Museum Review

Museum is a set collection and card drafting game where players will compete to amass the best collection of artifacts from around the world. You'll do this by picking up a card from the main board and playing cards from your hands to your museum tableau. You pay for cards by discarding cards from your hand to match the cost of what's being added into the museum. Other players will also be able to pick up cards as well during the draft phase. You then get to take your actions. You can either furbish or inventory your museum. When you furbish, you will add cards to your tableau. When you inventory, you pick cards up from your discard pile and put them into your hand. There are also favour cards to enhance actions, experts to score bonus points, public opinion cards which can cause you to lose points at the end. Players can rearrange their museum any time they want with what's available already. After someone reaches 50 points, the game ends and final scoring begins. Players tally up their sets, objectives, and experts and the player with the highest score wins.

The Good: Oh, so much. The gameplay is so nice. I love that you get an opportunity to draft cards on everyones turn. You rarely get that feeling that you've missed out on a card unless someone grabs it first. I also love that other players discard piles are fair game to pick up at the cost of a point and equal value cards. You really need to focus on the whole table. The art is also phenomenal. It really does a great job at capturing the aesthetic of the early 1900s.

The Okay: It can be somewhat challenging to figure out the best way to lay out your museum. The set collection aspect of the game is the key feature but it also can be its most confusing. After a couple read throughs of how to do it, it's not too bad but it is not the easiest thing in the world to explain to someone who's unfamiliar with the game. It does work really well though when it clicks.

The Not So Good: I had a similar complaint with Pictura, you put these gorgeous cards in your museum and unless it is the front card, you never get to see them. Its a bummer that a game about displaying artifacts doesn't really get to truly display them.

Final Thoughts: Museum is the second of the series that I've looked at. Museum: Pictura being the first. Similar to that one, I loved this game. It has the same general feel to it but it's different enough to where I can see room for both games in my collection. Pictura may have tighter gameplay because its the follow up but thematically I love Museum for what it is.

Thanks to Holy Grail and Luma Imports for providing me with a review copy.