you buy a piece of art, the tile tells you by how much the artist's fame increases, which tickets you get to collect, and how many visitors get added to the plaza. 

Art pieces you have sold are placed along the bottom of your player board. Those which you have not yet sold are displayed at your art gallery, i.e. placed on the walls on your player board. 

One thing I struggled with was maintaining a healthy number of visitors in my lobby and my gallery. I didn't collect enough tickets and fell behind Han and Allen in this aspect. I also fell behind in managing a healthy level of influence. I tended to spend influence too freely, and I didn't earn it frequently enough. I had expected to lose to both of them by a large margin. When the game ended, I was surprised that I didn't do as poorly as I had thought. I had many valuable art pieces at my gallery which gave me many points. Indeed I had been aggressive in buying art. 

Both the artists who eventually became masters were painters (palette icon at the top left corner)

This was the imported art piece I won at the end of the game. It helped me tremendously. 

The imported art piece helped me fulfil some of my missions. 

I was surprised how much impact the imported art pieces had. They decided victory in our game. I (purple) had spent $9 on bidding for imported art pieces. Allen (yellow) and Han (orange) both spent $7, but since Allen had an assistant in the rightmost column, he gained an advantage over Han. I was first to pick an art piece, and Allen second. Han couldn't claim any. 

Allen was the eventual winner. His final turn, which was also the last one of the game, was crucial. He placed that yellow assistant in the rightmost column. Prior to that both Han and I had one assistant in the column and Allen had none. Han and I would have scored 12pts had Allen not placed his assistant. 12pts was a big deal. Also by placing this assistant Allen managed to get the extra art piece, which gave him the victory. Had he not placed this assistant, Han would have claimed the extra art piece. The extra art piece not only helped with missions, it was worth money (i.e. points) too. 

The Thought

The Gallerist is a heavy strategy game. The setting is a rare one and it is entertaining to experience something a little different, at least story-wise. This is a game about coordinating multiple concurrent projects. Every project is a lifecycle, from discovering an artist and buying his art to promoting him and eventually selling his art for profit. There is challenge in managing these parallel projects. This is not really a game in which you block your opponent much. You have much freedom to do what you want. You just worry whether your action will help your opponents by allowing them to perform extra actions. There are still some elements you fight over, e.g. the limited number of art pieces, the visitors and the game-end bonuses. Generally you can plan what you want to do without worrying about others hindering you. 

The game feels constrained to me, in the sense that as long as you follow the steps, everyone will score about the same number of points. The game seems to be so well balanced that scores will be close unless you play very poorly. This may not necessarily be a good thing. It felt a little like playing bowling with guardrails on. You can't fail too badly. I might be wrong, since I've only played this once. It's just a hunch. Games by Splotter (e.g. Food Chain Magnate, Indonesia) don't care about keeping players' scores close for the sake of making everyone feel he has a chance of winning. When you play their games you really have to earn your position. If you are able to keep up with your opponents, it means you really are doing something right (or everyone is equally lousy). One reason The Gallerist made me feel it constrains players into a narrow point range is how there can only be at most two art pieces for any artist in the market. This feels unnatural to me. The rule seems to exist for the sake of game balance. 

The Gallerist is a typical heavy Eurogame. The theme is a little different so if you like this kind of games it's worth trying. I can't say I like it. It was okay. So far of Vital Lacerda's games I haven't tried any I'm specifically keen about. I hear Kanban is pretty good. Hopefully I'll get to try that some day and it'll break the streak. 

boardgaming in photos: Lord of the Rings - Confrontation, Attika

16 Dec 2021. One day during younger daughter Chen Rui's school holidays, she looked a little bored so I asked her whether she wanted to play some games with me. She said okay, so I browsed my shelf for suitable 2-player games. At home Chen Rui is usually the one more willing to play boardgames with me. 

I picked Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I greatly admire this Reiner Knizia design. It is a simple and concise package but it packs many of the key elements of the story. It is amazing how much is being conveyed through this little box. 

The light side (the good guys) uses white pieces, while the dark side uses black pieces. At game setup, you are free to position your pieces subject to stacking limits. Initially you don't know who is who among your opponent's pieces. You will only find out when your pieces start fighting. The light side needs to send Frodo to Mordor - the last space on the dark side of the board - to win the game. Frodo's job is to destroy the One Ring. The dark side needs to kill Frodo. It can also win by having three pieces occupy the Shire - the last space on the light side of the board. That's the hobbits' home. 

Game pieces are only revealed when one piece attacks another, Every character in the game has a special ability. When a fight starts, you check the special abilities of both pieces to see if they determine the outcome of the fight. If they don't, both players simultaneously play a card to determine how the fight goes. All characters have a strength value. Most cards have a strength value too. You add both to determine your total strength. Some cards have special powers instead, and these too can affect the outcome of the fight.

