Masterpiece;
An Art Auction Game
with help from Megan E. Reddicks Pignataro
Growing up my family played the Parker Brother's game Masterpiece most Sundays, engaging in fun head-to-head bidding wars. However when playing over the most recent game night, I felt that a large part of that was missing, art history of the paintings we were bidding on. Along with this, the version we played was made in 1974 and its neutral tones are a zeitgeist of that era. I wanted to make the game feel as if you, the player, are at the auction house and living a life of luxury.
Here are two examples of painting cards used for bidding. After doing extensive research on art history, I picked 25 paintings I felt had wacky or captivating history behind them, the kind of history that anyone would be interested in knowing about. I then contacted my art history teacher Megan Pignataro, who helped me word the history into layman's terms.
(Roll over these cards to see their fun fact)
The Painting Cards
Value Cards
Values of painting range from forgery to one million dollars. When clipped to the painting, the simplified logo faces out, and the value is only visible to the owner. Players must use their best poker faces, to now show the other bidders if they receive a painting with high or low value.
Box Design
I created this custom made box though a distributor in Vietnam. I designed specks, and though rounds of edits we finalized a custom 2mm rigid high-density paper board box, that can be used as the bank while the players place bids!
Game Pieces
Custom 3-D printed game pieces. Famous sculpture game pieces include (from left):
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The Thinker, Auguste Rodin
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Venus de Milo, Alexandros of Antioch
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LOVE, Robert Indiana
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Balloon Dog, Jeff Koons
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The Fountain, Marcel Duchamp
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Venus of Willendorf
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Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, Edgar Degas
