🗺️ Projekt A.R.T. — Ocean’s Eight in Japan?
⭐ 2/10
Players: 1–6
Playtime: ~40 min
Difficulty: Medium (resource management + co-op + heavy randomness)
Game type: Cooperative / Adventure / Family
Mechanics: resource management, mission card drafting, dice tests, cooperative play, team planning
Project A.R.T. is a cooperative board game where you become part of the Art Rescue Team, chasing down the criminal syndicate White Hand that’s stealing masterpieces around the world. From Japan and Egypt, through the USA and Scandinavia, to Polynesia and Rio de Janeiro – each map has its own twist and fresh challenges.
You’ll juggle shared resources (fuel, weapons, radios, health), fight enemy agents, and collect clues. Four difficulty levels – from “easy” to heroic – promise replayability, at least in theory.
🎯 Objective
Recover enough stolen artworks before White Hand overwhelms the cities or wipes out your team.
🛡️ How a turn works
Each player draws 2 mission cards and picks one.
Cards show costs (resources), where agents appear, and clues (icons).
The group decides which cards to play and in what order.
After resolving the card, players may move (spending fuel) or fight agents (dice rolls modified by weapons and radios).
Three identical icons = a crate with stolen art appears. To claim it, you must reach the location and clear all agents.
🧩 Why I Like This Game
gorgeous Vincent Dutrait artwork, variety of maps, solid production, that cool “special mission” vibe.
💀 Why It’s Not Perfect
he game lives and dies on randomness — what cards you draw, what dice you roll. In bigger groups, it works a bit better. But in 2 players it felt like every turn we were short on something — fuel, radios, or time. The rulebook is “simple,” yet winning demands replaying scenarios over and over. After a few tries, my motivation was gone.
🏆 How to win in Project A.R.T.
Manage resources carefully – don’t burn everything at once.
Radios are key – without extra dice, fights are pure luck.
Split roles – one fights, one gathers clues, one handles crises.
Watch the clock – the deck runs out faster than you think.
✨🧀🍞 Cheese & Bread Time (Joke Zone) 😄
We play as members of the Art Rescue Team, and our mission is to recover stolen works of art from the hands of the White Hand organization. We travel across world maps, and each location brings different rules, different obstacles, and the same eternal problem: managing a tragic shortage of resources (fuel, weapons, walkie-talkies, life). All of this is mixed with fighting enemy agents and collecting clues. And instead of feeling like Robin Hood, we’re more like Robin Hungry — the version who definitely didn’t steal from the rich, because he was too busy rationing his last crumbs of supplies. 😂
If you enjoy games where you live on the edge of resource scarcity, or ones that remind you of Maslow’s pyramid — where you keep asking yourself what’s more important right now: life, fuel, the pistol or the walkie-talkie? — then this game is absolutely for you!
☕ Impressions
I bought this game for Japan and art – I wanted the Ocean’s Eight vibe and to play Sandra Bullock. Instead of a clever heist, I got endless resource-management grind. With 3 players it was tough but playable. With 2, it felt like trying to play co-op without resources — everything was missing.
Solo didn’t work for me either. The Japan map looked great, the rules seemed clear, yet I just couldn’t find the rhythm. I kept losing, and there was nothing fun or ironic about it. Life already throws me enough losses; I don’t need a game that makes me fail again and again. I play for fun, not for self-punishment 🙂
🎯 Final rating: 2/10
+1 for the beautiful art, +1 for the maps.
The rest? Too much randomness, too little satisfaction.Game given away.
