Fresco

In Fresco players represent master artists employed to paint a fresco on the ceiling of a Renaissance church. They have a bunch of assistants they can send to market to buy paint, to the workshop to mix paint, or to the church itself to paint a section of the fresco.

However, the catch is that your workers react depending on what time you ask them to get up in the morning. Early risers get the best paint options at the market and first option on what to paint at the fresco. However the assistants are like surly teenagers and being asked to get up early worsens their mood, and if their mood becomes surly enough, one of them will abandon you.

Conversely, assistants that get a lie in have their mood improve – potentially to the point where an extra assistant is attracted enough to join you. But naturally there is a downside to letting your assistants stay in bed. When they get to the market, everything is cheaper, but they have little or no choice as to what paint to buy – they’re getting the dregs. And equally, they may find the paint they have picked up ( – admittedly cheaply) doesn’t match any part of the fresco they can reach, as the section they were hoping to paint has been finished by someone who got there earlier.

So the game is about balancing the needs of the fresco with the whims of your assistants. It’s very easy to learn, simple to play, but not simple to win, as although luck plays a part (in what paints come out at the market) what decides the eventual winner won’t be down to chance.