‘Abstract Academy’ Board Game Review
Abstract Academy is a small (or very small really) box experience which caters for two or four players, but is best played as a two-person, head-to-head duel. The players each fill the role of students at the titular academy, which specialises in helping its pupils reach their artistic potential using minimalist colours and abstract shapes with a competitive twist. In mechanical terms, this is achieved by placing unique cards onto the table in specific patterns in order to fulfil inspiration and lesson cards over the course of three rounds.
Before I get start on the meat of Abstract Academy, let’s take a quick look at the components. Abstract Academy really is presented in one of the smallest-footprint boxes possible, besides from a standard 52-card deck. It’s effectively a tuck-box that takes two stacks of cards side by side, with the manual slipped behind them. I won’t lie – I hate the box. I hate that the card stacks have to be split up “unnaturally” to fit in here, and I hate that it’s a pain to get the cards in without getting them stuck behind the lower cardboard flap and so on. The good news, however, is that I like everything else about Abstract Academy‘s production.
Abstract Academy features six main decks of cards comprising of: three different coloured sets of lessons, one inspiration deck, a master’s deck and then by far the largest deck which is basically the paint cards that will make up the artwork on the table. There are also four-player aids, and then one final card which represents the first player and the Teacher’s Pet, which is used to break ties and then handed to the other player (who would have just lost the tie.) All these cards look good, with a palette of red, yellow and blue used against a background of white throughout – and the overall aesthetic is excellent when the game is laid out. Of particular note is the fact that each art card appears to be unique – which is a lovely touch.
In gameplay terms, Abstract Academy is both simple and fairly unusual. The game is played in turns, with each player taking a turn to place one art card from their hand of three (and then drawing another card.) The cards must be played face up on the table in a uniform way (ie facing the same direction.) The trick is that whilst the players will jointly build a 4×4 grid of cards, they can define that grim themselves. In effect, until the “picture” is four cards wide or four cards long, cards can be added to any other adjacent card. This might mean that a player places cards to make favourable patterns near them, and cards that don’t match well near their opponent.
The reason for doing so is because at the beginning of each round, three scoring cards will be placed face up for the players to freely examine. Each will be worth points depending on what is shown, but the players will only score points for patterns achieved across cards in the two rows of cards (on the jointly created picture) that are right in front of them. So going back to the flow of gameplay, if you don’t like the look of your two rows and assuming the picture is fewer than four rows wide, you can just add a card on your “side” of the picture to effectively bump the whole image one row closer to your opponent – shifting any problems at least partly into their domain.
This almost tug-of-war mechanic gives Abstract Academy a very unique feeling that I can’t say I have seen anywhere else before. Despite the implications of each turn, the pace is fast too – partly because there are only four scoring considerations (the three on the table and one secret inspiration card in your hand) and three colours. This means that assessment is fast, and choosing whether to score the most points near you, or to try and damage your opponent’s score is quite key. There are rules that come into effect to prevent frustrating play as rounds draw to a close, but in general that push and pull is a key mechanic.
The four-player game works similarly except that there is a semi-cooperative element which reminds me of games like Between Two Cities. Effectively in this mode gameplay is similar, except that scoring is somewhat shared between the two players on either side. There is only one winner and it’s not a team game, but because of the shared area of the picture, players are incentivised to work together to at least some extent. I didn’t test this mode as extensively as I did the two-player game, but it was fun and actually introduces its own rules and concepts which work well, and don’t feel like an awkward hybrid of the two-player game.
Overall, Abstract Academy is a really good looking, well designed and often fun game that falls into the lighter games category because of its speed, and the fact that it lends itself to being played a couple of times in quick succession, but then loses its appeal within a single sitting. What I mean by this is that I often played it once or twice in a session, but never played it for more than say an hour in total – really only because you do feel you’ve seen all the lesson cards (five of each) and potential mechanics by the end of the session. That said, I was always happy to spend another twenty minutes with it on another day. A solid game that looks great and is perhaps only let down by a very fiddly box.
