The Age of Art and capitalism has created the need for a new occupation -- The Gallerist. Blending the talents of an Art dealer, museum curator, and Artists’ manager, you are about to take on that job! You will promote and nurture Artists; buy, display, and sell their Art; and build and exert your international Influence. As a result, you will achieve the respect needed to draw visitors to your Gallery from all over the world. There’s a lot of work to be done, but don’t worry, you can hire assistants to help you. There’s a long queue of unemployed Art aficionados lined up, hoping to work with someone of your stature. Build your fortune by running the most lucrative Gallery ever, and thus win the game by:

• having visitors in your gallery;
• exhibiting and selling works of art;
• investing in artists’ promotion to increase art value;
• achieving trends and notoriety as well as curator and dealer goals.

 The Gallerist: Ready to Play

The game box includes (it's the same version of Kickstarter + Italian components):

Board (32"x20")
English rulebook + all copies sold here to Italians will include also an Italian rulebook and 4 Italian player aids!
4 Gallerist pawns
4 Influence markers 
40 Assistants (mini-meeples)
4 art gallery with an office (player boards)
60 tickets (in 3 colors)
120 visitors (mini-meeples in 3 colors)
1× cloth bag for visitors
20× notoriety tiles
4× art dealer cards
4× curator cards
16× signature tokens
8× fame marker (white cubes)
6× celebrity tile
10× artist bonus tiles
32× work of art cards
16x artist tiles
Money in 5 denominations
4x Markers to track the same work form
Insert tray--Glossy black PVC, carefully and rationally laid out to accommodate all punched pieces in their own slots; room allowed for the KS stretch goal pieces to be added to this try as well!

The Gallerist: Player Boards

 The Gallerist: Visitors

The Gallerist: In Play I

The Gallerist: A work of art by the designer himself

The Gallerist: In Play II

One of the many exciting challenges involved in putting together The Gallerist was assembling the art works for the game.  Never daunted by the challenge, and behaving like a true Gallerist would, designer Vital Lacerda put the word out to budding and established artists that he was in need of new and original works of art in the fields of painting, digital art, photography and sculpture to use in a game about sponsoring new artists!  Here are some samples (with notes) of the exciting art that Vital was able to line up:

The Gallerist Rulebook.pdf

In setting up this Kickstarter for The Gallerist, we decided to minimize the emphasis on Stretch Goals and give Backers an excellent price ($21 off expected MSRP), and a subsidy on some pricey shipping as well (this game weighs 8 lbs and measures 15.5" by 12.5" by 3.0"). 

The following Stretch Goals were hand-picked by designer Vital Lacerda to subtly enhance the game play of this high-quality production.  These are not Kickstarter exclusives. However, we will produce only limited numbers of these Stretch Goals and they will not be packaged in any retail versions of this game.  We have not made a decision at this time whether these will be for sale at a later date.

$40.000. An attractive scoring marker used collectively by all players at the of the game.

$50.000. Eight see-through 8mm cubes to track fame.

$60.000. 4th easel to hold the 1st player token or to exhibit your most prized Masterpiece.

$70.000. A silk-screen logo "The Gallerist" bag for storage and randomized board placement tiles.

$75.000. A new Art tile from Virginia Levin Serrano will be added to the game.

$80.000. A new Art tile from Pablo de Leon Nava will be added to the game.

$85.000. A new Art tile from Robyn Thompson will be added to the game.

$90.000. A new Art tile from Rafael Theunis will be added to the game.

$95.000. A new Art tile from Ian O'Toole will be added to the game.

$100.000. A new Art tile from Craig Maher will be added to the game.

After playing the prototype, these players said:

 "I never thought micro-managing my own Gallery could be so much fun!" -Ben Martin

"I loved the theme; buying & selling art and raising an unknown artist to celebrity status. Together with the mechanics, it is a real nail bitter of a game." -Oliver Brooks

"The only board game where I liked being kicked out!" -Joel Wright

"Single play of what was described as "near final rules + art". Impressed by what I saw." -Steve Kearon

"Again an original theme, put together by some original mechanics." -Bruno Valério

"A heavy euro with a lot of moving parts. Interesting decisions to be made throughout the game. " -Neil Henning

"Although I suspect I will like this more against human opponents, the solitaire game does what I like: Gives you challenges that are unique to the solitaire game, so you have a reason to play it, other than having no playmates." -Nathan Morse

"Vital Lacerda is one of the most brilliant designers in the industry today and The Gallerist is one of his finest games. This visually stunning euro is one you will want to play over and over again." -Suzanne Zinsli from Cardboard Edison

While a Reviewer said:

"The main board is very cool, it has a Main Square where the different kind of Visitors gather and then each player has his Gallery where they want to attract the Visitors. Each Gallery has 2 different spaces, the Lobby where the Visitors arrive and the Gallery itself where the Visitors can see the art. Having visitors in the Lobby allows you to get benefits from some actions while having them in the Lobby allows you to have access to other markets. The problem is that Visitors in your lobby can be taken away from your Rival Gallerists!

The way the Artists are discovered, the way we buy, exhibit and sell the artworks all makes sense, has it's always the case with games by Vital Lacerda. We can also do marketing actions to promote the artist fame and reputation making their works more expensive for the players to get and more valuable when you sell them. There's also a mechanic of area control and bidding, it's not bidding like in an auction game but rather you pay certain amounts of money to get into a specific space on the Foreign Market so you can be one of the Gallerist to get one of the Artworks in display at the end of the game, and there aren't enough for all players, so the one that spends the less leaves without a work for the Gallery.

