The Gallerist Review

the gallerist

It’s a perfect economic strategy board game for all art lovers – manage your own art gallery and became successful and internationally well-known art dealer! You have to do a lot of work to achieve that – make promotions for pieces of art and artists themselves, buy and sell in the international market, bring visitors to your exhibitions, sign contracts and of course hire assistants, who will help you to cope with all this work. Develop your own business-strategy and become the richest and the most famous Gallerist! We are happy to offer you a board game review.
Designed by Vital Lacerda, artist is Ian O’Toole, published in 2015 by Eagle-Gryphon Games, Fire on Board Jogos and Giochix.it.
the gallerist game

Components

In each player color (orange, blue, yellow, purple):
• 1x wooden custom gallerist token
• 1x wooden influence disc
• 10x wooden assistant meeples in players colors
• 1x player boards in wrapped heavy cardboard (same as the main game board that is)
In visitor colors (white, pink, brown):
• 60x tickets:
• 20x white tickets
• 20x pink tickets
• 20x brown tickets
• 40x mini meeples:
• 12x white visitors
• 14x pink visitors
• 14x brown visitors
And also:
• 1x Customized silk screened Eagle-Gryphon Games cloth bag for visitor meeples
• 20x promotion tiles
• 20x reputation tiles
• 1 start player tile
• 3 easels (Pastiche sized–a wonderful art game available as an add-on)
• 72x coins different sizes
• 20 Contract cards
• 4 Art Dealer goal cards
• 4 Curator goal cards
• 1 20-page rulebook
• 4 player aids
• Insert tray–Glossy black PVC, carefully and rationally laid out to accommodate all punched pieces in their own slots; room allowed for the KS stretch goal pieces to be added to this try as well!
For the 8 artist studios:
• 32x works of art tiles
• 16x artist tiles
• 16x signature tokens
• 8x white fame cubes
• 10x artist bonus tiles
• 5x celebrity tiles
• 3x Markers to track the same work form
Plus a big, heavy duty, wrapped and beautiful game board
the gallerist components
There are also some additions not included in retail version. You can purchase this board game on kickstrater.
You can buy UK version of The Gallerist in these stores.

Gameplay

In “The Gallerist” each of 1 to 4 players takes control of his own gallery. They can use time, money and influence in order to succeed. Players will discover artists, buy and sell the works of art, promote artists in the media, and win rates in the international market. The richest person in the end of a game is declared as a winner.
the gallerist gameplay

Game Setup

First you need to unfold the Game board in the middle of the table, and place player cards around it, each card next to the Gallery of the same color. At the special token you can see the difference between the number of visitors and tickets depending on the number of players.
Place the visitors in the cloth bag according to the number of players. Shuffle the contract cards and place them at the “Sales Office” spot with the face down. Draw the top four cards, turn them up and place them at the display places. Then shuffle all artist tiles and place them face-down one by one at the “Artist Colony” space. Each tile should match the color and the art form of the space you place it on. All places should be filled – there is one blue and one red artist for the each art form. Place the first drawn blue artist face-up (all others are face-down) and mark its initial fame with a white cube. Next shuffle artist bonus tiles and place one at each one artist tile and also place one visitor of white color on the each tile of red artist. Place both of the artist’s signature tokens next to corresponding artist tile.
Shuffle all the works of art and place them face-up on the space next to studio according to art form. Then take the top tile of each stack and place them at random on each of the easels next to the board. Then place a number of visitors (any color) from the bag on each topmost work of art according to the number of the tickets drawn on tile. Choose randomly 12 Reputation tiles and place them face-up – one on each space of upper 4 rows of the section, named “International market”.
the gallerist setup

Then place influence markers of each player on the «10» space of the Influence track, place the tickets to the space named “Box Office” on the gameboard according to the color, then place each of the promotion tokens on the corresponding places. Take 4 random visitors and place them in the Plaza and 1 random visitor on the Lobby of each Gallery. Randomly choose and place 4 of the remaining reputation tiles face-up next to the 4 game locations.
Each player also has to set up his gallery player board:
Place 8 assistants – one of one spot on the left side of a gameboard and 2 assistants at the desks in the office. Place the reputation tile taken earlier on the 3rd art spot of your gallery and take 10 money from the bank. After that shuffle the Art Dealer cards and deal one at a random to each player, then do the same with the Curator cards.
Now you can start the game – enjoy!

