Pastiche – Sean D. MacDonald Talks Art and (Game) Design

Designer Sean D. MacDonald has released a few of his own game designs through NoMADS GAMES, most recently the tricky card game The Crow and the Pitcher in 2009, but this year MacDonald will see the first of his designs hit print from a larger publisher: the color-mixing, tile-laying game Pastiche from Gryphon Games.

At heart, Pastiche is a set-collection game in which players want to collect certain combinations of colors in order to complete commissions, whether public or private. These completed commissions net the artist points, and whoever has the most points at the end of the game – with bonus points coming from unused paint and artist specialization – wins.

Commission cards and the paints needed to complete them

Broken down in this way, Pastiche brings to mind the Spiel des Jahres-nominated Fresco from 2010, which also has a "collect colors, mix them, score" nature. The games' differences are larger than their similarities, however, with Fresco having a worker placement mechanism, money handling, competition for paint at markets, and additional complications.

Pastiche, by contrast, is stripped down to the core of art creation: get colors, mix colors, paint. In this way, the game comes across as both highly abstract and deeply thematic. MacDonald says that the game's theme was in place from the start: "The inspiration for the design came from reading an article about people who collect 'Paint by Numbers'. For those not familiar with the term, 'Paint by Numbers' is a painting kit that contains a board with numbered outlined areas and paints. Each numbered outlined area is filled with the corresponding numbered paint."

Thus the working title for MacDonald's design was "By the Numbers", and the commission cards looked like a "Paint for Numbers" kit with outlined areas numbered 1-6, with the numbers matching particular colors. "But when I made the first prototpye, the numbered outlined areas distracted from the art," says MacDonald. "So I dropped the 'Paint by Numbers' idea and replaced the numbers with the three primary colors."

Dropping down to three primary colors from six was a good fit with MacDonald's inspiration for how players would acquire these paints. "I needed a mechanism that could create different combinations, but not too many," he said. "The hex suited my needs. When hexes are placed side by side, a two- or three-hex point combination is created. Also, the hexes add to the theme that players are mixing paints on a palette."

Color hexes

"Instead of using six different numbers," says MacDonald, "the three primary colors simplified the appearance of the hexes and game play, while adding to the theme of the game: mixing paints. From this point, the game Pastiche was born."

Each player starts the game with two color hexes, and a three-hex triangular tile is placed in the center of the table. On a turn, a player adds one hex to the layout, then collects colors based on the combinations created: blue and yellow make green; red, red and blue make magenta; and so on. Says MacDonald, "The hexes with a primary color at each corner now created the basic color wheel: three primary colors, three secondary, and six tertiary. The only combination not represented by a color is blue + red + yellow, which became brown and is the fourth secondary color."

Which colors make which

To get primary colors, you must forgo collecting other paints and take only the primary color that matches the center of the hex placed – unless you can get three dabs of the same primary color touching one another, in which you collect the primary color just as you do any other color.

Pastiche also includes the colors black, white, gray and bisque (originally called "pigment") and to get these colors, you need to trade with the "Palette Bank". (You can also trade for a primary color through the bank; trades with opponents are also allowed, which increases interaction among players and speeds play, says MacDonald.)

Players start the game with two commission cards in hand, and four commissions are laid out publicly. The game includes 34 commission cards, with two paintings from 17 different artists. On a turn, after collecting and trading for colors, a player can swap a commission in hand with one from the gallery, if desired, then complete any number of commissions, whether from hand or the open display. Why swap commissions if you can score them from anywhere? Because paint in hand at the end of the game is worth points only if you can apply it toward a commission in hand.

At the end of a turn, you can hold at most eight color cards in hand, so don't mix what you can't use. Once a player hits a certain point total – 35-45, depending on the number of players – the game ends and players tally their points, possibly scoring for colors in hand and earning a bonus of 3-6 points if they've completed two works by the same artist.

"For first time players, the number of color combinations can be a little ovewheming," says MacDonald. "But after a few plays, players become familiar with what's possible. So my advice to the first-time player is to have fun with the game and enjoy the beautiful art."