Game #59: Art Attack by Mike Hommel

You've almost (sorta) described my game Arthouse, which I was debating putting up in the GDW instead of Art Attack (and I swear, they really are my only 2 games that are about drawing... I don't do all art games). I like it even better than Art Attack, and it went over AMAZINGLY when I tried it out (with my family, sure, but I was still surprised!). And I indeed noticed its relation to apples to apples - same core concept, that your success is based on how well you can predict what a judge will like.

So that's a separate game, but definitely one I like, and thus I made it!

What I've done and now printed up for use on my playtest thursday is:

1 - Added 30 more cards for 80 total. Most of the new cards use strange criteria like funniest, angriest, most motherly, most flammable, sneakiest, fuzziest, most botanical, and some other oddities. I also tried to mix it up with some things a little different than plain damage. There are a couple that stop an opponent from playing one of their 3 cards for the round, some more heals, another one that gives you a 10 second draw time (on any monster you want, how rude is that?), one that swaps two monsters' owners (it also swaps their damage, so the amount of damage stays with the player), one that lets you steal a Permanent from another player, one that links two monsters so they share damage. Hopefully I kept things fairly simple and clear, though that last card is a little complex.

2 - Changed the rule from elimination to everybody stays in for the whole game, and the game ends when, at the end of a round, only one player is left with less than 25 damage (if all players have 25 or more, the one with the least is the winner).

3 - Added the secret monster owner idea as an alternate rule. I don't think it belongs as a fundamental part of the game.

4 - Changed the monster modification time to be another 60 seconds, same as the original drawing time, just for the sake of timer components, and a little room to think.

------------
Now, to feedback:

I don't think there's anything wrong with the fastest monster going first - since you play around the table 3 times, there's only a slight advantage to being that first monster, if any at all. After all, nobody can be knocked out until the round is complete (under the new rules) so it doesn't really matter when damage is done. Going before another player can be good or bad depending on the card - a card that steals a permanent from another player is useless until the other player has had a chance to put one up, but it's also good to get your attack in before another player has a chance to put up some kind of immunity. There aren't a lot of protective cards, and if a player is immune for one round, they surely won't be in the next, so you can get them then - AND you can modify your monster to make it faster for that next round. Maybe add some racing stripes.

I actually really like the idea of collecting monsters you kill, but it doesn't quite work for this game, mainly because who wants to wait for you to draw a new one? It could be worked in, like you draw until your turn comes around again, but it's a pain, and I think it would call for much smaller 'life meters', and simpler monsters somehow. Which would really require different cards... something so that a giant eyeball with legs would be a 'valid' idea. It's not invalid in this game, but the cards in this game encourage you to really slap appendages on willy-nilly, which would wear you out a lot if you had to make 5-10 monsters in a game.

The game's still very easy to extend, though - just raise the damage limit to whatever you like. Or play 50 rounds and see who is least dead after them. No problem.

The reason for "no more than 5 damage per card" isn't actually primarily to decrease the damage people take. It's to disincentivize manic eyeball scribbling. If the rule wasn't in place, and you had "do 1 damage for each arm you have", you'd spend your whole minute creating a gigantic ball of arms, which would then have to be counted up to inflict a ridiculously punishing blow on someone. With the rule in place, you know having more than 5 is pointless, so your monster won't be as stupid looking, and there won't be an "arms race" (sorry, but it's the right term!), you don't have to spend so long counting, AND as a final bonus, nobody gets that huge fatal blow that ruins the game for them.

I saw a game with clear cards you overlay - something about a disfunctional Addam's Family type of group. I thought it was a really cool concept, and one I'd like to think about for future games.

Stencils would be really cool for a game like this, kind of cutting out some of the artistic element into more of a collage (felt pieces you stick together would be fun too, and would add an element of limited supply).

Making Fiends is the perfect name for the game, and her art is really appropriate. I was planning to draw the same kind of crappy monsters that players would probably make (maybe with a little more artistry... and a lot less appendages)... kinda like children's drawings, which is about what her art does. That's a great suggestion.

