Art Decko is a deckbuilding game about collecting expensive pieces of art
Don’t get painted into a corner.
Purchase paintings and gather a fortune with Art Decko, a deckbuilding board game about collecting and displaying valuable pieces of art.
Originally released as Promenade, Art Decko is a board game about being an art collector looking to purchase paintings and exhibit them in museums. (Thanks BoardGameGeek.) After an initial Kickstarter campaign in 2019 - which was not successful - the game’s designer, Ta Te Wa, then launched another Kickstarter campaign for Promenade soon afterwards. This successful campaign provided backers with a limited edition of Promenade from Ta Te Wa’s own publishing company - Sunrise Tomato Game Studio.
Since then, Rio Grande Games - the studio responsible for Dominion and Race for the Galaxy - has unveiled plans to publish Promenade as Art Decko.
As in Promenade, Art Decko sees two to four players attempting to collect paintings and gold of varying value in order to acquire the most net worth by the end of the game. Players will begin the game with five randomly selected painting cards in their decks, which will all initially be worth one gold each. A painting’s worth is determined by the market rating of its style, with players being able to manipulate the value of certain styles of paintings by acquiring them and placing them in their collection.
Painting cards can be used to buy other cards, with players discarding a card or cards in order to get what they want from the gallery. With every acquisition, the market rating of that style of painting will increase, meaning that paintings of that style will be worth more. Players can also use gold cards as currency - whose worth will also be affected by the market - and can choose to buy more gold cards as well as paintings. Throughout the game, players will be able display a painting of their choice for an exhibition, as long as it fits the museum’s requirements, thereby netting them victory points in exchange for removing that card from the deck.
When the museum has a total of 12 paintings displayed inside, the painting deck is empty or when a style of art or the value of gold has reached a market value of 70, then the game ends. Players then total their victory points by combining the value of their gold with that of their paintings - whichever player has the most victory points is declared the winner.
Besides Art Decko, Ta Te Wu is otherwise known for creating Mountain of Inferno, a card game based on the classic Chinese story of Journey to the West, a version of Mahjong called Tien Zi Que and a co-op card game about rescuing cats from a shelter called Cat Rescue.
The five different art styles depicted in Art Decko - Art Nouveau, Surrealism, Impressionism, Renaissance and Pop Art - were represented by a collection of artists including Lauren Brown, Alex Eckman-Lawn, Kwanchai Moriya, Alison Parks and Heather Vaughan.
Art Decko is set to be released sometime in Q4 2021, with Rio Grande yet to confirm a retail price.