Welcome, Art Majors, to a new year!

Art Major has all new artwork crafted from the ground up in collaboration between Monster Bash artist Robert Fike and Andak designer Andrew Sears. Not only does the third edition include new artwork, but also a new set of optional rules and some much-requested rule clarifications.

Building your gallery

The core gameplay of Art Major remains unchanged. As struggling Art Majors, players are attempting to build a portfolio that will take them to fame and fortune. To do this, players must complete paintings and submit them to galleries. Each pair of paintings you’ve placed in a gallery builds more renown for you. In gameplay mechanics, what this means is that each painting has a gallery ‘frame.’ For each painting claimed that shares a frame, players will score one additional point.

Art supplies or lunch money

As a poor Art Major, you do not have enough money to purchase extra supplies. This means that each turn you are limited by what paint you can pick up, and when you use it to paint a painting, it is discarded. On your turn, one of the actions you can take is to purchase paint. To buy paint, you may select up to two ‘brushes’ worth of paint from the art store (the paint supply pile), or your can select a single random paint from the draw pile.

Note, this is one of the rule changes introduced in third edition. In previous editions players were only allowed to draw a single paint each turn and it was random from the draw pile. Introducing the art store reduces the randomness, while also giving your opponents some indication into what paint you are going for.

The colors of paint available are the primary colors; red, blue, and yellow. To get the colors green, purple, and orange, players must mix two primary colors together to make the required secondary colors. When you claim a painting, turn in all the color cards you’re using, including both primary cards if mixing them. Premium paint (worth two brushes) may be mixed with two other paints, used by itself or as a primary and mixing color. Once you claim a painting, place it face up before you.

Players are allowed to trade paint with any other player during their turn.

Becoming the ultimate artist

Each painting has a reputation [victory point] associated with it. Players will keep a running total of the reputation for each painting they’ve claimed. When that number (plus any gallery bonuses) equals or exceeds 10, play is immediately stopped, and that player is declared the winner.

In an alternate victory scenario, introduced in the third edition, players play until all paintings are claimed. Once all the paintings are claimed, add up your reputation (plus gallery bonuses) and 1 point for every 2 ‘brushes’ in your hand. The player with the highest total points is declared the winner. This may introduce ties, in which case, the player with the highest total reputation printed on the cards (not counting gallery bonus or brushes) is the winner.

Art Major is a competitive color-matching game; you don’t have to be an art major to play