Gallery Gambit
Notionally the 2-5 players in Gallery Gambit are art gallery owners competing to curate the most prestigious art collections. In practice, this is an easy-to-play card game designed by Robin Stokkel and Simon Luijk where players are trying to build the best pair, triple and group of four cards; matching ranks, sequences in same suit, sequences in different suits or matching suits.
There is unique art on each of the Gallery Gambit cards but, for the purpose of gameplay, the cards function as conventional playing cards with which players are building simplified Poker-style hands. Players can draw cards, including from the market display and from opponents' incomplete 'exhibits' in order to build their sets. You can also use a turn to reposition cards between your own sets.
This all makes for a filler-length game that plays in a brisk 10 minutes. You could of course play Four Suit Studio's game just as well with an ordinary deck of playing cards but if you did that you'd be missing out on Gallery Gambit's main attraction: the card art from Julia van Duijn. Every card in the Gallery Gambit has unique artwork - not just the crown cards. The Aces all depict a major European or US art gallery but the art on all of the other cards is a recognisable pastiche of the work of one of the best known artists of the 19th and 20th Century. There are cards here that are clearly inspired by the work of Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Modigliani and other artists of the period. And the impressive artwork really delivers on the game's theme because players really will be assembling their own art gallery displays.
Four Suit Studio are bringing Gallery Gambit to Kickstarter on 28 September. Click here to find out more.
