Artbox Board Game: Is There an Abstract Artist in You?

The Artbox board game is all about abstract art! This entertaining game for 3 people and up proves that geometric shapes can be pretty funny. Find out here why cubism works damn well as a game for casual game evenings.

Cubism is a form of abstract art in which objects are represented with shapes. In the Artbox board game, however, you don’t have to be Picasso or Kandinsky to be more successful than your fellow painters. Perhaps you are also a gifted art connoisseur and can match the abstract artworks of the artists to the terms particularly well.

Abstraction is the key to success in this drawing game! And as it is in life, you also have to be as fast as possible, because even the greatest artist will go down the drain if his colleagues were simply faster. In short and very simply put: In Artbox, you have to draw as quickly as possible with geometric shapes in order to score points! And that is much funnier than it sounds at first.

In this article you will find out why and for whom the drawing game Artbox is worthwhile. In the conclusion you will find a compact list of the pros and cons and our rating.

Transparency note: The Huch! publisher was kind enough to send us a copy of the Artbox board game. However, this review and of course the rating is unpaid and reflects our own independent opinion.

Artbox Board Game at a Glance

Game type: Drawing game, Party game

Age: 10 years and up
Players: 3-8 players
Duration: approx. 30 minutes

Publisher: Huch!
Game author: Artem Lis
Year of publication: 2020

Objective: The aim of Artbox is to draw geometric shapes, recognise the other players’ shapes, be as fast as possible and be the first to win with a certain number of points!

Angebot

HUCH! Artbox Partyspiel Familienspiel, Neuheit

für 2 bis 8 Spieler ab 10 Jahren; Zeichenspiel, bei dem man nicht zeichnen können muss; mit nur 4 geometrichen Formen einen Gegenstand darstellen und raten

13,39 EUR

Game Material and Quality

Which abstract shapes are available to draw in this round is diced in the Artbox board game — Use a straight line, circle and two rectangles to draw the concept

The Artbox game box contains all the game material you need, including pens and paper. This includes concept cards, a screen for up to 8 players, an hourglass, dice with geometric shapes, victory chips, number cards and number cards.

The pencils write very well, the game material including dice and hourglass makes a solid impression. With this game, you quickly use up a large amount of slips, there is a thick stack of double-sided characters and assignment slips included. There is nothing to complain about here.

Gameplay of the Artbox Board Game

The ability of abstraction plays an important role in the Artbox board game — Who can recognise this drawing as a steering wheel?

Each player is dealt two concept cards by the game leader and decides on a concept. The game leader throws dice with geometric shapes on them and matches them to the cards with circle, triangle, straight line and rectangle.

Now each player draws his or her concept with the diced shapes as quickly as possible. Important: You must use all the shapes and not add any more! Lines must be straight, circles may also be oval, squares must have right angles. Whoever finishes first grabs #1, the second #2 and so on.

Now the game leader takes all the concept cards face down, adds more concept cards from the draw pile depending on the number of players, shuffles them and lays them out for everyone to see. Then he collects the drawings, shuffles them and lays them out over a number to which the term is assigned.

Now all the players try to match the terms to a drawing and write down which term belongs to which drawing. The first player to finish turns over an hourglass and gives the other players the time they have left to match the terms until the round is over with the last grain of sand that has trickled through and it is time to score.

Rating and Victory

In the Artbox board game, you have to assign the drawings to terms as quickly as possible, because whoever finishes first gets to turn over an hourglass and create time pressure. — Which drawing represents which term?

The game leader now goes through the drawings one by one and asks who drew them and what term they represent. He notes on the drawing how many players have correctly identified the drawing. The term that was guessed correctly most often gets a victory point chip. If there is a tie, the chip goes to the player who finished drawing faster and has the lower #number as a tile. The player who has guessed the most terms also gets a victory point chip.

The round is over, the next player clockwise is the game leader. The game ends when the first player has 5 or 4 or 3 victory point chips, depending on the number of players.

Evaluation and Conclusion

In the Artbox board game, how many terms you correctly guessed and assigned becomes interesting for the scoring — 3 terms guessed correctly, 1 wrong

In the Artbox Board Game, everyone slips into the role of abstract artists. Apart from the ability to draw with geometric shapes and quickly put recognisable objects on paper, you also score points if you have good abstraction skills and can recognise the drawings.

The game principle is similar to the game Krazy Wordz, in which you make words out of letters, terms are revealed and assigned. It’s sort of the same game with more difficult conditions, as you have to draw with geometric shapes, which we found more challenging. A funny game idea that led to a lot of laughter and very entertaining rounds of play!

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Pro and Con of the Artbox Board Game

While the idea behind the game principle of Artbox is not new, but strongly reminiscent of Krazy Wordz, it turns out to be surprisingly funny and entertaining even in the first round of play. We laughed a lot in each round and were often amazed at what we saw or didn’t see in the drawings. Artbox is an entertaining drawing game with quick rounds, which has no length precisely because time pressure is a central element in the game.
Everyone always plays at the same time, so there are no long waiting phases until a particularly prudent strategist has finally finished planning his move, turned and turned around and the dawn is breaking. Instead, it is a relaxed game that is not undemanding or too easy due to the challenge of using random diced shapes to represent sometimes not-so-simple concepts.

It is not at all easy to quickly throw something on paper that you yourself find halfway recognisable. What counts is the ability to abstract quickly. Which concept can I draw better with the cubed shapes? Another positive aspect for us was that speed is so important, because it brings speed into the game and time flies.

In larger groups, some players had a hard time getting into the game in the first two rounds. Otherwise, Artbox will definitely end up on our table again for small, casual game evenings.

For Whom Is the Artbox Board Game Worthwhile?

Artbox is intended for 3 players and up to 8 players. We would classify the drawing game as an ideal game for casual game evenings. For a party game it is almost a bit too demanding or you have to concentrate too much. Communication between the players also happens mainly through surprised shouts, laughter and head shaking. It’s great for families with kids aged 10 and up.

If you think Krazy Wordz is great, you should definitely check out the drawing game Artbox.

Conclusion

Cubism as a funny drawing game where the ability to abstract is important. Artbox is a fun, entertaining drawing game and is ideal for casual games for 3 to 8 people.

There is a suitable game for every situation – some worthwhile discoveries are waiting for you in our board game tips! For example, have you heard of the drawing game Patchwork Doodle? On Greatime we live our passion for games and shared adventures. True to the motto: Life is too short for boredom, we are on fire for everything that brings fun together. On our blog you will find adventure tests and lots of individual ideas and tips for leisure activities with friends, family and partner.

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