The 6 Best Art-themed Board Games for Crafters or Anyone

In this gift guide, I’m sharing some of my favourite art-themed board games that crafters and makers will enjoy, as well as everyone else. Find out about the art-themed board games, their features, and where to buy them.

Board Games Galore!

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As I wrote in my About page, I love playing board games. For my husband and I, playing games is one of our favourite things to do together. It’s also one of my favourite activities to do when gathering with family and friends.

Our game collection is continually growing as we find new games to try. And I do love playing all kinds of games – silly party games, word games, card games, long and complex strategy games – as long as it’s fun, I’ll play it!

We often like to play complex games with a wide variety of concepts such as Terraforming Mars, Pandemic, Wingspan, or Ticket to Ride. Recently, though, I’ve found that I enjoy games that are aligned with my interests – crafting, quilting, or painting. I also like games that contain a visual-spacial aspect, or great illustrations.

As well, I now tend to enjoy games that are shorter and less complex as we don’t always have 3 hours to devote to a game. It’s also helpful when it can be set up and put away quickly.

Today I’m going to share some of my new favourite art-themed board games that I think you will also love. They would make great gifts for the holidays, birthdays, or even just a new addition to family board game night.

Criteria For a Great Board Game That Will Be A Favourite

There are so many board games out there and your favourites might be different than mine. But I do look for particular things in a game that will become one of my favourites. Not all the games in this gift guide meet all of these criteria, which I’ll explain when I discuss each game.

Some Features I Look For:

• Good for 2 players: Often, it’s just my husband and I playing games, especially during the pandemic. I really appreciate a game that can be played by 2 players (and still works equally well). Though I adore many games that require 3+ players, it is frustrating when we can’t play it because we don’t have a third person
• Ideally, good for more than 2 players as well: If it’s a good game, I’d like to be able to play it with family and friends because playing games together is one of my favourite things to do.
• Doesn’t take forever to set up and put away: If there’s limited time on a work/school night, I don’t want to spend most of it setting up a million pieces and shuffling a million decks of cards
• Easy to learn and re-learn: While I also love complicated games, my favourites are ones that don’t require a degree to decipher the rules, or that require just as much effort to re-learn if you haven’t played it in a while. When they’re easy to learn, they’re also easier to teach new groups of friends and family to play as well.
• Quick(er) to play: Sometimes we want to be able to play a game in 20 – 40 minutes including set-up
• Replayable: We generally want games that are going to be fun no matter how many times we’ve played them. Having to adapt our strategy each game keeps things fun and fresh.

Where to Buy The Board Games

We’ve collected a large amount of board games over the years, and have bought them from many different places. We have always found that we need to hunt around to find particular games in stock. I also think that board games have become even more popular during the pandemic as families were stuck at home and looking for activities to do.

In addition, this year there are stock shortages and supply chain issues to contend with. On a few of our recent board game purchases, we definitely had to search many places to find what we were looking for.

We do try to support independent game shops whenever we can. There is a fabulous site we’ve discovered where you can look up a game and find out where it’s in stock across the country and the price. It’s called Board Game Oracle, and you can select the United States, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia.

We also do buy board games from Amazon, and from Chapters. For the links to the games below, I will be posting Amazon links as they’re accessible to all. If I posted links to a local-to-me board game shop, they might not be local to anyone else.

But do hunt around for these art-themed board games or any others. You might need to search far and wide in order to find a particular game that you want.

Gift Guide: Best Art-Themed Board Games for Crafters and Everyone Else

Below are my favourite art-themed board games, or board games that appeal to me as a crafter, quilter, artist, etc.

I’ll share the features and pros/cons of each game as well as why I like it. I’ll also give a brief rundown of the mechanics of the game, but for full rules, consult each game’s rulebook.

1. Patchwork

Patchwork has been out for a few years now, and we’ve had our copy since my husband gave it to me for my birthday several years ago. I was delightfully surprised that he managed to find a quilting game as I hadn’t heard of it. It’s one of the best art-themed board games, focusing on shape and spacial awareness, with colourful patterns and designs.

Details:

• Publisher: Lookout Games
• Players: Only 2
• Time: 15-30 minutes
• Ages: 8+
• Pros: It’s a game about quilting! The Tetris concept is familiar. It’s a game specifically designed for 2 players. The box is amazingly small to store. Easy to learn, set-up and play.
• Cons: You can’t share this amazing game with more than 2 people at a time.
• Other Variations: There are several variations or versions to Patchwork that have been released, which I haven’t tried. These include: the Americana Edition, Halloween Edition, Patchwork Express (a smaller, faster size for ages 6 and up), Patchwork Doodle (a related concept involving drawing designs on paper with dice and cards), and the Christmas edition.

