and most of these rules are obsolete… however, for archival purposes, voila!

Here is the typical starting layout for this board game. The main “gimmick” is to utilize reconfigurable board plates, in this way the game’s layout tries to simulate how different museums are organized around the world. The story of the game is that everyone is an art thief in a museum trying to steal the Masterpieces from other player’s vaults. First one to steal 3 wins.

At the heart of this game is a lot of teleportation, as well as stealing from one another. I have to play test a lot more to check on the timing of the overall game.

While playing Arthief you’ll find the following pieces: Player piece, Masterpiece, Guards, Vault, Base, Home, and keybits. All interactions are explained in the Component Interaction Matrix.

Players (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green)

Movement

The players can move a maximum of 2d4 steps minus the number of Masterpieces they carry(UP FOR REVIEW). So a player with 2 art pieces has a maximum of 6 steps, minimum of 2. A diagonal step counts as 2 steps. They cannot retract steps they’ve taken during one turn, which means they can’t land on the same square from where they commenced movement. Every step the player takes is final; so in effect, the player cant waste steps by stepping left, right, left, right, etc. and run down the number of steps remaining in the die roll.

Base and Home-Base

While every corner is a base, not all are home-bases. A guard cannot land on a corner that is occupied by a player of the same color or one that contains a keybit; thus making the player safe from getting caught by the Guards. The Home-Base is the corner color where players start the game. It is a Home-Base as well as the place where players exchange their keybits (2 in the following example) to open the Vault (releases the Guard).

Keybits: traps, and Stealing

There are a total of 12 keybits in the game; 4 masterpieces… 4 players and 4 guards. These are the different chips of player’s respective colours (and textures) that are initially located on the corners of each players board. Landing on keybits when they are on their corresponding corner (blue keybit is found initially on a blue corner) allows the player to take carry them around the museum.

• Players need 3 total pieces to steal a masterpiece:
  • 2 to set the guard to walk away from the Masterpiece (traded in at the boards’ “home-safe”) and
  • 1 to open the vault by landing on the center piece.

A player can drop any keybit they want at any time as long as they can move from the place where they dropped the keybit. If a player lands on a keybit that rests away from its starting position, they will collect it, but be teleported to his board and to the corner with the keybit’s corresponding color; i.e. Red player lands on a dropped blue keybit, blue keybit goes to a blue corner (NOT RED’s), but transport him to Red’s board, blue corner (UP FOR REVIEW). A benefit to dropping a keybit is that Guards cannot contact them; making them step aside when moving.

Keybits can be traded for teleporting between boards as long as players are on the corner of the keybit they will trade. In other words, a yellow keybit must be traded on a yellow corner; thus, the player can travel to the board he/she wants on the yellow corner, though they leave behind the yellow keybit as long as that space is unoccupied and pick up the one on the other side (if there is one). Also, corners can only have keybits of the corner’s color; i.e. a player cant drop a blue keybit on a red corner.

All keybits used must be returned to their corresponding corners.

Masterpieces, the Vault, and Winning

All players begin with 1 Masterpiece… the one found in their board’s center square, AKA the Vault. They must collect at least 2 others for a total of 3 by bringing a Masterpiece back to the center square. When a player lands on the center square with at least one keybit of the Masterpieces color, the masterpiece attaches to the player’s piece and then can be brought back to their Vault. Of course, they can only do this if the guard is away from the center square. Implemented as a “visual” guide, the height of the player’s center square varies as the game progresses; a player with 2 masterpieces will be TALLER than one without any.

If they have their board’s Masterpiece stolen by other players they can win by collecting any of the other 3. In other words, if a player brings back 2 other masterpieces, and they still have their own masterpiece in their board they win. In order to make the game adaptable to fewer than 4 players, the number of pieces they must gather is one less than the number of boards used to assemble the museum. 4 => 3, 3 => 2, etc.

The player loses one step per masterpiece he/she carries. Die roll: 5 – 2 Masterpieces = 3 steps. Minimum of 0 steps, if for example a player decides to carry 3 and they roll a 2 on the dice.

