Designed by: Reiner Knizia
Art Robbery is a game of – surprise – stealing art. Not just from the museum, but also from each other!
The players represent a gang of thieves who are pulling off a series of robberies (four) and arguing over how to split the loot. The haul is represented by a bunch of tokens valued from 0-5, and the method of claiming them are cards: you have a hand of five, and on your turn you play one, and then draw a new card from the deck.
Cards are easy to follow. If they match the number value of a token, you claim the token in question – you can take it from the tokens in the middle of the table, or nab a previously-claimed token from another player. The Boss card lets you steal the Boss token from anywhere, and the Dog card likewise for the dog, and the Thief card lets you take any value token from the middle, but not another player. Having the dog protects you, as other players must remove the dog before they can steal any tokens. Having the Boss will score additional points, but only if you also have a4 or 5 token to go with her.
The round ends when all tokens have been claimed from the middle of the table, and the next round begins with the next set of tokens flipped over – after the fourth round the game ends, and the player with most value on their tokens wins. But beware! There’s a secondary currency on the tokens of alibis – represented by white dots – and having the fewest alibis means you lose, no matter what your score is (the presence of alibis justifies having the zero token)
Plenty - as thieves go, you're not exactly the tightest-knit group, and steal from each other almost as much as you do from your marks.
Extremely low
It's about looking at your cards, seeing the options on the table, and best judging which move to make next. That said though, luck plays a significant part as you've no idea what cards your opponents hold.
It's fairly chaotic, but light and silly enough to feel that isn't a huge issue. The tokens are always the same but the cards instil an element of randomness.
2-5
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
I tend to enjoy the games of Reiner Knizia and this is no exception. He almost without fail combines easy rules with tough decisions, and Art Robbery is an easy game to learn and play. That said, it's not one of his most elegant designs, and the experience was a kind of bunfight crossed with a lot of crossed fingers: even the shrewdest can be undone by ill fortune here, which I guess is part of the charm: luck is a great leveller. I don't think this is a classic, but it's reasonably silly fun all the same.