How to Play:

Each player has a 9×9 square quilt board that they are trying to fill with quilt patches in a Tetris-puzzle-like way. The patches – all colourful and different shapes and configurations – are placed in a circle. The time board sits in the middle with player time tokens moving inward on the spiral until both players reach the centre, ending the game.

At the end of the game, players score for the number of buttons they have accumulated, but subtract 2 points for each unfilled square on your quilt. Therefore, you need to try to cover as much of your quilt board as possible, fitting them snuggly together. You can rotate the quilt patches in any orientation or flip them over to place them. When it’s your turn, you’re always choosing whether to purchase one or more of the next 3 patches in the circle after the wooden neutral token.

The patches cost “buttons” to purchase, marked on a tag on each patch, as well as move you a number of spaces forward on the movement board. A unique feature is that the person who is behind on the movement board gets to keep taking turns until they are ahead, so if you are strategic, you can get multiple turns in a row.

To get more buttons, or when you can’t afford to buy any patches, you can gain one button for each space you move on the movement board until you are ahead of the other player. When you pass buttons periodically marked on the movement board, you earn buttons as income for each button on the patches on your own quilt board.

Special leather patches are earned by players first to pass over them on the movement board, and they help to fill small gaps in your patchwork quilt. And the first player to fill in a 7×7 square on their board without gaps gets a special bonus.

Why I Like It:

This is a great game involving spacial awareness, planning ahead, and managing resources. Every game is different and you might find yourself unable to place any more patches. You might also have a lot of empty spaces at the end when the other player races ahead on the movement board. Or you might be a Tetris-superstar and have most of your board covered.

I love the quilting concept, buttons as currency, and all the colourful patches. If you’re looking for a fantastic game that’s specifically designed for 2 people, (or that your kids can play without you), Patchwork is it!

2. Calico

Calico is another of our art-themed board games that we recently purchased and I love this one! Not only is it about quilting, but it incorporates cats. (The only thing better would be if it was about dogs!) As well, it incorporates colour, pattern, and shape – all elements of art – making it a great art-themed game.

Details:

• Publisher: Flatout Games
• Players: 1-4
• Time: 30-45 minutes
• Ages: 10+
• Pros: It’s a game about quilting! And cats! Turn mechanics are very simple, and there is a finite number of turns. Easy to learn, set-up and play. Love the bonus pages of real cats in the instructions (see below). So colourful and fun!
• Cons: None!
• Other Variations: There is a solo mode within the game as well. In addition, there are pages of achievements and achievement scenarios to track progress or work toward specific achievements while playing. I think these would make an extra fun challenge to make the game more versatile long-term.

How to Play:

Calico is a colourful game of placing hexagon tiles to complete a quilt. Place onne tile per turn until your quilt is complete. Tiles have 6 different colours and 6 different designs. You earn points by placing either adjacent tiles of the same colour, of the same pattern, and/or according to the placement of 6 tiles around three different goal tiles.

Each game there are three different cats selected with criteria that earn you points based on pattern placement. In the photo below for example, the orange curled cat (Rumi) is placed when you have three of either the polka dotted or quatrefoil tiles (any colour) in a straight line. The orange cat would earn you five points. More than 5 adjacent tiles with either stripes or leaves would earn you a grey cat (Coconut) and 7 points.

There are also buttons earned from placing 3 or more adjacent tiles of one colour. For example, 3 adjacent yellow tiles (any pattern) earns a yellow button, 3 points each. If you place one button of each colour, you get a rainbow button.

On your turn you select one patch tile from your hand of 2 patch tiles (not pictured) to place on your board. Then place any cats or buttons if you completed a group of adjacent colours or patterns. Finally, select one patch tile from the 3 choices in the tile market to bring your hand back up to two.

There are 3 places on each player board for goal tiles. The six spaces around those hexagons have a specified pattern that you can try to achieve with either pattern, colour, or both (earning the higher points if you do both). For example, in the photo above, the lower left goal tile reads AA-BB-C-D. I completed it with 2 purple – 2 turquoise – 1 green – 1 pink, for colours. As well, I completed it with 2 stripes – 2 quatrefoil – 1 vine – 1 leaf for patterns. Therefore, I would earn 7 points for that goal at the end of the game.

When your quilts are filled in completely with tiles, scores are tallied for the goals, buttons, and cats.

Why I Like It:

This game is so much fun, and there are so many opportunities for strategy. You can spend ages overthinking and planning out your placement several moves in advance to meet a variety of goals. But then the tiles to choose from don’t end up being what you need. Having to adapt on the fly and figure out what objectives to give up on as your remaining options dwindle is part of the fun.

