Create the most spectacular circus crew
Despite its somewhat mixed reception, we definitely wanted to pick up 🎪 3 Ring Circus at Spiel'23 . It just looks so beautiful, and I am quite fond of this box format from Devir Games. Plus, seeing Fabio Lopiano’s name on a box is always a good sign! 😊
After reading the title of the game, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that you’ll be managing your own circus. Up to 4 players can compete to gather the most fame with their own attractions, to draw the attention of P.T. Barnum, the greatest circus mogul of all time!
Of course there are some interesting nuances to the rules, but the core of the game is really simple: 🧐 on your turn you either hire an artist or move your caravan and perform a show. Shows will be different depending on your destination - small towns 🏠 are mainly to gather money, medium cities 🏘️ are ideal to attract new artists you can hire later, and main cities 🏙️ are best for earning fame. ☝️The bigger the city, the bigger the expectations of the audience though, so you have to keep tweaking your circus crew.
🃏During the game you are managing a tableau of cards, and this is the meat of the game, but good positioning on the map and claiming majorities in the regions is important too. The 3 Rings of your circus are symbolized by 3 rows on your board. Whenever you play a card in one of the rows, you pay the price difference compared to the highest valued card in there. Cards are always (re-)ordered in an ascending order.
The puzzle of the game is to play and organize your artists in an optimal way - they might reference other card types or have some spatial conditions, and icons you cover up with cards could give or take away something. For main cities there are very specific types of cards that you are searching for to earn the most points, and as you complete columns you can gather and play end-game scoring cards as well.
💭 We have mixed feelings so far. Despite all the goodness above we couldn’t decide on how good the game is just yet. It’s not complex, yet we often did feel like we don’t have the flexibility to pivot if a specific card does not get drawn.
