That’s why I’m amazed an artist from an 80’s PBS painting show has had a resurgence in popularity over the last few years. It probably won’t appeal to more serious gamers, who are more likely to succumb to the easygoing, slightly more in-depth charms of Art of Chill. Some adults who aren’t confident in their drawing skills may also get frustrated, but that’s mitigated by playing multiple rounds and only keeping your best drawing for the final vote. The Bob Ross theme isn’t strong here, and Happy Little Accidents is certainly not “chill”, but this is a fun game.

Points can be scored throughout the turn, and the game ends immediately when a player gets to the end of the scoring track – with the first player to reach the end of the track being declared the winner. Given that there’s actual artwork involved, I feel like Happy Little Accidents better encapsulates the Bob Ross theme than the first game did. Demonstrating further that the publishers have gone to the nth degree with their component design, each player has a thick cardboard palette for readying their paints to apply to their chosen feature. Furthermore, you must have a card in your hand which has the appropriate tool as shown in the feature box on the painting. Of course, there is more to do than just painting – and it is a fairly viable strategy to race to pick up the Technique cards.

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On a turn, the active player first rolls the die (and resolves the action of that die roll), and then the player takes 3 actions. It’s a real pleasure to encounter games such as Back to the Future: Dice Through Time and Horrified, both based on perennially popular yet aging licenses, to find that the designs are incredibly strong and incorporate their themes deeply to be relevant to the stories they’re based on. My beef with the game in this vein is that there is not a player aid OR this information isn’t printed on the palette board for easy reference.Many people have compared Bob Ross: Art of Chill to Ticket to Ride — where players collect sets of cards to build train routes on a map. In addition, for the remainder of the game, that player will earn 1 bonus point each time they paint a feature with that color or brush. In fact, we’ve had fun putting a video of the show (from Youtube) in the background as “mood music”. As the supply of these is limited (only 11 total in the game) – you’ll have to move on these quickly.

Additionally, look at the Bob track on the bottom of the painting; if Bob has not yet painted the particular feature, you will score a bonus as printed on the track. Despite the smiling face of the well known painter on the box, the game held within the box is actually a pretty great resource management game. It turns out that Bob Ross: The Art of Chill was my most-surprising game played at SaltCon earlier this year. The game can be explained in seconds, and even those who feel they don’t have a creative bone in their body can have a good time.You will surprise yourself by transforming abstract shapes and squiggles into charming pieces of art. Happy Little Accidents is a wonderful drawing/art game that really embodies Bob Ross’s slogan of “we don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents. Because of the die rolls, sometimes paintings change quickly or sit on the easel for a couple rotations around the table.