It was recently brought to my attention that I tend to write long posts and these often take longer to write than I took playing the game. A Fake Artist Goes To New York is a REALLY quick game, and it’s really simple, so let’s try and do this review as fast as possible. I’m actually going to time this to see if I can write it in a shorter time than it takes to play the game. Of course, it’s only 15 minutes – so this could be difficult…

Annnnddd…GO….

15 minutes on the clock.

A Fake Artist Goes To New York is a social deduction, drawing party game by Oink Games (designed by Jun Sasaki), that is a whole host of fun in an itty bitty box. It is a drawing game for 5-10 players (we played with five) in which one player takes a number of tiny white boards, one for each other player, and writes a random thing on all but one. That thing can be anything, from an animal to an abstract concept. One player gets a blank board with just an “X” on it. These are handed out privately so no-one knows who has the X. The player who wrote on the boards will not participate and will give all the players a category to do with the drawing. For instance, if it is meant to be a Lion, the clue may be “Animal”.

All other players, including the fake artist, pick a coloured pen.

Next, a pad of paper gets passed around, and the first player draws a single line on it. The second player draws another line. The third another line. When it comes to the fake artist, they have to try to blend in without it seeming too obvious.

At the end of the round, once the paper has gone around twice, the game master (the player who wrote the item on the boards) then asks for everyone to simultaneously vote on who they believe the fake artist to be. The fake artist then comes clean and, if they were suspected, has one chance to redeem themselves – they have to guess what everyone else was drawing. If they weren’t suspected then they get to guess anyway.

It’s that short. It’s that easy.

Manmade (Clue) – House (Item) and Christmas (Clue) – Santa’s Sleigh (Item)

I have seven minutes left to write this review. 

The components are all fairly simple. The tiny box is a bit difficult to open, but I am being pernickety as it is also lovely to hold. The pens are all good quality, as are the boards, and the sheet is really nice. It has a space to draw, but it also has spaces for the subject and the colour of the fake artist to be noted, as well as place to write the category and tick boxes to say who had won.

Generally speaking, A Fake Artist Goes To New York is a different, open ended, and fun game. Personally, it feels very similar to Scrawl in regards to how it is a drawing game, however it is a lot more concise. It led to a few good rounds, but A Fake Artist Goes To New York is not a whole evening of entertainment. Five rounds lasted us around an hour, and that was plenty for a filler game between Space Alert and Scythe but it could have become old fairly quickly.

Five games in a row was good fun, but more than enough. Everything from a T-Rex to LoTR to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Three minutes left.

So, yeah. It’s a good game. I’m very glad it’s on the gaming shelf as drawing games are great games to get everyone involved and having a good time. Everyone seemed to like it, so it would be hard not to recommend it. Ultimately, to use a metaphor, it is like a cold energy saving bulb made of wind – light, brisk, and breezy – a bit like this review.

Let me know what you…

Time.

Published by Luke

Board game nerd, comic book geek, Rubik's Cube solver, Splendor player, and Blogger. View all posts by Luke