Abstractable
Designed by Fi Murray, Gibsons' Abstractable is as much a gaming toolkit as an individual board game because it comes with the rules for several different games, and with scope for still more if you're willing to toy with some house rules.
Open the box and you'll find, inter alia, six wooden easels, six square 'canvases', a large quantity of magnetic shapes and a thick deck of 'Muse' cue cards. You'll notice tho' that some Muse cards are a lot easier than others; so much so that you might want to consider filleting out cards with some of the more esoteric prompts and those with abstract nouns, especially if you're playing with children. For all the games, the idea is that you use the various shapes to create pictures; so you can unleash your inner-Miro or Matisse without the need for any brush, paint or overt artistic ability! If you've ever played with Fuzzy Felt (John Adams Games), you'll understand the idea.
The core Abstractable game is Art Critic. That's at its best with 4-6 players as, each round, one player acts as the 'art critic' judging the compositions of the other players. The 'artists' all take Muse cards offering three options and they use the magnetic pieces to create a picture on their easel-mounted 'canvas' that conveys one of the subjects on the card. The 'art critic' isn't actually making a judgement on the art that's produced, they are just trying to guess the subject (ie: what was on the card). Get it right and both they and the artist record their success with a token on their individual scoreboards. Rinse and repeat with another player taking on the art critic role until a player wins by being the first to fill up their scorecard.
The Live Art game can take any number of players because the players divide into two teams. One member of each team has an easel and canvas and they secretly look at a Muse card to choose their subject. The other team members have to guess the subject of their artist's picture. This is a race between the teams because the point goes to the first team to correctly identify what's on their artist's card.
There are rules for a head-to-head 'duel', tho' this is not so much a competitive 'duel' as a cooperative creative challenge. Likewise the rules for 'solo expression'.
However you choose to play, you'll probably want to subject each round to a reasonable time limit. The rules suggest 30-45 seconds but in our plays at Board's Eye View we preferred a slightly more relaxed 60-second timer. After all, you can't rush art.
