- We're instructing art students and acquiring patrons.
That's right, it's Atelier from AEG.
(dramatic music)
This masterpiece making paint party
pits two to four master artists against one another
in a competition to see who can run
the most famous Atelier of all time.
Atelier is their workshop, it's a french word.
It's an art workshop, you get it.
Set up begins with a shuffle of
the 40 painting cards placed center.
Draw seven cards and place them face up nearby.
Next, shuffle and place the patron deck.
Separate and create supply piles for the paint cylinders
by color: blue, green, red, and yellow.
Each player now receives a player board,
12 student meeples, four dice of matching color,
one inspiration token, and two patron cards.
They choose one to keep and discard the other
to the bottom of the patron deck.
Place the remaining inspiration tokens
in the center of the table to create a communal supply.
Choose a player to go first
and give them the starting player token.
Finally, beginning with the person
to the right of the starting player
and proceeding counter-clockwise,
each player moves one of their student meeples
in front of a paint pile of their choice.
Gameplay occurs in rounds during which players take turns
using one or more of their dice to accomplish tasks.
On their turn, the active player rolls their dice
and must perform one of two actions.
Either, they A: spend one or more of their rolled dice
to take a corresponding action listed on their player board.
Or B: spend one of their rolled dice of any value
to take an inspiration token from the pool.
Once spent, those dice are assigned
for the round and cannot be rolled again.
In addition to these two choices, on their turn
a player may also spend inspiration tokens
to take inspiration actions or activate a power
from one or more of their paintings.
More on these in a sec.
After a player takes their action for the turn,
play passes to the left.
Players take turn in this order
until they've used all their dice.
After which the round ends.
Recover the used dice, pass the starting
player token clockwise, and begin the next round.
Let's take a look at the actions.
Dice actions depend on the value of the rolled die.
One or two allows a player to move on of their students
from their player board to a paint pile.
Three allows a player to move up to one student owned by
each player from a paint pile to another paint pile.
They must move at least one student,
but don't have to move a student
for each player if they don't want to.
Four allows a player to collect paint from a pile
where they have the most students,
or in the case of a four player game,
if they are tied for most.
Five allows a player to paint a painting.
Select one of the face up painting cards,
spend the paint listed on the left side,
and place the painting in front of you.
Some paintings also have student requirements
which force the player to move that many students
from paint piles back to their board.
Replace the missing painting with a new one from the deck.
Paintings contain victory points, powers, and categories.
Some paintings are masterpiece paintings
notated with a star beneath the name.
Six allows a player to gain any one paint from any pile,
regardless of the students there.
In addition to the dice actions,
players also have inspiration actions
used by spending those inspiration tokens.
Reroll allows the player to spend one inspiration
to reroll all of their unspent dice.
Paint allows a player to spend two inspiration
to paint a painting as if they'd spent a five die.
Draw a patron allows a player to spend
three inspiration tokens to draw a card from the patron deck
and keep it face down in front of them.
Patrons are worth bonus points in the end game.
Gameplay continues with players grabbing paint,
moving students, and gaining inspiration.
Once a player has painted their third painting
with the masterpiece symbol,
that player takes the first master token.
After that current round ends,
players play one more round and then the game is over.
Players total their score from paintings, patrons,
and if they receive the first master token,
a bonus four points, and the highest score wins.
And that's Atelier.
I'm Becca Scott and I'm a bit of a painter myself.
See? Not bad right?
I like her.
Anyway, you can watch me and my friends play this game
and other awesome games on Game the Game,
right here on Geek & Sundry.
God, you're beautiful.
(cheerful music)