USD ($)
EUR (€)
Introduction
Canvas is a card drafting, crafting board game where players compete in a prestigious art festival. Through the course of the game, you will be laying transparent cards on top of one another to create beautiful pieces of artwork. Depending on which cards you choose and the order you lay them can cause different scoring conditions. These pieces of art are scored based on goals that were selected at the start of the game. Once each player has created three paintings, the game ends and the points are counted. Will you be the next Van Gogh?
Game Set Up
Before setting up the game you will need to decide how many people are going to play. Canvas supports 1 - 5 players and takes roughly 30 minutes to play. There is a solo mode which is slightly different, but I will cover this later.
Once that is decided you will lay out the Canvas mat in the centre of the table, you will then randomly choose four scoring cards out of the deck of 12 and place them on the mat, these are the goals that each player will be trying to achieve to score points for your artwork. You will then place the corresponding coloured ribbons in a pile above each card, these are what are used to keep track of your points. Now shuffle the art cards and place them inside the deck box, now place it on the deck space on the mat. Draw 5 of these cards and place one on each space to the left of the deck, these will act as a shop of some sort and will be the 5 cards that players will be able to choose from at the start of the game. You will then place each background card into a sleeve, each player takes three sleeved background cards, these will be used as the base of your artwork. Lastly, each player will start with 4 inspiration tokens, these are the small art palette tokens. Now you are ready to become an artist!
Game Round
The rulebook states that the player who has most recently painted will go first. Then the turn is continued in a clockwise direction. On your turn, you can either take an art card from the 5 that are displayed on the mat or complete a painting. The maximum number of art cards that you can have in your hand at a time is 5. If you already have 5 art cards in your hand then you must complete a painting.
When taking an art card from the mat, you can take the art card furthest from the deck for free, or, you can skip this card and pay an inspiration token on each skipped card up to the one that you selected. If the card that you are selecting has inspiration tokens on it from other players who have previously placed them on it to skip it, you will gain the tokens that are on it as well. For example, if I wanted to take the third card from the left, I would place an inspiration token on the first and the second card. The third card has two inspiration tokens on it already as previous players have skipped it, I now gain the third card and the tokens. These can be used later for future skips on my turn. Now that the card has been taken, all the cards to the right of the taken card slide left, away from the deck and a new card is placed in the empty space next to the deck.
On each art card, there will be three sections, illustration, title and icons. In the icons section, there are 5 coloured brush strokes, these are sections that will contain small icons that you will want to pay attention to when trying to score points. Some examples of the icons are triangles, a colour wheel and a silver ribbon. You will need to look at the goals that have been selected on the mat and try to place your transparent cards in a way so the icons will score you the most points, however, sometimes the colour brush strokes in the icons section can overlap and therefore you must strategically plan what the best way to layer your cards is. The silver ribbon icon normally has a personal goal that can score you 2 points each time you complete it on that specific piece of artwork, for example, it may say 2 points per visible triangle on your completed piece of art, therefore you can try to score points this way, as well as trying to reach the goals that everyone is attempting to get.
To complete a painting you will put three of the art cards from your hand into the sleeve with a background and try to place them in a way that will score you the most points. Once this is done you will take the ribbons for the goals you completed with that painting. The game ends when each player has completed three pieces of art, the scores are calculated by counting your ribbons and referring to the goal cards. The player with the most points wins, if there is a tie, the player with the most inspiration tokens wins, if it is still a tie, you will have a neutral person judge the artwork and decide who they think should win.
Single Player
When playing single-player, the set-up is the same, however, you make a supply pile of 4 inspiration tokens. When spending inspiration tokens, instead of placing them on the skipper art cards, you will put them into the supply. The art cards that were skipped are instead removed from the game. Just like in the normal game, you will move all the artwork down to the left and draw from the art deck to fill empty spaces. To gain more inspiration, you will need to take the leftmost art card, when you do this you will gain 1 inspiration from the supply. You will also gain 1 inspiration by completing a piece of artwork. If there are no more tokens left in the supply, you do not gain a token.
Final Thoughts
Before even purchasing Canvas I was drawn to the box, it looked like a piece of art, and it was stunning, the concept of laying transparent cards over each other to create pieces of art also seemed interesting. On my first playthrough of Canvas, I was pleasantly surprised. I had heard that it was a light game and therefore I didn’t expect much, but after the first game, I just wanted to play it again and again, creating these interesting pieces of artwork and seeing what I could create was really fun. However, after a few playthroughs, I started to care more about what would score me the most points and if the picture turned out interesting then that was an added bonus. I kind of feel like this is where some problems could arise for Canvas. Some people would be interested in making the most interesting artwork, however, if you really want to win, you care more about the icons and goals, and the artwork is an afterthought. Sometimes you will get a pretty painting but most of the time I was more interested in getting the best combo with the icons. Not that that is a bad thing, but it is something to note. The game also comes with multiple play modes and scenarios that you can choose that will change the way the game is set up. I like that this was included as it gave the game a bit more longevity.
Overall Canvas is a light board game that is great to play with your family or to introduce someone to board gaming. However, because it is a light board game it can get repetitive quickly. For something similar you could try Mystic Vale for the transparent card element, or Dixit for the artwork and abstract imagery.
Scores
Components:
1 Canvas Mat
12 Scoring Cards
20 Ribbons of each of the 5 colours
60 Art Cards
20 Sleeved Background Cards
20 Inspiration Tokens
Overall Score : 65/100
Ratings:
Artwork: 4/5
Complexity: 1/5
Replayability: 3/5
Player Interaction: 2/5
Component Quality: 4/5
Likes:
● Card combinations
● Beautiful artwork
● Unique layering mechanic
● Easy to learn
● Quick to play
Dislikes:
● Luck of the draw
● Low player interaction
● Art style might not appeal to everyone
● Can get repetitive
● Artistic creation feels secondary
Tell us your thoughts by heading over to our Instagram!
Share