Given how cross-generational the show’s appeal is, due to the host’s wonderfully laidback manner, inspirational advice and charming turns of phrase, it must have been quite the challenge to come up with a game that did it justice and still remained satisfying as a design in its own right. This is really a race game which is not my favorite type of game, but the theme and the fact that there are “chill” cards make it worth your while.

The game is simple enough to pick up for most folks, and while I think the scoring can be a bit convoluted for a non-gamer, it is this system which generates enough of a game to satisfy the more experienced crowd. As soon as one player reaches the end of the Chill Points meter, the game immediately ends and that player is the winner! His estate do seem to be great at keeping his memory alive, however, with a steady stream of merchandise bearing his name and likeness – and what’s more, they seem to be going about this the right way, with products that I’ve no doubt the man himself would have loved. The Bob Ross: Art of Chill game is part of the impressive collection of games available at Target this fall. In addition, if Bob hasn’t yet painted that feature, the player also earns the bonus points indicated in the painting on the Bob Ross track.

For less serious gamers or for a game that you just want to break out and have a good time with, however, without the hassle of learning too many rules or for much younger players, you could do a lot worse than checking out the charmingly packaged Happy Little Accidents.

Put the deck in front of the Scoring Track and turn over the first 4 cards face up for everyone to see. When time is up, players take turns sharing and explaining what they’ve drawn (usually followed by oohs, aahs, or laughter), and then everyone grabs another paper from the middle and does it all again. However, I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi. As soon as one player has painted all 3 features of the active painting (or Bob has done so – by reaching the last space on his track), the painting is considered finished. The time pressure makes this inappropriate for younger children, so we think the 10+ age is about right.When I first heard about a board game based on Bob Ross my thought was something along the lines of “there is no way that is going to be good. 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. These cards each have a color and a paint brush type and are played onto a player’s paint palette in front of them to be used. There is a scoreboard in the middle of the table which has the score track on it as well as room for the Chill cards.

The colors of the paint can be a bit close to each other, but the game seems to help distinguish them (especially for color blind players) by having a slightly different shape to the smear of paint in each color. Earn “chill points” by painting landscape features like Happy Little Trees and Almighty Mountains using colors and brushes from your hand of cards.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. To take this latter action, the player needs to have all of the paint needed for one of the painting's three sections on their palette with no unneeded colors mixed in!