Vault

Initially, the Vault contains a board’s Guard. It also contains one Masterpiece that serves as bait for other players to acquire. Guards can be trapped in a Vault

Players vs Players

Players can use 3 bits of the same color to take a masterpiece away from another players possesion. Players can also trade (forcibly) keybits of their own color for any of the ones the other player has. Only one trade per encounter is permited, and the ; Yellow thief (carrying keybits blue, blue, yellow, Yellow Mastepiece) cant take from Red thief (carrying keybits green, blue, yellow, Green Masterpiece) the blue keybit; therefore, also taking the Masterpiece… Yellow  Thief must catch the Red thief again for the trade of 3 blues for one mastepiece.

Players can also trade 2 of the same color for one of any color the other thief has. They can also trade amicably if they collide, but they go to their corner within that board (if corner is occupied, they go to their own board).

Guards

Movement

Guards move with a 1d4 + number of Masterpieces in player’s posession. They also move in the direction indicated by the boards home-safe corner (the one with the arrow). If a guard moves 4 steps east and on the third step it jumps or lands on another board, the guard piece will continue to move according to the board where movement originated. The guard will move according to the new boards movement on the following turn.

They can also jump across to the next board if the boards are separated when initially laid out. And finaly, they loop to the other side if reaching an edge of a board.

• Players always lose all their keybits always. 
  • If caught off-guard (;-) they lose a masterpiece and are sent for one turn to their vault; their board also rotates 90 deg. clockwise from the center.
  • If a player encounters a guard, they can trade 3 keybits (3 max. carried keybits) of any color to teleport the guard away to the vault (center suare) of their choice. This can be used to protect ones vault.
• Players roll the dice for any guard they want to move across all boards. This happens only after they move their own player piece.

Board

The “museum” consists of 2-4 connected wings, or boards, each with its own Masterpiece in the center. Each player get’s their own board at the beginning; each board is identified by a color (and a braille label) on the center piece (AKA VAULT where the Masterpiece is found along with its guard) and along the edges of each board. The players starting position is indicated by an arrow that helps orient the guards movement; the smooth edge on the side of the board also indicates this.

At the beginning of the game, the players connect the boards along in a style of their choice, following these rules:

1. Corners to corners in parallel
2. Side to side, as long as corners are touching one another.

Boards initial orientation (direction of the arrow) is up to the players, but changes once a player is caught by a guard.

Other Details

Oh, each chip has the info for a famous painting. Braille is used through out the game pieces.

This prototype does not have a key feature of this game: magnetism. Though it is a contradiction of sorts, this game board and pieces are magnetized so that blind people can move through the board with precision; so that any movement a piece makes can be felt to “fall” in place, and so their hands can feel around the board. I’ve studied some boards that use dimples (some others use velcro), which i know can be more affordable for production, but i wanted to incorporate some tactile play into the feel of each player’s movement. Once closer to completion, and if time allows, i’ll test it with the local Lighthouse chapter of central Florida.

Synopsis

It plays like a 2d (though a bit more complicated) Parcheesi. The rules are simple, collect keypieces to unlock the masterpieces without getting caught by the guards or stolen away from you by other thieves. 2d4 moves you; you’re constrained by the outer perimeter (not the guards, they can jump/teleport to the other side. Two players duel for the keychips if they share a spot. Players utilize a key piece per attempt at braking the lock; 3 keychips minimum are needed to attempt.

It’s funny, for this game i ended up at home depot looking for drill presses to mass produce the pieces and the board. Publix supermarket->Walgreens->Kmart->office depot->art supply store-> home depot. That was my quest. BTW, go sculpey!

Copyright

If you want to play or share this game with others, please note that the license governing this game is that of the Creative Commons with special conditions for Attribution + Noncommercial + ShareAlike (by-nc-sa) CopyLeft Keyvan Acosta. in other words, you cant charge for it, but that’s it. further updates on these and other details will be made available in this web site. For more info, please contact me @ keyvan@purumus.net

Special Thanks to: Lee Wood, Justing Gallo, Chris Jahosky, Dustin, and Sarah Sadler.

Play testers: Ron White, Michael, Justin Morgan, and Tim Turcich,

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