The dark side characters have higher strength values and generally it is slightly easier to play the dark side. So I let Chen Rui play the dark side. That said, it is usually tough for a new player to win against an experienced player. There is a lot to learn about the interactions between character powers and card powers. It takes time to discover the many tactics in the game. 

The strength cards of the light side player are weaker than the dark side, but the light side has more special powers. It is important for the light side player to utilise the character abilities and the special power cards. The story in the game will develop very differently from that in the books and the movies. In the books most of the good guys survived till the end, but in the game many of them will be sacrificed to get Frodo to Mordor. 

This was a bad situation for the dark side player. Chen Rui (dark side) only had four pieces left while I still had six. Usually if the light side can force a one-for-one exchange, it would have already been a good deal. You clear the board to allow Frodo to sneak past the dark side defenses into Mordor. When the light side has more pieces than the dark side, it is very bad news for the dark side. 

In this game you must move a piece forward every turn. You can't turn back. There is pressure whenever you decide which piece to move and where to move it to. The dark side always needs to worry about guessing the position of Frodo wrong and letting him slip through. The light side is always worrying about walking into a strong enemy it can't take down. 

Frodo is a measly 1, but his special ability is being able to escape sideways when attacked. It's not easy to catch him. While playing Chen Rui complained that it was too tough. It was too difficult to make decisions. Indeed this is what makes this game great. You are often torn between 50-50 decisions, and you have to guess your opponent's intention. Winning or losing a fight comes down to reading your opponent's thinking correctly. 

Towards late game, since Chen Rui had few pieces remaining, I thought it would be an easy ride the rest of the way sending Frodo to Mordor. Unfortunately I became careless and Frodo was caught and defeated by the Black Rider. Chen Rui had first attacked Frodo with the Witch King. Frodo was able to escape sideways. To my surprise, on her next turn she sent the Black Rider moving multiple steps to reach Frodo. That was its special ability. I should have anticipated that possibility and I should have done something about it. Frodo could not escape sideways again since the Witch King was in the way. At the time both of us had only one card left, so we both knew which cards they were. I had the Magic card, which is normally the best card in the deck because when you play it, you get to reuse any other card on the table. It can be what you want it to be. However Chen Rui had the Eye of Sauron, which nullified any text card. Magic is a text card. Unbelievable! I lost to a newbie. Serves me right for being complacent. 

Frodo caught by the Black Rider.

The other game we played was Attika. I bought it in 2003 or 2004, when I first got into the boardgame hobby. I bought it in Taiwan. After so many years, I still enjoy the game. 

With 2 players, the map is set up using only 4 tiles. There are two ways to win. You either connect two temples with your buildings (the discs), or you construct all of your buildings. 

The player board is an important reference. It shows all the buildings you can construct, their costs, and which buildings can be built for free next to which other buildings. E.g. any ship built next to a harbour is free (bottom right group). I used the blue player buildings to mark which of my buildings have been constructed on the map. Some buildings are temporarily placed on the player board until you can construct them on the map. 

My copy is a German version, so all the building names are in German. It is slightly inconvenient since I don't know German, but the game is very much still playable. In fact I like that my copy is German because that makes me cool. Well, at least in Malaysia.  

Chen Rui started this game dominating the centre of the map, which had many resources. Resources on the map can be used by players when constructing buildings. You can use a resource when you construct a building next to it or directly on top of it. This reduces the number of resource cards you have to play from your hand. Once a building covers a resource on the map, that resource is exhausted. My buildings were divided into two groups. There wasn't enough space to go around so I was forced to establish a second group. 

There are four resource types in the game.

During the game you will get to place new tiles. This is important because you'll need the space for buildings, and resources that come with the new tiles will be useful too. You have to be careful when placing new tiles because you don't want to make it easy for your opponents to use "your" tiles. You want to position the new tiles where they would be convenient for you. Sometimes a new tile helps in connecting temples. Where there is new land, there may be new paths. 

The two temples were originally at two extreme ends of the map. Now the temple at the bottom was almost surrounded by land tiles. Due to competing for land and resources, Chen Rui and my buildings were split into groups. Normally you want to avoid creating separate groups of buildings. You need to pay an extra cost when creating a new group.

Chen Rui constructed her buildings in the backyard of the temple. 

22 Dec 2021. We played Attika again. This particular game above ended soon after this. I (green) was soon able to connect the two temples with my buildings. Chen Rui hadn't been alert about it and didn't defend against it. Actually even I didn't realise it until she noticed the opportunity for me and told me. When I taught her the game, I said it was usually hard to win by connecting temples. So she didn't pay much attention to the risk. Even I seldom allocate much effort to connect temples. 

This time I used glass beads to mark buildings already constructed.