I also love that this game includes a page in the instructions with profiles of the real cats that inspired the cat tokens in the game. Calico is a colourful and fun game that you’ll want to play over and over! (even if you’re more of a dog person)

3. Sunset Over Water

Sunset Over Water is an art-themed game that we just bought recently. I was excited that it was about painting and selling paintings, as that’s something I like to do. But the concept and beautiful art would appeal to anyone.

Details:

• Publisher: Pencil First Games
• Players: 1-4
• Time: 20 minutes
• Ages: 8+
• Pros: It’s a very beautiful and relaxing game to play. The box is amazingly small to store. Easy to learn, set-up and play. The game ends after a finite number of turns.
• Cons: When playing with 2 players it’s easy to avoid other player on the 5×5 grid, although there is still lots of opportunity for strategy and fun. I expect that playing with more players would add another element to the strategy.
• Other Variations: There is a solo variation within the box with special rules and cards that I have not tried yet.

How to Play:

Sunset Over Water is so quick and easy to learn and set up. It also has a finite game length of 6 fictional days of painting. Each day has 3 phases. Players begin by selecting 3 planning cards from their individual deck during the planning phase. The planning cards have a wake-up time, a movement amount for hiking during the Trek phase, and a number of paintings that can be picked up. Each player selects one planning card.

Players reveal their planning cards and the earliest wake-up time gets to go first. This can be advantageous as you get first access to paintings and commission cards. However, there is also a daily goal awarded for being the last person to do something.

Players can move their artist token in one direction across the grid of 5×5 landscapes up to the number of movement spaces on their planning card. Then they can pick up a number of paintings up to the amount on their planning card. These include ones they started on, passed overs or landed on along the way.

Paintings have features marked in the corners according to the natural features they have. Players are trying to collect and sell paintings for commissions. Each commission card lists required features for the paintings and points earned. Once they have collected their paintings on the trek, painters can sell any matching the commissions to earn points listed on the commission cards.

The last person to achieve the daily goal gets that card and the point value on it. Gaps in the 5 x 5 painting grid are refilled with paintings. Then new commission cards and daily goal are laid out. Players select a new planning card and continue on for the second day of painting. Play continues in a similar way until points are tallied at the end of six days.

Why I Like It:

There are a lot of interacting strategy elements between which wake-up time you select, the features you are collecting, turn order, etc. But it’s a very simple and quick game filled with beautiful artwork. Anyone would enjoy Sunset Over Water.

4. Azul

Azul is one of our art-themed board games that we’ve had for a while and that I love playing because it’s simple and so vibrant.

Details:

• Publisher: Next Move
• Players: 2-4
• Time: 30-45 minutes
• Ages: 8+
• Pros: It’s a very beautiful and relaxing game to play. The box is a medium size. Easy to learn, set-up and play.
• Cons: None!
• Other Variations: Within the box, the back of the boards have a blank tile space to create your own design. But there are also other Azul games that have been released recently as well. They include: Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra (placing sections of stained glass), Azul Crystal Mosaic (a board game expansion for the original game), Azul Summer Pavillion (working with diamond shaped tiles in a different design), and Azul Queen’s Garden (hexagon tiles). I haven’t tried any of these other editions.

How to Play:

Azul is a simple game where you are tiling a wall in the Royal Palace by placing colourful and patterned square tiles in a design on your game board.

In the centre of play are circular tile factories, stocked at the beginning of each round with four random tiles from the supply bag. You must select all tiles of one colour from a factory, (placing any other colours in the centre), or select all tiles of one colour from the remainders in the centre. Then you place them on empty spaces on the left of your player board. Each row can only contain one colour, and each row has a different number of spaces (1 through 5).

At then end of the round, rows that have all their spaces filled with tiles will allow you place one of them in the corresponding square of the same tile design in that row of your tiled wall. Any rows that are not filled in completely wait until the next round to be completed. Any extras that you take of a colour that cannot fit on a row on the left, can begin a new row. Or, they must go in the spaces at the bottom of the board that count negative points at the end of the round.

When all the tiles from the factory are used, the round ends, and players score for each tile that went into their wall, less any negative points. The game ends when someone makes their first horizontal row. Points are tallied for horizontal rows, vertical rows, and all 5 tiles of one design being placed in the tiled wall.

Why I Like It:

There are very few components to this game, but they are high quality and I love the feel of the tiles. It is also so happy and colourful. There are lots of opportunity for strategy as well, such as taking the tile design that your opponent is trying to collect – or not 🙂

Azul is one of my favourite simple and fun art-themed board games to play and you’ll love it too!

5. Project L

Project L is another new game we got recently. I really liked the bold, graphic look, the quick and simple game play and the puzzle-like aspect. While not directly art-themed or related to crafting, it involves shape, colour, and spacial awareness, all of which are useful in crafting and quilting.

