Played this with my 8 year old in a two player game to learn the rules and then he helped teach his mother and older sisters in a 4 player game in the evening, We all had a good time. solid 7 from me
Thanks for this great overview and review of Funfair, our lighter, tighter, faster and friendlier take on Unfair. And a gateway into Unfair's practically infinite world of theme park building. No game is for everyone and Funfair is ideal for those who want a game to hit the table, be set up and packed down fast, and make 20 - 30 strategic decisions in 30 to 60 mins. It's certainly intended as a gateway + style game that's a little more family friendly than Unfair but is still rated 14+, although game savvy 9 year olds will handle it fine. And yet we found heavier weight Unfair fans in playtesting found it had plenty of strategic variation and nuance to make for a satisfying game. Funfair is the rose coloured glasses take on the theme park building business. It all fun & positive player interaction and nothing can really go wrong. Unfair is a lovingly cynical take on the more ruthless whatever it takes business side of theme parks where you have to build the best theme park against the odds, and sometimes against your rivals. Unfair is a bigger wilder and more replayable modular theme park building ride where you can tailor the experience to your play groups taste. Want to keep it lighter and less Unfair? Choose the Jungle, Pirate, Robot and Western theme packs and the World Peace game changer. Want to spice it up some? Play a Vampire, Ninja, Dinosaur & Alien game. In Unfair's defense the impact of its 'take that' cards are often overstated in our view. They are opportunity costed against unstoppably good halves of the cards that allow you to boost your park and mitigate the challenges the game throws at you. So we hear from many players that they are surprised by how rarely you actually want to attack other players in Unfair. Its just a tool that's available should that be the best strategic choice. And only 1 of the current 10 theme packs (Ninja) has 2 heavily costed cards (out of over 500 available in the game) that allow you to try to demolish a small attraction. You can turn that possibility off by excluding that pack or playing with World Peace. Most other attacks simply mess with rivals a bit, by design, so that in a mid weight engine builder that can go a couple of hours, you wont likely feel you will definitely lose to a powerful engine half way through the game. You can find our official detailed comparison between Funfair and Unfair on the Funfair forums in BGG. But I'd love to see a 4 squared comparison between Funfair and Unfair some day! We expect some types of gamers to prefer Funfair, others to prefer Unfair, and some to like both with different player groups. Thanks again... and I really like the 4 squares format!
I love how passionate you guys are, you’re constantly willing to demo your game and still enjoy it after I don’t want to guess how many plays. This is clearly a project you guys are proud of and congrats on the success thus far. Can’t wait to see what you guys think of next!
@@Chris-nn8cy thanks - yeah we know this generally hits the experience we were aiming for... with Unfair following on from it as the bigger, deeper and more flexible game some gamers will prefer. We have a really smooth scripted TTS mod for Funfair if anyone wants to try it. Join our discord for a demo.
I’m so happy you guys made funfair. I instantly bought it because I loved the theme and the mechanics in unfair, but sold it because of that take that that was in there. When I saw this I instantly bought it, and hope to be able to play it soon.
People talk about Unfair as though it was a heavy Take-that game. The take-that is SOOO minimal in that game, because you have to forego the positive benefit of the card, which is generally very strong. Unfair is a solid game and very underrated because so many reviewers way overhyped the take-that. Not to mention that Unfair literally CAME WITH a variant called “world peace” where you could only play the positive half of the Event cards.
Don't agree. In my play of Unfair I had another player knock out my big ride which completely killed my engine and ground everything to a halt. I then sat there trying to build everything back up again but knowing full well it was a pointless task as I'd never catch up in time.
@@Manny-M there are only 2 cards in Unfair's Ninja theme pack which can destroy small attractions at a high opportunity cost to its player. If you only had 1 play of Unfair, and used the most 'unfair' rated Ninja theme pack, it was against the very deliberate rules instruction NOT to do that. :( If you dont like that possibility in your game you can simply not ever play with the Ninja theme. Thats a big part of why we made Unfair modular. Hopefully i can entice you to try again some time with a safer combo of theme packs?
@@readilium3432 You assume I WANT a deeper version of Funfair. I don't. The nature of it, to me, is perfect being straightforward and lightweight. I have a shitload of deeper games... I don't want a card game about theme parks to be one of them.
One thing that wasn't covered: The theme decks in Unfair weren't just for variety. They also let you customized certain aspects of the game, such as take-that. Because of this, I never understood people's complaints about the take-that in the game since you could customize it out if you chose. This version just sounds like a simplified care bear version for people who prefer multiplayer solitaire games. ;)
Tom - I think it is time for you to play Unfair again but make sure you use the World Peace game changer which takes away all the 'take that' abilities on the cards. There are other game changers in Unfair that allow you to customize the game to your liking, which is what our family loves to decide which ones to use before the game begins. This review confirms for me that there is no need for me to play Funfair, but if it would have come out before Unfair I would have definitely played it.
