The Art of My Shelf, Part 3: Taking Over the Table

Hello everyone!

Some games sit politely on a corner of the table. Others take the whole thing, and then ask for a bit more.

This is the last part of my little series on the games whose art I love, and it’s about exactly those. The ones with big colours, busy boards, and the miniatures I can’t imagine playing without. In Part 1 it was boxes, cozy worlds and invented creatures. In Part 2 it was cards, the ones I’d frame and the ones that build a world. Today it’s the games that need the dinner table.

I’ll also finally tell you which one is my favourite of them all.

Big Colours

Cerebria

Art: Pedro A. Alberto, Toby Allen · Publisher: Mindclash Games

In Cerebria you play emotions. You pick a side, positive or negative, and you fight to be the strongest emotion in the brain. If you’ve seen Inside Out, you already have the picture, and that’s the vibe I get every time I play it.

The board is a big square and it is magnificent, covered in vibrant colours.

The Cerebria board seen from above late in a game, with cards all around the edge and a tall orange tower in the purple centre — Late in a game, when everything is out on the table.

My advice: play it on a big table, the dinner table, because you’ll want the space. I’d happily leave it set up there, except my cat would want to play too, so it lives on a smaller table instead, with a side table next to it for some of the boards.

The cards are wonderful, each one illustrated with the emotion it represents. The Bliss side is joyful, all orange tones, and the Gloom side is blue and captures the negative emotions perfectly while still being stunning. I’m drawn to Bliss, I admit, because of those oranges and the happiness in the illustrations.

Six Cerebria emotion cards, three blue Gloom cards above three orange Bliss cards — Gloom above, Bliss below. The same world, two completely different moods.

If I have to choose the art I love most on each side, it’s Love for Bliss and Hatred for Gloom.

The Hatred and Love spirit boards side by side, one in dark greys and reds, the other in warm pinks and oranges — Hatred and Love, my two favourites.

What surprises me is how much the art helps. This is a complicated game, but the board shows the movement and the influence each emotion has over its realm, and the illustration is done in a way that lets you see those movements clearly. The art isn’t just decoration here, it teaches you the game.

Close-up of the Willow of Values on the Cerebria board, grey and bare on one side, warm and full of life on the other — The Willow of Values.

Galactic Cruise

Art: Ian O’Toole · Publisher: Kinson Key Games

In Galactic Cruise you run an agency organising tourist trips to space. It’s a heavy game and it takes up a lot of table.

Ian O’Toole illustrated it, and he’s the same illustrator behind Vital Lacerda’s games, which is where the Lacerda vibes come from. His games always give a table that peculiar look, and I love his work.

The full Galactic Cruise table set up, with the main board, the launch tracks and all the player boards around it — This is what I mean by a lot of table.

The colours are smooth, very colourful but kept in a lovely palette. The iconography is clear and the components help as much as the art does. The board tells a story and it’s logical, which matters in a game this big.

What I like most is how happy the whole thing feels, and the illustrations are what do that. At some point you stop noticing the premise. You’re absorbed, and sending people off on holiday to space starts to feel like the most normal job in the world.

The Galactic Cruise board at an angle with a card in the foreground called Board Game Cruise — A card called Board Game Cruise, photographed for a board game blog. I couldn’t resist.

And then there’s your cruise ship. You build it during the game by acquiring rooms and stacking them, and what you build decides the kind of customers you’ll get. Each room type has its own illustration, thematic and nicely done.

Two Galactic Cruise ships built from stacked cabin tiles including a Robot Arena and a VR Deck, with passenger meeples aboard — A Robot Arena, a VR Deck, and the passengers already settled in.

I’ve played it twice so far, and the table stays beautiful right to the end.

Busy Boards

Trickerion

Art: Villő Farkas, László Fejes · Publisher: Mindclash Games

In Trickerion you’re an illusionist, preparing tricks and performing them at the theatre.

The first time I saw it was online, and my reaction was: too crowded, what is what. Then I saw it in person, and everything changed. The illustrations and the spaces make sense once you’re in front of them.

The full Trickerion table set up, with the city board, the academy, the player boards and rows of trick cards — All of it at once. I promise it makes sense when you’re sitting in front of it.

The whole city is pictured on the board, and what you notice is that the streets are full of people.

Close-up of the Trickerion city board showing the Magnus Pantheon, figures on the steps and a couple sitting on the bridge over the river — A couple on the bridge, a submarine in the river. There’s a whole city going on while you play.

But the part that catches me every single time is the theatre in the upper right corner. The score track is built like the seats of a theatre and the actions happen on the stage, so you almost feel like you’re sitting in the front row waiting for a show.

The Trickerion theatre, with the numbered score track curving around the stage like rows of seats — The score track is the audience. Every point moves you through the seats.

The personal boards are very thematic too, and the trick cards have beautiful illustrations that fit perfectly.

Two Trickerion trick cards, Metamorphosis and Fishing in the Air, with illustrated scenes above their costs — Fishing in the Air card.