Despite being able to not get one of those final artworks all the biding players do get them some bonus or end game goals to score... they also provide numbers for the area control in each of the 3 sections on that part of the board, and there are quite some points to be gained... but that requires that the players have some assistants to send there (and the 2 you start with aren't enough, you'll have to get more) and required specific combinations of visitors in your Lobby. One of the more interesting mechanics in the game is that no player is ever blocked out of a space like in most worker placement games... you can get to any place you want but you'll be bumping the player that was already there and that means that the bumped player will have the option of doing an Executive Action at the end of the current player turn... so when you bump someone you are giving them the chance to do some extra actions (provided they can do them)

The game is AWESOME!!! I'm starting to think that Vital only knows how to do great games...  It's lighter than his previous games, it's probably the lighter one but that doesn't mean it's light! It isn't!!! There are a lot of things to account for..." -Paulo Renato

 

Hello everyone. I'm Vital Lacerda, the designer of The Gallerist. I was born in Lisbon 48 years ago, a city I adore and still live in with Sandra, my wife, and my two lovely daughters. I have a masters degree in Marketing and Advertising, and after working in advertising agencies for almost 15 years as an art director, I decided to try my luck as a freelance graphic designer. I've been working like this since 2007. At that same time I also began designing board games, my true and great passion.

Most of all, I consider myself a gamer and still a wannabe designer who had the luck of having a few publishers who believe in my games. I published Vinhos in 2010, and CO2 two years later. Last year was Kanban. Fortunately, all my games were well accepted by enough gamers that they were "successful". The Gallerist will be my 4th game.

I have a tendency to design "thinking" games because those are the types of games I love to play. A big box game takes a lot of time to design, play test and develop. So when I begin such an endeavor, I always look for a few characteristics that are fun for me in those type of games. They need to be challenging; they need to require deep thinking and difficult decision-making; they must allow great control; and to involve intense competition and heavy strategy. Those are the games I love to play and design. I usually start to look for a theme to be the foundation of the game. Strategic thinking inside a game that is supported by a strong theme must always be present. That it is the most challenging thing when designing such a game. The Gallerist is not an exception to any of this.

I like interconnected mechanisms a lot — pursuing strategies, different complex paths — but I also love to adapt, make tactical moves, and have some randomness in games. I try to avoid luck in longer games. I believe luck should be delivered not by the system, but by player decisions.

I also love to move pieces on a board. That is precisely one of the things I most care about in games. I love moving wood and cardboard over the board, I like to touch, to feel. For me, it makes the game much more dynamic, colorful, and fun. Because of that my games always deliver to the players loads of great components inside a big heavy box. And you may expect the same in The Gallerist. I hope you enjoy The Gallerist as much as I enjoyed designing it.  I really still love playing it! Go to the rules section above, read the rules and take a look the video.  I sincerely hope this is a game for you!

 

The Gryphon and Eagle Games, the mail publisher of this game, made some agreements in the world to facilitate game distribution. There are partners in Brazil; Germany/Austria/Switzerland; and France/Belgium.

Please check the kickstarter campaign for more info.

Payment. You can pay with credit cards, Paypal or by Bank wire transfer. Payments must be made within 10 days from the date of the order or the order will be canceled.

Shipment. Shipping to Italy costs 7.77 euro. For other world Countries shipping cost will be shown after clicking "Proceed to checkout” button on the cart.

It’s possible pick-up your copy for free at our stand in Lucca Comics and Games (Italy) or our pickup point in Rome.

Games will be delivered approximately on November 2015.

Note: We strongly suggest to specify a telephone number in your profile. This helps a lot the game delivery. We will use the address specified in your GS account profile at the shipping date: this means you can change it as you wish whitin the date of shipment.

 

Production. Rarely can occur a production delay out of our control and by our actions. For example there may be a technical problem with the tipography, a delay of a supplier, or a problem with the publisher which is directly printing the game (for example when we made an Italian version of an English game).

These facts should be taken into account. Anyway we will notify you promptly if something like that were to happen.

Contents. Game specifications and contents are indicative and can be changed during final production.

Progect pages. Sometime can be there some little variances on the different language project pages on Giochistarter (Italian, French, English, Spanish, German). In that case, refer to the project English page.

Shipments. Depending on the game, we ship by Postal service, Postal service insured or by Courier (UPS/GLS/Bartolini/SDA).

Shipments made by Courier or by Postal service insured can be tracked and are insured. Shipments made by Postal service (not insured) can not be traced and, although it rarely does, it can happen that they delay or are lost. We recommend to those who want to avoid any problem to use the insured option or an alternative method, if available.

Shipments insurance doesn't cover any external damage to the box.

If the game will not be delivered because of your mistake (wrong address, recipient repeatedly absent, do not pick up the package after the passage of the courier, etc.), you will have to pay an additional shipping cost to re-send you the game. This cost will also include the return costs of the game. Otherwise, if we made an error, we will send it again to you at our expense.
If the game gone lost without any fault, we will reship it only if you took insurance option or Courier service.

If you live out of the European Community, customs taxes could be added. This usually doesn't happen for boardgames. Check your Country legislation to be sure about that, ad this aspect is not a our responsability.

We will no longer accept complaints related to this campaign after 12 months of its term.