Details:

• Publisher: Boardcubator
• Players: 1-4
• Time: 30 minutes (though you can purposely end it faster or make it go on longer)
• Ages: 8+
• Pros: Simple turn play, but with lots of opportunities for strategy. Another small box to store. Very easy to learn, set-up and play.
• Cons: None!
• Other Variations: It includes a solo variant in the rules using an artificial opponent – I have not tried playing it yet.

How to Play:

Set-up of Project L is simple. Lay out a row of 4 white puzzle cards (one is missing below) and 4 black puzzle cards, as well as all the pretty coloured pieces. The object is to complete puzzles by filling them in with the puzzle shapes to earn points before the end of the game. The last round of the game is triggered when the final black puzzle (the more difficult puzzles worth more points) is turned over.

On your turn, you get 3 actions. You can take a puzzle from the eight puzzles on offer, take a level 1 or 2 piece (the smallest yellow or green pieces), upgrade a piece by trading it for a larger piece, or place a piece on one of your puzzles. Once per turn you can do a master action which lets you place up to one piece on each of your puzzles simultaneously – a very valuable action.

As soon as a puzzle is completely filled in, you can take the puzzle pieces back. As well, you earn the piece shown in the top right corner of the puzzle, and the points in the top left corner. Therefore there’s important strategy to the order of the actions you take in each turn. The more puzzles you complete, the more pieces you receive, and the larger the puzzles you can complete.

Why I Like It:

This is a fast-paced game that you can make last longer by depleting all the white puzzles before triggering the end of the game. Or end the game faster by quickly working through the black puzzles. There are endless strategies to employ and the feel of the tiles and the puzzles and how they fit together is pleasing. Project L is a great game that would also be great for children.

6. MicroMacro: Crime City

MicroMacro: Crime City is another recent purchase that I was very excited about because of how different it is. It’s part game, part puzzle, part mystery to solve. While it isn’t specifically about art either, it is largely about the illustrations and hunting for small details.

Details:

• Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
• Players: 1-4 (though I wouldn’t recommend more than 3)
• Time: 15+ minutes in sessions of any length you like
• Ages: 12+ (because of content)
• Pros: Cooperative game/puzzle. Unique concept. Another small box to store. Very easy to learn, set-up and play.
• Cons: You can only do each case once, though you can pass it on to others to play. It’s difficult to fit more than 3 people around the map, and the images are very tiny.
• Other Variations: There is also a second edition, MicroMacro Full House with new cases, and cases marked with symbols so parents know which are child friendly.

How to Play:

I can’t explain MicroMacro in depth for fear of spoiling things. But essentially it’s a giant map that can be unfolded on a table, or hung on a wall. Then you will need to explore or solve 16 cases.

Each case is a set of numbered cards in envelopes, and the difficulty level is on the front card. The instructions give you a possible order to solve the cases so they progress in difficulty.

The first case, The Top Hat, will guide you through how to approach the cases. Each card will ask a question with the answer on the back that you can check when you’ve figured it out. But by the time you’ve done the first couple, I suggest that it’s much more fun to not look at the cards after the top card and try to solve the mystery without it.

It involves a lot of hunting together as a team all over the map. The drawings are charming and depict crime-scenarios. A small magnifying glass is provided, though I’ve read others use the zoom on their phones. A well-lit space is a requirement.

You will search through the map to figure out what happened leading up to and after each crime until you think you have it all figured out.

Why I Like It:

The nice part of MicroMacro is that set-up could not be simpler – just lay out the map and grab a case. Do as many or as few cases at a time as you like. We did find the first few cases quite quickly, but they are getting much more difficult as we go. (We still have 4 left to complete). I’m always excited to pull out MicroMacro and solve a case.

While I wish it was replayable, I like the fact that we can gift it to someone else to enjoy. The pictures are fun to look at, and it makes me want to get out my pencil crayons and start a giant colouring session. If you love Where’s Waldo or I Spy books, lots of small details, cooperative games, or solving puzzles, you’ll love MicroMacro!

For more gift ideas, check out 12 Handmade Gifts to Make and Give, or Small Gift Ideas for Makers.

Best Art-Themed Board Games That Everyone Will Enjoy

I hope you feel inspired to try out some new art-themed board games with your friends and family. I love giving games as gifts because they are something you can play and experience together.

Though they may seem expensive, you can get many hours of family fun, friendly competition and laughter out of them. And in my opinion, a good game is a good investment in together-time. Which game is a good fit for your next game night?

I want to hear from you! Do you like playing board games? What kind do you like to play? Have you ever played any of these or other art-themed board games? Tell me about your favourite game in the comments below.

All the best,

Danielle