This was another game. This time we each controlled half the map. We guarded our frontlines carefully. Neither of us jumped over each other's frontlines to create new groups. 

This game looked like multiplayer solitaire, with both of us carefully expanding in our own areas. However we did have to compete at the frontlines, and we also had to be careful how we placed new tiles so that the other party could not easily exploit them. 

An important way to discourage your opponents from stealing "your" new tile is to place it far away from them and near your own buildings. 

24 Dec 2021. I was very lucky with my initial building draws. I not only drew my capital Korinth, I also drew two buildings which could be constructed next to Korinth for free. This was very convenient. In this game I managed to construct all ten of the capital group connected to one another. This is usually hard to do because this is a big group. 

I (green) was close to connecting two temples. I had connected to the temple below, and was just two steps away from connecting to the temple above. Chen Rui was forced to stop me. She had to seal off access to that temple, even though it was a costly move. This is how threatening to connect temples can be effective. 

That tile at the bottom left was placed by me. Once I placed it, Chen Rui placed her three roads to steal it from me, blocking me off. She initially placed her road somewhere else. I saw that she could have placed it here and monopolised the new tile, so I advised her to do so. She gleefully accepted. I just screwed myself. 

I had not expected Attika to be among the fives and dimes for 2021. We had a spurt in December. The last time I played it was 2015. I didn't realise it had been that long ago. Now that Chen Rui and I have played a few games, she is getting more familiar with the tactics and I am remembering more too. Now we play in a more aggressive manner, actively grabbing land and resources, and always watching out for opportunities to jump behind enemy lines. 

I (green) had three groups of buildings, and Chen Rui (yellow) had two. During this game she sometimes had three groups, but later merged two of them by placing buildings to link them up. My capital Korinth was quickly surrounded by her buildings in the early game. Many of my buildings which could have been constructed for free next to Korinth then had to be constructed elsewhere at a cost. That was painful. I should not have constructed my capital that near the frontline. This was asking for trouble. It was a very close game. I beat Chen Rui by only one turn. After I constructed all my buildings, she only needed one more turn to construct all of hers. 

At the bottom left, I (green) had one "group" of buildings which consisted of just one single building. In hindsight, this was probably a lousy move. When I drew this building, I could build it here by spending just one resource, for starting a new building group. There were enough resources on the map which could be used for the building itself. So it seemed a good idea to do it. I saved an action. Otherwise the building would have gone to my player board, and I would later need another action to construct it. However having an additional group was a risk, because the next time I wanted to start yet another new group, it would be even more expensive. This single building group did seem rather wasteful. I didn't expand from there. 

my 2021

The most important milestone for me in 2021 is Dancing Queen winning the Best Overall Game at the BoardGameGeek.com 9-card Nanogame Design Contest. This was a great encouragement for me to continue working on game design. I became a boardgame hobbyist in 2003. Throughout the years I have mostly been a consumer and not a creator. I did dabble a little in game design a few times, but I never took it seriously until recent years. The first game I spent a lot of time and energy on was F My Life, a game about questionable life decisions which has some dark humour. I made a prototype and played it quite a few times with different people. However I was not able to get it to a stage I was satisfied with. Eventually I set it aside. I still like the premise. Hopefully I can think of some other way to make it work. Then I'll return to it. 

The whole idea behind Dancing Queen was inspired by the contest. The rules required that contestants use at most 9 cards to design a game. I found this an interesting challenge because I've always admired Love Letter. It only has 18 cards but it is a clever and compact design. I wanted to do something like that - create a fun game with minimal components. Dancing Queen went through many cycles of designing, playtesting and fine-tuning. It was a rewarding experience with many happy discoveries. 

In November I participated in the Game On Lah event. This was the first time I showcased my game design at a public event. It was a valuable experience. 

I have quite a few work-in-progress game designs. Some of them are portable 2-player games just like Dancing Queen. I toyed with the idea of making a 10-card game and an 11-card game as follow ups to Dancing Queen. These games are easier to work on because younger daughter Chen Rui is usually willing to playtest with me. She was my #1 playtester for Dancing Queen and even developed a strategy I hadn't seen myself. However I later shifted to work on games for bigger groups. 2-player games may be too niche. If I am aiming at the global market, the 2P target audience is big enough. However if I'm going to start with Malaysia, then a safer and easier bet is probably casual games for 4 to 6 players which can be played at boardgame cafes and at non-gaming-specific gatherings. Now I have some prototypes which are for this player range. Some game ideas started with using just a standard deck of cards. This makes creating prototypes easier, because I don't need to create a prototype. 

Jeff, Kareem and I are working on establishing a games studio to design, develop, publish and market Malaysian games. We are all busy with our other primary jobs so this is moving slowly, but we hope to make steady progress.

