Curators is a Euro-style tile-laying game for 1-4 players in which players build museums and their collections to attract visitors. Your job as a curator is to expand the museum and its collection. With the help of your employees, you build new wings and collect objects to exhibit in the museum. The employees are represented by five tokens that are used to determine the different actions you can take in the game. Choose your action from the face-up tokens, then turn the token over to show that you used it. This reveals another action on the other side that you can use at a later time.

On the other hand, if you ever have two of the same action available on your turn, you can choose to double down. This means that you can flip two chips in one turn and double the amount of work. As you play, you acquire loans for famous objects, such as 'the Roman soldier's dice tower' or 'the Neanderthal skull', from other museums. To score the points for these objects, you must complete a Tetris-like puzzle of color and space. When the game ends, only one museum will be the winner and take home the 'Museum of the Year Award'.