Last night was the first time that M, A, J, and I were able to play as a group since just before Thanksgiving. It was good to get back into the groove again.
Speaking of “back into the groove”: Last night was also one of failed references on my part. Would you believe that the others are so young that they didn’t get my reference to Lidsville? How’s that for a topper?
In The Magnificent, each player assumes the role of a ringmaster of a circus. They earn points by hiring performers, advertising them, providing them with a stage, then hosting their performance.The central game board at the beginning of the game. At the top of the picture, mostly cut off, are ringmaster abilities that will be available the following round. The circular areas allow you to travel to collect gems (special stage effects) and more tents for your performers. The track in the middle is used to start the actual performances. At the lower left are the performers that you can hire. In the lower right is a pool of dice, which are drafted by players during their turn; the color of the die you pick matches the color associated with your action.My player board at the start of the game; each player’s board is slightly different. At the top are spaces for tents; you start with one tent and the poster for one performer, Alberic in my case. The grid in the middle is where you build performance spaces for your acts. To the right of that is a storage area for your gems; as with the dice, the color of the gems is associated with the color of your actions. Underneath the board are the starting abilities of my ringmaster. Players take actions by drafting a die and placing it in the center of those cards. They immedately get the benefit on the upper half of the card; the lower half has icons for potential end-of-round scoring.My play area towards the end of the game. You can see that I’ve constructed additional tents (white-circled discs) and have assigned performers to them. I’ve also build up my camp to accommodate their acts. On the lower right of my board you can see that I’ve drafted additional bonus actions on which I can put trainers, yellow cylinders you can see scattered around the table. This may look impressive, but in fact I planned poorly, as we shall see.The central board at the end of the game. I played yellow, ended the game with 137 points… and came in last. You can see that the blue player won with 178 points. Who was it?Behold the play area of the blue player, J. Although his player board does not immediately look that much different than mine, J did a good job of selecting ringmaster cards and trainer bonuses that synergized well.
The Magnificent was fun, but the game has some production issues. The colors on some of the cards are not very distinct from each other. The rulebook was a bit vague on one or two important rule points.
The game’s length is listed on the box at 60-90 minutes. As usual, our group made mockery of such optimistic nonsense, finishing the game after about four hours.
