It’s the turn of the 20th century, the golden age of museums. As interest in and accessibility of museums grew exponentially, many institutions underwent an intense period of expansion on both an intellectual and physical level, searching to grow their collections for profit and science.
You play as a curator of one such museum and it’s your job to build the biggest, most coherent collection that you can in this game of collection and bartering featuring over 300 individual illustrations by Vincent Dutrait and authentic architectural facts. But it’s no simple task!
Each player in Museum has a small collection of relics to get them started, after which, they will have to send explorers around the world to uncover others. These relics each have a value which is either the cost to add them to your museum, or how much they contribute towards adding other relics to your museum. “Spent” Relics are added to your reserve. You can withdraw them from it by exchanging them for an equal number of items; however, your opponents also has access to your reserve!
During the game you will be required to assemble different collections. These can be from different categories (war, agriculture, architecture, etc) or periods (Ancient Egypt, Rome, Aztec, etc). Patron cards will give you bonus cards for amassing certain collections. Explorer cards will allow you to hire famous archeologists to confer bonuses to your museum and event cards will provide you with some game changing circumstances that you’ll have to work around, based on historical events!
All these different elements make compiling your collection an interesting and sometimes tricky experience! At the end of the game points are scored based on collections and their value and the player with the most points wins!
Solo play unlocked as a Kickstarter exclusive.
- Beautiful historical illustrations
- Approachable for both new and accomplished gamers
- Adjustable difficulty
- History, set collection
- World's museum, historical artifacts
- educational, strategic
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- History-based information — Artifacts are depicted with historical details; strategy adjustment.
- set collection — Collect artifacts to score.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's fun it's pink and it has lots of unicorns
- a large tera sized card deck with a lot of dragons
- cards feature only artwork with no text or iconography making it completely language and color independent
- drinking card game I had the joy of playing in myself and had lots of fun
- it's all about historical set collection
- it's a 4 to 10 player social detection game full of paradoxes and destruction
References (from this video)
- absolutely gorgeous to look at
- art and flavor text are compelling
- flow and pacing feel natural
- set collection may feel predictable after multiple plays
- curating exhibits across cultures
- world history museums and artifacts
- spatial puzzle with heavy art flavor
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- set collection / exhibit organization — collect artifacts and arrange them into themed exhibits
- Spatial Puzzle — optimal arrangement of cards on a shared or personal board
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's a really therapeutic game
- the production is gorgeous
- I just enjoy looking at all the arts
- extremely relaxing to play
- I don't care about winning, I just enjoy the process
- lose myself in this one
References (from this video)
- most beautiful board games made
- gorgeous art
- clever mechanics
- rewarding collection building
- clever discard mechanics
- out of print
- company went under
- getting hard to find
- building art collection
- art museum
- aesthetic_collecting
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting — card drafting game
- discard pilfering — take cards from other players' discard piles
- set collection — set collection game
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is my list the video says the top 100 board games of all time but it really is just my top 100 board games of all time
- three minute board games is an independent channel we dont take money from publishers and we do not do any form of paid content
- Mosaic has the ambitious goal of being a civilization game that can be played in two to three hours and it very much succeeds at this goal
- a game that does not need to be played with a traitor because the inherent selfish goals in this game created enough internal conflict
- I love space racing games and space corp is the game that is most racy as far as space racers go
- the term I use instead of gateway game is foundation game
- Sentinels could easily be a forever game the kind of game you just play over and over and over and over again endlessly
- Modern Art is a simple and brilliant and beautiful game and easily the best pure auction game Ive ever played
- Black Orchestra models some very clever things about how conspiracy is run
- when I asked the question hey what game should I play with my non-gamer friend who's interested in gaming but hasn't done much gaming I almost always answer Sentient Golem Edition
- Arkham Horror is the game that really made board gaming my number one hobby
- there are a few things more fun and rewarding in board gaming than organizing a fight in the arena
- Twilight Struggle is one of the best head-to-head games out there
- Santorini is the definition of an elegant design
- Arkham Horror the card game absolutely should be for you it's a hundred percent for me and it is my number one game of 2023
References (from this video)
- Stunning artwork and production
- Elegant dual-use card system (points and currency)
- Joyful and engaging to play with family and friends
- Can be heavy for players who dislike long setup or multiple layers
- curation, cultures, and genres
- Museum gallery of artifacts from around the world
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- currency/card economy — Cards serve as both scoring vehicles and currency to acquire more cards.
- deck/market interaction — Use discard piles and markets to influence what can be bought.
- set collection — Assemble artifacts into themed collections to score points.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I thought 2019 was a really strong year for board gaming.
- it's just a nice, pleasant game there and I really hope this one gets some wind behind it sails because it's a really nice game.
- an absolute masterpiece in my opinion.
- Trismegistus the ultimate formula definitely my top game of 2019.
- this is undoubtedly the best deduction game out there.
- Museum is as you can see it has to be wonderful to look at artwork by vintage rate, who is undoubtedly probably the best artist in the business.