Rules

On your turn you must move your Gallerist tile to the one of four unique locations at the gameboard. Here you can perform one of the two actions possible for that location. As soon as you are done, turn passes clockwise to the next player. There is a short review of all the locations on the Gameboard:

1. Artist Colony

Two actions available here are:
discovering an artist
Artworks can be of 4 different forms: digital art, painting, sculpture and photography, there are two artists for each form – one red and one blue. At the beginning of the game only one artist is known. To discover one of the others, fled the artist tile over and mark the initial fame. This fame will increase in the course of the game, and it determines the cost and value of any work of art produced by that artist. When you discover an artist, you gain one of the artist signature tokens and place it on your commission space. You may buy his work of art later in the game.
buying a work of art from the discovered artists
The cost of the work is the current fame of the artist, unless it’s a commission. In this case you pay only initial fame of artist. Buying a work of art usually decrease the fame of the artist, who created it.
Place the piece of art to your gallery, where your adoring public will see it.
Take one of the artist’s signature tokens and place it next to your playboard to mark the current value.

2. Sales Office

Here you can:
take a new contract card
sell a work of art
You can only sell a work, if you have a contract with the same art form
The money you get from selling the work is based on the position of the signature token.
When you sell a work of art, one of the visitors in your gallery leaves – he is the person, who bought your work.

3. Media Center

Here you can:
hire an assistant
During the game you need assistants to help you out.
promote an artist
Increase their promotion one level by spending an influence. This also increases the fame of the artist that you promote.

4. International market

The International market table is divided into upper and lower sections, where you can perform different actions
In the upper section you gain one of the reputation tiles, if you meet the requirements to both column and the row. Reputation tiles are worth coins at the end of the game. You must place one of your assistants on the place you choose

The lower section is where you send an assistant to make an offer for one of the works of international renown, which are rewarded at the end of the game.
the gallerist international market

Executive actions

On your turn you may also perform one of two possible executive actions. You may move visitors towards your gallery by spending tickets, each ticket moving one visitor one space. Getting visitors to your gallery is really important during the game. VIPs (pink ones) increase your influence, investors (brown ones) give you money and collectors (white ones) do a bit of everything.
The other executive action that you can do is to place an assistant to a bonus space of contract card to get the benefit show.

Kicked-Out Actions

If another player moved to the location, where you are, you are kicked-out to the space next to that location. At the end of their turn you get to perform a special kicked-out action. One of the things that you can do as a kicked-out action is to spend influence to take one of the two actions on the location that you have just left. This is very powerful because it lets you do more actions during the game.

Victory conditions

At the end of the game the works of international renown are rewarded to the players that made the largest offers in the lower part of the international market. Points are also rewarded for all assistants for both upper and lower sections. Each player then scores points for any reputation tiles they have, their position on the influence track, and also, if they completed the sequence of objects, that they have on their art dealer and curator cards. The player with the most money is declared the winner.
the gallerist yellow player
For more information and advices you can consult the full rules presented by PDF tutorial.

Mobile Apps

The Gallerist is not available at the mobile versions.

FAQ

  • Q: I’m not sure, where I want my visitors, in my Lobby or Gallery. Are they just for different things, and one isn’t necessarily better than the other
  • A: Visitors in your lobby help you to access the international market, and visitors in the gallery help you to get influence, fame and investments.
  • Q: What should I do with the random visitors that go on a work of art after you buy it?
  • A: You should send them to Plaza.
  • Q: In all cases, when required to move a visitor from your Lobby or Gallery back to the Plaza, are you allowed to take the action if you have no visitors?
  • A: Yes.
  • Q: When scoring Art Dealer Cards, can Works of Art be counted towards more than one set (like with the Curator Cards)?
  • A: Yes, you just need to check how many sets you have fulfilled with the pieces of art you have and score them all.

the gallerist yellow player

Conclusion

The Gallerist is a rather difficult and frantic strategy. It teaches you how to manage an art business and think forward with every deal and contract you make. Everyone, who loves art or business or both, will also love this game for sure. Play, enjoy, have fun and make yourself a businessman! You can buy or pre-order it on Amazon.com