Having fun with Funfair

KOCHI:  In Funfair, you and up to three other players are cast in the roles of theme park designers. Over a series of rounds, you’ll hire staff, construct attractions and try to lure as many people as possible through your shiny gates, all in the pursuit of having the most points when the dust has settled.

Funfair is a generous game, and it shows its hand very early each round begins with an event that affects all players and, unlike almost every other game with events, these are universally great things. And it does feature challenges aplenty, as your capacity to expand your park depends entirely on your finances and your finances depend entirely on you guessed it the paying public who want to visit the park you’ve built. This tightrope you’re required to walk doesn’t get easier the more of Funfair you play, but you will start to see the combinatorial potential underneath its skin.

Every card in Funfair offers some level of intrinsic value, but many of them feature the potential to combo very nicely with other potential set-ups you can build. The employees you can hire will either reward you for building your park a particular way, or will help you squeeze a little more money out of your attractions, Meanwhile, those attractions themselves can be jazzed up in various ways by adding utilities and services and most importantly themes.

Each attraction you build have a theme applied to it perhaps you’ve got a jungle-themed restaurant, or a piratical rollercoaster. Ultimately, it’s the little touches that I appreciate the most about Funfair. The fact that the board is double-sided to make it easier to read depending on how players are seated around the table shows the level of care and attention to detail that went into this game,Funfair is a keeper.

(Arjun is a gamer, book lover and an all-round renaissance man)