1980 Sixtina
- Board's Eye View
- Jun 4
- 2 min read
No, Looping Games didn't get the date wrong by 500 years. Although this is a game about the Renaissance frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, the premise of 1980 Sixtina is that the 2-4 players are restoring Michelangelo's iconic paintings representing the Book of Genesis, the lives of Jesus and Moses, and The Last Judgement.
This is a set collection card game designed by José Antonio Abascal Acebo where players will be drawing cards representing six different restoration techniques (ie: six different coloured suits) and playing them to place out their tokens on fresco cards, notionally to 'restore' them but in practise to claim points for the fresco card on an area control basis.
Tho' the gameplay is simple, the scoring is comparatively fiddly. Ideally, you'll play technique cards whose sum precisely matches the value shown on the fresco card. That's considered an 'Excellent Restoration': you place your token on the bottom space on the card and place out the number of tokens equal to the number of technique cards you used. In addition, you claim a bonus. If the sum of your technique cards exceeds the value on the fresco card it's considered to be a 'Correct Restoration'. In that case you place your token on the top space on the card and again place out tokens equal to the number of technique cards you've used but you don't get a bonus.
If you play technique cards that sum to less than the value indicated on the fresco card, that's considered to be a 'Prudent Restoration'; you place out a black (non-player) token on the fresco card but you can still place out your own tokens up to the number of technique cards you played. The black tokens reduce the value of the fresco card by 2 points, so a player might use a Prudent Restoration play as a 'take that' action that tanks opponents' scores. Technique cards played for Prudent Restorations contribute too tho' to end-game scoring.
There are a dozen objective cards offering scoring bonuses, and you'll choose randomly to use in each game. You only reveal new fresco cards (remove a covering 'dustsheet' card) when an adjacent card is completed but you can optionally play with bonuses for the player who removes the dustsheet. From our plays at Board's Eye View, we much preferred incorporating this optional rule.
1980 Sixtina is essentially a hand management card game, attractively presented by Looping Games in a compact box in line with other titles in their 19xx series (for example, 1902 Méliès). It's at its best with three or four players, but you can play it with two players using special rules for a fictitious third player. The game benefits from stunning art, tho' to be fair Pedro Soto must share some credit for this with Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.
The restoration work on Michelangelo's frescoes that was begun in 1980 wasn't completed until 1984 and, indeed, it wasn't finally unveiled by Pope John Paul II until December 1999. Enjoyable as this game is, happily it won't take you 20 years to play it: games typically take around 45 minutes.