Gameplay report of sorts:

We were supposed to play with another couple tonight, but they called in sick. So we were left with watching Dodgeball, then playing a single 2-player round of Art Attack. The game is not designed for 2 players, and as I suspected, it doesn't really work with 2. But it WAS quite fun, and here's what we learned:

1 - 25 damage may be too much. I thought it'd be over in a couple rounds at most, but it lasted about 4, maybe 5. Now, this is partly because we were only 2 players, so only a little damage could get dished out, while with more players, the damage would add up a lot more quickly (and as a bonus, many attacks affect multiple victims, so even faster). But still, I think 25 will be a little slower than I intended. I think our game ran close to 45 minutes (probably should've kept track, huh?). 20 will be better.

2 - The Speed Check is the BEST part of the game! This was totally unexpected. At first, it was no big deal, my monster had 4 feet, hers was fat and dumpy, I go first. But since you get to edit your monster between rounds, while I really didn't do anything about it (never gave it enough thought! It's HARD to hold the info of all your cards in your head at once), my wife did something new and ridiculous each turn to try to ensure she'd be fastest. Having that known quantity to shoot for encourages a silly one-upmanship. The first round, she put nikes on his feet. The second round, that changed to high heels (gave me the speed for that round, but it let her get me on "prettiest"). The third round, the legs were gone, replaced by tank treads. The fourth round is where I really saw the beauty of it: she added a speedometer reading "60mph". Just little touches each round to maintain her speed superiority.

3 - A small subtle issue was noticed which will be clarified in the rules: Permanent cards stay with their owner forever (barring the new "Pickpocket" card I added). It could be interpreted that they switch ownership if the artwork changes, since the cards read, for example "The monster that looks most like a vampire heals 1 damage each time it hurts someone". If somebody adjusted their picture to look more vampirey, you might think they'd steal the card away. And while that WOULD be fun, because it would be like the Speed Check on crack, I think it bogs the game down in too many arguments. So that's the one simple rule clarification I see the need to add: Permanents don't change hands unless pickpocketed.

4 - Tally marks don't really work when you've got healing going on. A scoring track would be really nice, although we did nicely once we switched to just writing the number and scratching out the previous.

5 - The game really felt quite strategic (well, sorta), much more than I expected. I made several boneheaded moves, and they were true mistakes in play, not dumb luck. I did win in the end though. Which makes me also add that the game stayed very close throughout (ended with a come-from-behind 28-24 victory), though I was behind for most of it - the various immunity cards were pretty powerful in a 2-player game. But anyway, there really felt like legitimate strategic choices, and sometimes I had more than 3 useful cards, and I planned ahead to use one later.

6 - Some arguments were a little iffy and would've probably been ugly if we were playing in a cutthroat fashion (then again, the rule of discarding the vote of the person who played the card would've solved that very quickly, but perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction). Others weren't arguments at all. For instance, it was fun when I put down the "hairiest monster shoots quills at a target for 3" card, and she went "OH, that's why you added a giant afro after the last round!". Lots of times, at least with just two monsters to compare, there was no way to argue, it was a given which one would apply. Which was snappy and quick and often fun - sometimes boring and disappointing for one player, but over so quickly it doesn't hurt much. Arguments too were often fun, so it worked either way.

7 - Cards that render a monster immune to everything for a round seem overpowered, but they would be less powerful in a larger game. They'd still make you invincible, but the odds of any one person having one on any given round would be much lower, and there'd be other people you could attack while you await your revenge. I think they could definitely be toned down, and I might change a couple of them to weaker, but I'm not going to go too far based on just a 2-player game.

It looks like this game will be extremely chaotic with 4 or more players, but not in a random dumb luck way, rather in a "multiple layers of strategy which may not actually be valid but you can't help engaging in them anyway" way. If you see what I mean. In other words, it went even better than I hoped! Not perfect, but it'll take a legitimate playtest or two to really know for sure how good or bad it is. It went well enough that we'd both enjoy playing 2-player again in the future, even though it is clearly broken with 2 players.