Step Right Up to the Carnival

I love amusement parks and carnivals!

I love the feeling of zooming all over on roller coasters and other contraptions. I also have many fond memories of lazy summer days with my cousins at state fairs with cool rides.

And on those fun summer days I’d imagine what it would be like to work at an amusement park. I’d dream of how cool it would be around all those rides every day and ride as much as I wanted to.

Of course, that’s a young kid’s dream. Reality sets in as you age and you realize that working at an amusement park or carnival is a lot different than riding the rides.

So is Carnival – a card game about building carnival rides – more like the thrill of riding the rides or the drudgery of operating them while you watch others have fun?

What is the card game Carnival about?
In the game Carnival, you take on the role of a carnival operator. Your job is to build 4 carnival attractions before the competing carnival operators build theirs. To build an attraction you’ll need to collect the 4 components that makeup the attraction: Light, Seats, Banners, and Maintenance.

So in essence, Carnival is simply a set collection card game. However, there are some cool elements that add a twist to simply drawing and playing cards.

How do you play Carnival?

Like most set collection card games, the rules of Carnival are pretty simple. You’ll have 5 attraction cards in your Midway where you’ll construct your attractions. They consist of a Roller Coaster, Bumper Cars, Swings, a Ferris Wheel, and a Merry-go-round. And they’re all color-coded so it’s very easy to tell the cards apart.

On your turn you’ll get a chance to work with your hand of cards and then play your choice of cards to your midway. So the basics play of Carnival is pretty much like other set collection – collect cards and form sets of 4.

But Carnival is different than the rest. The game adds in new twists that will keep you thinking and adjusting throughout the game.

The biggest element is the use of dice to determine what you get to do on your turn to manage your cards. Rather than just draw a card from the deck, you roll 3 dice. Then you’ll select 2 of those dice to determine what actions you can take.

And that’s where your best laid plans can hit the tank. You may have great plans for what you want to do next, but if the dice come out different, you may not get to do the actions you were hoping for. While it may mess up your plans, that single element adds a very cool factor to the game that keeps it interesting.

If you roll:

1. Draw a card from the deck
2. Draw a card from the discard pile
3. Steal a card from an opponent’s hand
4. Swap a card from your hand with one from an opponent’s hand
5. Swap a card from your midway with a card from an opponent’s midway
6. Steal a card from an opponent’s midway and discard a card from your hand

The other very cool element that makes Carnival unique is that you can also adjust the dice or block an opponent. Every player gets 3 Tickets to start the game and you can discard a Ticket to Roll Again, Add or Subtract 1 pip from 1 die, or Block an opponent’s action. But you’ll need to choose wisely because those Tickets are limited.

And the Carnival artwork rocks! We love the style of the art on the Carnival cards and think it really brings the theme to life.

So is Carnival fun for families?
With a name as evocative as ‘Carnival’ we anticipated a lot of fun from the game. However, it turned out to get mixed reactions. And perhaps a lot of that was simply based on what each of us expected the game would be.

For those expecting Carnival to be just a nice, light, happy-go-lucky card game, they were disappointed. Carnival isn’t that. Instead building your Carnival is full of dirty handed deeds like stealing cards from your opponents – and not only blind draws from your opponent’s hands, but right from their partially built rides.

And that didn’t fly well with our daughter at all.

Of course, the recommended age for the game is 13+. So that should tell you right up front that it’s not just a light, fluffy game. Instead it takes some planning, stealing, and lucky dice rolls to get your Carnival built first. So we’re not surprised that our teenage boys rate Carnival higher than our younger two.

They found the game very interesting and don’t mind being attacked because they’ll come right back at you without worry.

So from a parent’s perspective we’d suggest you follow the recommended guidelines and not bring it to the table with the youngsters (unless you want hurt feelings in your home). Take them out for cotton candy instead – they’ll enjoy it a lot more.

Thanks to Dice Hate Me Games and Game Salute for providing a copy of Carnival for our review!

The Board Game Family Game Ratings
	Caleb
	Brooke
	Jaden
	Trevor
	Mom
	Dad
	Average

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Interested in what others think of Carnival?
Check out these other opinions:
* Games With Two review of Carnival
* Play Board Games Carnival review