Work-wise, this year I joined a partnership with three other friends to work on an education business targeting young children aged 4 to 7 - Play with Purpose. We are now one of the distributors of HABA, the 80-year-old German company specialising in children's games, toys and other products. We will be bringing the HABA Learning Program to children in Malaysia. It's a blessing to work on something you are passionate about. As the saying goes - when you find a job you love, you never have to work another day in your life. You are doing what you enjoy, so it doesn't feel like "work" anymore. In 2015 when I joined a mobile game company, it was a most exciting time in my work life.  

The pandemic situation in Malaysia was much worse in 2021 compared to 2020. I attended even fewer boardgame meet-ups than last year. This year I have slightly more than 30 new-to-me games. One which stands out is MicroMacro: Crime City. It is certainly something very different from the typical boardgame. It is essentially a solo detective game. It's the kind of game you can only solve once, just like reading a detective story. 

MicroMacro: Crime City

This year I played quite a few new-to-me games on BoardGameArena.com. They were all played with Han and Allen. We play with a Zoom conference call on at the same time, so that we can chat. The experience feels much closer to playing face-to-face. The three of us used to game regularly some years ago. We all like to play fast, often starting our turns when the previous player is still wrapping up his moves. Our tastes in games overlap well enough. We clicked well as a small gaming group. Now Han lives in Johor Bahru, about 4 hours drive away, so we don't get to meet up often. Due to the pandemic we actually met up and played, albeit virtually, more than in recent years. Among the games played online this year, I liked Carnegie the most. I can't really justify why I like it better than other similar games. It's a strategic Eurogame. It is a development game in which you improve your abilities and get more and more powerful. You get a sense of achievement as you see your efforts pay off. You get to set long-term goals, and when you are able to achieve them, you get much satisfaction. Yet many heavy Eurogames have these too. 

Carnegie

I bought a used copy of Baseball Highlights 2045. I rarely play sports-themed games and generally don't find them interesting. I am not familiar with baseball. However I quite enjoyed this game. It's a tactical 2-player game with some deck-building. You gradually trade mediocre players for better and better ones, augmenting your team. You will leverage the abilities of your players. At the same time you watch what kind of players your opponent is buying, so that you know how to play against them, maybe even recruit new players who are good at defending against or even neutralising your opponent's strengths. 

Baseball Highlights 2045

I bought a copy of Imperial Struggle, designed by the makers of Twilight Struggle. It looks more intimidating than Twilight Struggle, but once you get into it, it is not that scary. I enjoyed this sweep of history game. 

Imperial Struggle

Traders of Osaka has the Japanese game signature - small box, few components, simple rules, but everything is intricately crafted and comes together as a clever and tightly-woven game. Often when I read the rules of these Japanese games, I cannot fathom what makes them fun. Only upon experiencing them first hand I am able to appreciate their brilliance. 

Traders of Osaka

In 2021 I have bought only six games. If declaring oneself a boardgamer requires a license, mine would have been revoked. I bought MicroMacro: Crime City, Imperial Struggle, A Kindly World and Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 because they promised a certain experience I was keen about. I have owned Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 for almost a year now, and still have not started playing the campaign, because of the actual pandemic happening around us. Hopefully next year I will at least get the campaign kicked off with the same team who accompanied me through seasons 1 and 2. 

I bought Priests of Ra because I was curious to see how it worked. Ra is a game full of happy memories for me. Priests of Ra is not new. In fact it is probably out of print in most places. I bought it mostly because of nostalgia for its predecessor. Strictly speaking it was my wife Michelle who bought JOME. For now I count all game purchases in the household as mine. Michelle bought JOME to support a local game designer. 

My most played games in 2021 were all played on digital platforms - Race for the Galaxy (played against AI's), Star Realms and Ascension. I played more than 400 games of Race for the Galaxy, and more than 100 games of both Star Realms and Ascension. Other games played more than 5 times include MicroMacro: Crime City (I solved all the crimes in the base game), Betrayal Legacy (my family and I continued the campaign late last year and completed it early this year), and Sky Towers. I have certainly played many games of Dancing Queen too, just that I didn't record them when I was still in the designing and playtesting stage. Because of that I didn't develop the habit of recording plays for it even after the game was done (as in submitted for the contest). Maybe I feel the game is never quite done because it is my own design. I can always decide to change it and improve it further. 

Race for the Galaxy

I was interviewed by Sinchew Daily again. The last time was 2017 and it was a different reporter then. This time round a few others in local boardgame circles were also interviewed. The reporter wrote a series of articles and they took up quite a lot of space. This was good exposure for boardgames. 

Here are my hopes for next year. I hope the pandemic situation gets better, and I can have more face-to-face gaming sessions. I hope to make more progress in game design and game publishing. I hope to introduce the boardgame education programme (HABA Learning Program) to more children, parents and educators. Here's wishing a happy new year to everyone!