Funfair review — Fun at the fair for all

I’m always a sucker for great artwork and the bright, and vibrant illustrations in Joel Finch’s Funfair immediately grabbed my attention when I first laid eyes on it. Released in 2021, Funfair is a standalone followup to 2017’s Unfair, a game of conspicuously similar naming. Now I actually haven’t played the prior title, but from studying up on the differences between the two games, it seems the designer has simplified and streamlined the gameplay to make the latter more beginner and family friendly. Funfair is a 2 to 4 player tabletop game that revolves around building your own personal theme park. It’s a bit of a bummer not having a solo player mode, but what can you do about it? You’ll build thrilling roller coasters, hire specialized staff members, and construct award winning restaurants to come up on top with the best park ever!

It was a pleasant surprise to discover how easy it is to set up, learn, and play Funfair! Don’t be intimidated by the big box size and high number of moving pieces because there’s an extremely helpful rulebook and handy dandy reference cards for each player. Funfair actually boasts an incredible amount of depth considering how quickly it can be played. My first game with 3 players lasted about an hour, with each player averaging around 15 to 20 minutes. The game is played across 6 rounds with 4 phases to be carried out in each round. Points are tallied up at the end and you are scored on how many attractions you built, how many staff members you hired, how many upgrades you purchased on top of an attraction, how many blueprints you completed, among other miscellaneous scoring criteria. To no one’s surprise, the player with the highest score at the end wins the game.

When setting up, every player gets a gate card, 30 coins, and draws 5 cards from the Park deck, with at least 1 of those 5 being an “Attraction” labeled card. Those who failed to draw said card can redraw until they have at least one. Every player also receives one Super Attraction card (you still have to build it during a turn), which acts as any other “Attraction” labeled card with the added bonus that if you build it, you can take up to 4 actions in the Park Step. You might want to build your Super Attraction early, so you can take an extra turn per round, but it costs a whopping 20 coins to construct! The interesting dilemma here is that the longer you put off building it, the cheaper it becomes, because investors put in 5 coins at the end of each round. Built attractions go on the right side of the gate card, with a limit of 5, and hired staff members go on the left side, no limits here. Whoever went on a rollercoaster most recently gets to go first, a fitting rule!

The 1st phase is executed simply by flipping a City card, which kind of acts as this round’s “event” that affects all players. This can be something like every player gets a free Park card or all upgrades get a discount if you pay another player instead of the bank. Usually all City cards bring something positive to the table as I haven’t seen a detrimental effect yet in my playthroughs.

The 2nd phase, or the Park Step, is generally where the bulk of a round takes place, and has players take 3 to 4 actions, depending if they built a Super Attraction or not. During this phase, players can build attractions from either their hand or the Market, a public selection of cards that all players can see and build from. They can also choose to reserve a card from the Market if they deem a card potentially beneficial to another player, or draw cards from either the Blueprint or Park deck. Blueprint cards act like personal contracts that you must carry out by the end of the game to earn bonus points. The caveat is that if you don’t complete one, you actually lose points! Lastly, the game also allows you to use this turn to collect 1 coin per attraction you built or even demolish an attraction. During my playthroughs, the group never deemed either of the aforementioned two moves as beneficial, and thus never took them. They seem to be desperate measures only to be taken in emergencies.

The 3rd phase is called the Guest Step and has you reaping the benefits of the park you built! You collect coins based on the number of stars indicated on every attraction, upgrade, and staff member you have in your park. Some staff members even generate bonus income if they combo with a particular attraction, such as one raking in 2 coins per “Sideshow” attraction you have. Players who have not built their Super Attraction get 5 coins added onto their unbuilt card, which acts as a discount for when they do decide to build it. Note that these coins cannot be used for anything else and don’t count as part of your actual bank account to build other attractions, purchase upgrades, or hire staff members.

Lastly, the final phase of a round is the Cleanup Step, and all the cards in the public Market are discarded and refreshed with 6 new cards. Players who have more than 5 cards in their hands must discard down to 5 and the starting player rotates to the player on the left. The game is over after 6 City cards have been flipped. Note that after the 4th round, players can no longer draw new Blueprint cards, as indicated by a conveniently included card that says “Blueprints Closed”.

Perhaps I should have read how scoring really works prior to playing because it caught me off guard the first time. The strategy seems to be stacking upgrades on attractions instead of building lots of individual attractions because the bonuses for upgrades are exponential… The score value of an attraction is determined by how many icons are indicated on each card, with upgrades usually adding one icon per one built. For example, an attraction with 4 icons is worth 16 points, but one with 10 icons is worth 55 points and one with 16 icons is worth 130 points! You can’t build repeat upgrades on a single attraction, such as 2 restrooms in 1 restaurant, but you can build multiple upgrades of the same type if you wish to do so. You can also get points for completed blueprints, staffing members, number of coins, and whether or not you completed the global Awards card objective.

Overall, I think Funfair fits a great niche in the table top category as it’s not as complex and time consuming as something like Ark Nova or Agricola, but also not as shallow and simple as something like Nimalia. I see many similarities in mechanics between this game and Century Spice Road or Splendor, especially with the public Market and reserving cards mechanic, but Funfair contains more depth than the aforementioned titles. However, it does seem like Funfair took a lot of the competitive elements out of Unfair, such as removing many gameplay mechanics that directly hinder or attack opponents. It makes sense given the more family friendly audience that this game is trying to cater towards, but might be a let down for those looking to be more hardcore and deliberate in their table top experiences. I also have some doubts on the replayability considering the best strategy to aim for each time is to stack upgrades on attractions. There’s also not a lot of variety when it comes to different staff members for hire, with some being extremely overpowered compared to others, such as the Park Designer who awards 2 coins for every Blueprint collected and negates the incompletion penalty completely.

Aside from the actual gameplay mechanics, Funfair contains some visually stunning artwork. The game board and its deck of cards are filled with colorful illustrations of attractions, rides, and bustling crowds, creating a lively atmosphere that immediately draws players into the carnival setting. Major props to Mr. Cuddington for their amazing work. Amusement parks are also a theme that I enjoy, and the designers truly hit it out of the park (no pun intended) with how cohesively all the pieces come together. You truly feel like you are running an actual theme park attraction with all the moves you are making, from building roller coasters and hiring staff members, to collecting revenue from each ride. Not to mention all the components are high quality and fit perfectly with plenty of room to spare inside the game box.

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