Friday Night Shots – How Important is Art?

Has it been five weeks yet?

No, it hasn’t!

Welcome back to the bar, only a week later.

You must have seen the lights on in the window, or maybe the fire that’s in the corner.

We should probably put that out.

Anyway, it’s good to have you back. Have a seat and I’ll get you something to drink.

Anything you want.

Except Dr. Pepper, because while I like the other 22 flavours, I’m morally opposed to prickly ash.

(Thanks, AJ!)

So now that you’re here, and we literally have no other customers, let’s talk about board games!

I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this before, but just how important is good art to you in a boardgame?

Is it more important than gameplay?

Less?

Can you play a great boardgame if the art sucks?

Can you play a beautiful boardgame where the mechanics just aren’t that great?

The prompt behind this post is yet another entry in the never-ending argument about the art in Terraforming Mars.

Yes, the art is…variable in this game. I wouldn’t call it crappy, but some cards are better than others.

Some people hate it, though.

I can’t count the number of posts on BGG I’ve seen in the Terraforming Mars game forums saying some variation of “I would buy this game except the art sucks.”

Or “will they ever come out with a 2nd edition with art that doesn’t suck?”

They upped their game a little bit when they came out with Ares Expedition, though some people are even less of a fan.

There certainly hasn’t been as much controversy about it, though.

Don’t even get me started on Terraforming Mars: the Dice Game, whose art is also pretty crappy and appears to be at least somewhat AI-generated.

Overall, though, I’m a big fan of the games (well, not as much the dice game, though I am willing to play it) so the art controversy doesn’t bother me.

I really do like beautiful artwork in my games.

Some games are just a wonder to behold (pretty much anything with art by Beth Sobel, for instance) and even if the gameplay was a little weak, I’d still be willing play it.

Only a little weak, though. If the gameplay is terrible, Van Gogh could be doing the art and I wouldn’t want to play it.

But can a good game withstand bad art?

It depends on your opinion of the actual game of Terraforming Mars, doesn’t it?

Even if you don’t like that game, though, what about a game you do like where the art isn’t great.

Maybe it’s just basic, fine, whatever. The art is there and it’s not actually offensive.

Does that affect your buying (or playing) decision?

What if the art is just bad?

It’s hard for me to answer that because while I’ve played 642 games, I can’t think of any that I’ve played where the art has just turned me off completely.

For me, it’s more that it could be mediocre.

Even then, isn’t “good” artwork really in the eye of the beholder?

While it doesn’t have that many defenders (maybe because they don’t want to face the backlash), there are a few people who have publicly said “I like the art in Terraforming Mars.

(That I’m aware of…I’m sure there are a bunch of people who have publicly said it that I don’t know).

One Garphill game where I’m a bit iffy on the art (so no, I’m not going to post the usual gif) is the original version of Circadians: First Light.

The art is fine, but it’s probably on my lower tier of artwork in games.

However, I did enjoy the game when I played it (and had it).

I did end up trading it away and it didn’t go over that well with my game group, so maybe this is a bad example.

But I’m still really willing to play it (maybe more with the new edition, though I didn’t bother spending the money to get the upgrade).

The game does have some good mechanisms, though.

This isn’t a game where I turned away from it because of the artwork, though.

It’s more that I couldn’t get it played again and I wasn’t that enthused about it.

So maybe it doesn’t really count for the purposes of this post?

One of my favourite games (at least in app form) with fairly bad art is Ascension, at least in the early days.

Yes, later expansions had better art, but the original art in the base game and early expansions is pretty universally panned.

I can’t disagree.

But the game itself is amazing and if I did more straight deckbuilders on the table (and wanted to buy a bunch of expensive expansions), then I’d be all over it.

Playing it all on the app, you don’t really need to worry about the art!

This is a great example of weird art that actually doesn’t detract from how great the game is, though.

The game was popular from the beginning, even despite the art.

I can’t really leave this topic without talking about cover art, because that can be a main attraction for some people.

I’m not sure how many people these days just browse a game store (or maybe online) without actually knowing what they’re looking for, but checking out the cover art.

Cover art can still be attractive!

Or divisive.

More controversial is the new cover (and I guess new artwork internally, though I haven’t looked that closely at it) for the new version of Quacks of Quedlinberg, which I guess is just called Quacks now.

I think it’s…fine? I don’t have anything against it.

For me, it’s nowhere near the original, but whatever.

The gameplay is still good (assuming it hasn’t changed).

GMT Games have really upped their covers game, though.

When the Charioteer cover was first published, everybody was shocked and cheering.

That is an amazing cover!

I wish the game lived up to it, though it is a perfectly fine game.

Cover art is divisive in its own way, though I’m not sure how much it affects game sales mainly because the typical gamer usually knows a lot about the game even besides the cover.

Maybe seeing the cover in a news post might make them research it more (or less) after reading it?

I’m not saying that cover art isn’t important, but part of me wonders if its importance has lessened some.

What do you think of all this?

Can you play a good game with bad art?

Mediocre art?

Do you hate Terraforming Mars with a passion?

How much does cover art affect you at all?

Let me know in the comments.