One recommendation: if you’ve seen The Prestige, you’ll feel the vibes immediately. Same period, similar colours. Watch the film right before or right after a game and the immersion goes up.

This one is one of my favourites, I confess.

Luthier

Art: Vincent Dutrait, Guillaume Tavernier · Publisher: Paverson Games

Luthier is about making instruments, about being a luthier. I should say upfront that music is part of my life. I play the synthesiser myself, so a game about building instruments was always going to find me.

The board is a big opera building, and the whole thing is what gets me. You look at the table and you can clearly see four different rooms, two on each side, with an auditorium for the orchestra in the middle. At the top there’s the dome. Majestic is the right word for it.

The Luthier board seen from above, an opera building with four rooms around a central orchestra and a dome at the top — Four rooms, the orchestra in the middle, and the dome crowning it.

Something lovely happened while I was playing it. My boyfriend was watching Orkestret, the Danish series about an orchestra, and I saw a few episodes with him. One of them explained the first chairs, the principal seat in each section of instruments, and suddenly the places on the board made sense in a way they hadn’t before. The game looked even better to me after that.

The colours were nicely chosen and the instrument cards are really beautiful. I don’t have a favourite, because I love all the instruments.

And it keeps growing while you play. You place more and more components, instruments going into the orchestra, and the game shines even more as it fills up.

Close-up of the Luthier orchestra filling up with wooden instrument pieces across the seats — The orchestra filling up, one instrument at a time.

The Miniatures I Can’t Play Without

Anachrony

Art: Villő Farkas, László Fejes and others · Publisher: Mindclash Games

I own plenty of games with miniatures, but there’s only one where I couldn’t picture playing without them.

In Anachrony the miniatures are the exosuits that let your workers reach the capital. Mine are unpainted and still gorgeous.

Two Anachrony exosuit miniatures side by side, one with long tentacle-like legs and one heavier and humanoid, each with a worker tile slotted in — Two different exosuits, each with its worker tucked inside.

Here’s the thing: you can play with just the hexagonal cardboard pieces instead, and mechanically it changes nothing at all. But the exosuits make it so much more thematic. Your engineer or your scientist simply cannot go to the capital without one, because the air out there is impure. And each faction has its own. That’s why they feel necessary rather than decorative.

A hand slotting a worker tile into the back of an Anachrony exosuit standing on the board — Nobody goes outside on their own.

Nemesis from Awaken Realms and Black Rose Wars: Rebirth from Ludus Magnus Games both have wonderful miniatures too, and they’re certainly part of the table. But theirs are there to make an impression. Anachrony’s have a job to do as well, and that’s the difference.

A Few More Worth a Look

I couldn’t fit everything, so a few quick ones.

Tapestry, for the painted building miniatures, which are lovely. Merchants Cove, which has a really nice presence on the table with its little boats and its colours. And Dark Tales, simply for the beauty of its illustrations.

Two From Essen

I also want to mention two games I saw at Essen this year. I haven’t played either, so they break my own rule about writing only on games I own and have played. They stayed with me, and this is the last part of the series, so I’m allowing myself the exception.

Fame & Fable by Owen Davey has fantastic illustrations and bright colours.

Fame & Fable set up on the table with its colourful character and monster cards around the board — Fame & Fable. Photo: Ilya Ushakov on BoardGameGeek

Oakspire from Lucky Duck Games has wonderful boards and illustrations that put you in an enchanted animal world the second you look at them.

Four Oakspire cards showing animal builders, including Panda Carpenters and Water Energy Sector — Oakspire: The Builders of the Sunleaf Grove. Image: Lucky Duck Games on BoardGameGeek

The Names That Kept Coming Back

Writing all three parts, I noticed some names appearing again and again.

Illustrators:

Villő Farkas, three times: Trickerion, Anachrony, and Cerebria as well, further down a longer credit list
Vincent Dutrait, three times: Unconscious Mind, a T.I.M.E Stories scenario, and Luthier
Andrew Bosley, twice: Everdell and Unconscious Mind
László Fejes, twice: Trickerion and Anachrony

Publishers:

Awaken Realms, three times: Etherfields, Dragon Eclipse, Tainted Grail
Mindclash Games, three times: Cerebria, Trickerion, Anachrony

I didn’t plan any of that. It turns out my eyes have preferences I wasn’t aware of.

And My Favourite of Them All

Boxes that sold me before I opened them, cards I’d hang on a wall, tables I didn’t want to clear.

And my favourite, visually, is Cerebria.

Cerebria set up on a table, the round board surrounded by cards, player boards and purple crystals — Cerebria on the table. This is what I mean about colour.

It’s the colours. They make it immediately eye catching, attractive the moment it’s on the table. I love vivid colours, joyful colours, a little bit like me. I’m the kind of person who loves to wear red or pink, so of course I’d pick the game that looks like that.

Three parts, seventeen games, and I still haven’t told you how a single one of them actually plays. That was always the point: this was never about how good they are, only about what makes my eyes happy.

Thank you for reading all of it, it was a joy to write. Now go and look at your own shelf properly.

So tell me: which game has the best table presence you’ve ever seen?

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