Board games have made a comeback in recent years. They allow you to battle in wars, buy property, solve mysteries, possibly anything that you can think of. Yet, there aren't many boardgames designed for art lovers. Until recent, here comes a new boardgame which fulfills your dream of collecting a fine art collection with Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. The game that allows you to buy and collect art is recently revealed on Kickstarter.

The new game, titled ‘The Grand Museum of Art’, is about a museum suffering from deficit. The museum curator has abandoned his job and the museum is on the edge of bankruptcy. You and your friends have to save the museum and see who can be the new curator.

To win the game you have to gain the most Popularity Points. The game contains 65 Artwork cards and each card has a number that represents the artwork’s Popularity Point. The highest is 5 while the lowest is 1. For instance, Mona Lisa has 5 points, Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix has 3 points and Summer by Arcimboldo has 1. If you own these three cards, you have 9 popularity points in total.

On the cards you can find the Popularity Point (left, below) and the Exhibition Category (right, below)

Every time you pass the Art Dealer Square in the game, you can pick an artwork that you like and answer a related question from the trivia booklet. If you get the right answer, you can keep the card.

Some of you must be thinking, ‘But I don’t know anything about art. Can I still play this game?’ The answer is yes. This is because the trivia booklet includes Smart Questions and Silly Questions. Smart Questions are about general information of the artworks or the artists while Silly Questions are self-explanatory – they are silly. For example, a Smart Question can be ‘Which of the following series was not created by the artist?’ while a Silly Question can be ‘Arcimboldo was imprisoned for creating portrait heads made entirely of plants, fruits and vegetables, as shown in this painting. True or false?’

Each artwork card has two questions – Smart Question and Silly Question

Presenting thematic exhibitions can help you gain Popularity Points

Although some artworks have low popularity points, you still need them in order to curate exhibitions. There are 20 different Exhibition cards, each one has a theme, such as ‘Myths and Gods’, ‘Women in Art’ and ‘Art and the Bible’. By collecting all the Artwork cards under a theme, you can curate an exhibition and gain even more Popularity Points. Therefore, the Artwork cards with low Popularity Points are still useful.

There are also Chance cards, Misfortune card and Insurance cards. Chance cards allow you to exchange Artwork cards, sell, or even steal from other players. Misfortune cards obviously would affect you negatively in the game. Insurance cards can protect you from misfortunes.

You can steal an artwork from other players

Tokens inspired by famous sculptures such as Michelangelo’s David, Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo and Rodin’s Thinker

Board inspired by a museum map

The game has successfully gained enough funds on Kickstarter. The price is CA$60 (US$46; £35) and it will be released in December. For those interested, you can click here for more information. The shipping costs are listed below:

• United States of America｜CA$15 (US$11.5)
• Canada｜CA$17 
• Europe｜CA$18 (€12)
• Australia｜CA$25 (AU$26)
• Others｜CA$27