We are inching our way towards the end of the year and we are still working on completing our 10x10 Challenge as well as my mother’s 10x10 Challenge. One of the games on her list is Canvas because she “loves to make pretty pictures.” Since we do own the first expansion (the second was Kickstarted this year) and have not played it yet, we decided to “kill two birds with one stone” and play Canvas with the expansion.
Great idea, right? So, this blog will talk about the base game (since we have previously played it) and the expansion (which counts as the new game/expansion for week).
Then I proceeded to start writing this blog entry and realized that even though this is a game we like, it is from a company that was not very kind to us when we backed the original game on Kickstarter. I know we had spoken about this in previous blogs (without naming names if I recall) and I will touch up on it again in the Final Thoughts Section.
CANVAS (2021)
In Canvas, you play as a painter competing in an art competition. Players will collect art cards, layering 3 of them together to create their own unique Painting. Each card contains a piece of artwork as well as a set of icons used during scoring. Icons will be revealed or hidden based on the way players choose to layer the cards making for an exciting puzzle. Paintings are scored based on a set of Scoring cards which will change each game. Once players have created and scored 3 paintings the game ends.
On your turn you may take an Art card or make a painting. Art cards are selected from a row of cards in the center of play. Each of these cards has a cost associated with their position. After selecting an Art card you must pay its cost by placing an Inspiration token on each of the cards to its left. If you do not have enough Inspiration tokens, you may not select that card. Any tokens on the card you have selected are kept for future turns. The far left card costs no Inspiration tokens to take.
If you have three or more Art cards you may choose to make a painting. Select 3 of your art cards, arrange them in any order and then score them by comparing the visible icons on your painting to the Scoring conditions.
Once all players have made 3 paintings the game ends.
The player with the most points wins!
—description from the publisher
Weight 1.67/5
CANVAS: REFLECTIONS
Paint from a new perspective! In Canvas: Reflections, the artistic puzzle has a new layer -- Mirror Cards! These reversible cards add deeper strategy, and also give you increased flexibility to string together combinations of Elements. Additionally, the new board offers a wider selection of Art Cards that allows you to better plan ahead and presents more choices even when running low on Inspiration Tokens.
Also features: Gold Bonus Ribbons - Grab a Gold Bonus Ribbon for lining up a specific Element next to a Gold Bonus icon.
New Scoring Cards for puzzling new challenges and added replayability.
-description from designer
Weight 2.0/5
A Little More Info
This section will just add a tough to each of the games.
Canvas- What was not mentioned in the BGG Description is that once you have 5 art cards you must then complete a painting on you next turn. You also start with only four inspiration tokens to use to pay for the cards.
Canvas: Reflections- The expansion adds a cardboard (instead of cloth) gameboard that adds 3 additional art card spots in a two row format instead of 5 art cards in a single row (base game). The game board also adds a spot to put the ribbon tokens on it. You also start with 6 inspirational tokens instead of 4.
You can select art cards from either the top or bottom row but you do have to pay extra inspirational tokens for any card that is not furthest to the left in both rows.
What we like about the game (base & expansion)
The game itself is simple to understand. There is some strategy involved if you focus on getting the most points but if you just want to create neat looking art pieces, it’s a cinch to learn.
The backgrounds for your paintings are beautiful and can help you set a mood for your three art cards you add to it. The new backgrounds from Reflections are also beautiful.
The amount of time needed to play the game is 30 minutes or less. Even with distractions, the game is fast. This is a huge plus for us.
The last thing that we want to say is that we love that the objectives change each game. The expansion also adds additional objectives keeping the game fresh each time we play it.
What we don’t like about the game
Regarding the base game, we did wish that the cards were double sided so we could flip them. This was “fixed” with the expansion having flip-able cards.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is the company that during the first Kickstarter campaign for the base game we had pledged enough funds for three copies of the game and when it came time for the pledge manager they had said, “thank you for supporting us, here is your one copy of the game. Thank you for your kind donation of X amount” (the cost of the additional copies).
This is where we said hold on a minute, we want three copies because we want to give some away as gifts for family (like my mother). Their response was, sorry, we will only send you one copy. I made sure that we got our extra funds back. The only reason we backed one copy of the expansions is because we truly enjoy the game enough to table it and introduce others to it.
Will we support this company any more than that? The answer is no, unless a local game store has more games (because the stores would have paid them for their product and we would be helping the store to recoup some funds).
As for the final thoughts on the game itself. We love the looks, we love the game play, we love being able to become painters of fine arts without having to get our hands messy, and we love that you can create some nice looking artwork and some darker themed ones too.
FAMILY GAMER VERDICT
We give both this game and the expansion an 8 out 10 each.
Whether you are playing for the points to win or just playing the game to make pretty looking paintings, the game is enjoyable. A nice light weight game that is easy to understand.
The game is really good for both gamers and non-gamers alike.
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