Portraits

Portraits was designed by James Kyle; based on Peddler (1992) by James Kyle. This description was contributed, with permission, by Kenneth Venosdel.

Portraits is a solitaire card game, which takes about 15 minutes to play.

Components

One standard playing card deck of 52 cards, with the Jokers removed.

Objective

Avoid freezing the city's art market while stashing away a complete set of twelve valuable portraits into your personal vault.

Setup

Shuffle the deck and place face-down to form the draw pile. One at a time, draw five cards and place them face-up in the public sales row. Similarly, draw five cards into your assets. No portraits (face cards) are allowed in your assets; any drawn while filling your assets must be placed in private collector sales. If a portrait is drawn while the private collector sales market is full (five cards) you immediately lose the game.

Gameplay

Make art deals by using your assets (number cards, representing lesser paintings, etc.) to purchase other, similar assets from the public sales market. Also, make deals using your assets to purchase portraits (face cards) from the public sales and private collector sales markets.

Turn Sequence

1. Perform one of the following transactions:
   1. Purchase an asset from the public sales market.
   2. Swap an asset with the public sales market.
   3. Purchase a portrait from the public sales or private collector sales market.
2. Fill emptied positions in the public sales market using cards from the draw pile.
3. Fill emptied positions in your assets using cards from the draw pile.

 

Purchasing

To make a purchase, discard one or more cards from your assets, all of the same suit and with a total value greater than the asset or portrait you wish to purchase, which must also be of the same suit. You may "overpay" if you wish, using more cards than is strictly needed, provided all cards are of the same suit. Assets have a value equal to the number printed on them. Aces may be valued as one or eleven at any given moment, your choice. Jack portraits are valued at eleven, queens at twelve, and kings at thirteen.

• If you purchase an asset, place it into your asset row.
• If you purchase a portrait, place it into your personal vault.

Swapping

You may discard one of your assets to acquire another asset from the public sales market that has exactly the same value. Obviously, the suits will not match. Place the newly acquired asset into your asset row.

Filling Emptied Positions

After each transaction, draw cards from the draw pile and place them face up in the emptied positions first within the public sales market, then within your assets. Remember that portraits may not be placed directly into your assets; instead, place portraits drawn while filling your assets into the private collector sales market. If a portrait is drawn while the private collector sales market is full (five cards) you immediately lose the game. If the draw pile becomes empty, emptied positions are no longer filled.

Draw Pile, Discard Pile and Personal Vault

• At any time, you may count the number of cards remaining in the draw pile.
• At any time, you may examine the cards in the discard pile and your personal vault.

 

Game End

You win the game if you collect all twelve portraits. You lose the game if there are no legal transactions left and you have not yet collected all twelve portraits.

Portraits is a free game from Glastyn Games™ • v1.0 • 27 Mar 2003
Copyright © 2003 by James Kyle • permission granted to copy for noncommercial use