The modular customization of Unfair adds huge replayability for sure. But with that flexibility comes a little more admin overhead that not everyone values against the replayability it provides. What Funfair gives is a straight up focused experience from game 1, in a shorter & tighter game, with minimal admin and... errr... no unfortunate stuff to manage. It's a building race with various strategies to explore right out of the gate. Funfair brings enough new elements to play like a tight Unfair expansion... But yeah if you love Unfair then outside of that and the various gameplay tweaks, the main appeal of Funfair would be the speed of play and the ease of introducing new players / gamers to the system.
I may be misremembering, but I think he acknowledged the World Peace variant at some point but said he wasn’t a fan because it unbalanced the game somewhat. I tend to agree with that. If you only use the positive side of the event cards in Unfair, the game becomes somewhat luckier because some positive events are just obviously better than others, so the luck of the draw affects the game more.
@@ski6913 he did. And Unfair's ability to mess with rivals is there as an option for when people's engine gets too good and needs to be somewhat disrupted. But many players routinely play and enjoy Unfair with World Peace in play (we track it through our scoring app). Funfair's lack of giant event based combos and the mess with a rival effects on some of their tail ends does result in a smoother & tighter ride. We think of Unfair as a roller coaster with big ups and downs... And Funfair as a really tight leisure ride.
I think I’m closer to Tom on this one. I’d LOVE to be able to control the theme of my park more. A spooky theme! Pirates! Medieval! I’d also love to see more of the similar games Mike talked about. Good top ten subject?
@Mr Dreadful - then we urge you to take a deeper look at Unfair which is exactly that. Unfair gives you a modular game with so far Jungle, Pirate, Robot, Vampire, Ninja, Gangster, Alien, B-movie, Dinosaur and Western theme packs you can chose to construct each game from... with 16 more themes in development across the next 4 expansions. You can mix and match the themes and the unique game mechanisms each brings each game. And tune your experience further or turn off or moderate the amount of interactive elements in the game with various official Game Changer cards included in the box. Funfair is aimed more at people who want a faster to the table experience that plays in 30 to 60 minutes. Unfair has huge scope and is one of the most flexible game systems on the market. Hope that helps!
This is a great game! It quickly became my wife’s favourite game due to its theme and mechanics. If you love the amusement park theme, definitely pick up this game. It’s a very welcoming game for new people, but plenty of strategy play after play!
2 things: 1 the events are cool, because most of them, maybe all, I have only played once with my 11 year old, but most of them have a strategic choice you need to make, it's not just you get something free, it's get this or this free.. or like the one he mentioned, when you build a card from the marketplace you draw a card. Well, that might make you rethink some of your actions that turn. 2. The Showcase ride is a cool mechanic as well, because you basically have to decide how early do I want to get 4 actions and is it worth 20 to me? My 11 year old bought it first thing action 1 turn 1. He had 4 actions the whole game. I waited until I had 10 coins on it and built it on my 3rd turn. So I had 4 actions for half the game. Now, I won, but not by much, and I still think I should have done it on turn 1. Both of those things up the strategy of this game in my opinion.
If you want big and grandiose play Unfair. The level of "meanness" is both player dependent (most games I've played rarely attack until the last round or two if at all because they don't want to risk a vendetta/the positive aspects of the cards are no longer useful to them) and colored but your own sensitivity to that, but also entirely customizable! You can ignore negative event effects, or drop the unfair city events. Indeed, if you play with the six round version you really get the "I need a bit more feeling" that Zee enjoyed in this spin-off.
That's definitely the intention - Funfair is a great entry into the Unfair game system that requires nothing more than the standard approach to learning any new game. Unfair brings a much bigger and more flexible system you can tune to your tastes - but that comes with an admin, time and grok load that has challenged some players. I'd love to see a Four Squares review of Unfair and comparisons to the Funfair experience so the whole Funfair > Unfair > Expansions infinity makes sense. Challenge is Unfair wants 3-5+ plays to see the scope and patterns of minimal take that style play over combo boosting play really set in. Seeing the opportunity costed ability to mess with your rivals a bit routinely interpreted as the ability to "wreck an attraction you have spent 4, 5 or 6 actions working on..." where that isn't actually possible in the game, and whatever limited destruction is in Unfair can be blocked, mitigated or played around... is a little frustrating. Specially when it's from a reviewer who hasn't yet played Unfair. Here's hoping!
I really enjoy Funfair and Unfair, but my family is definitely more partial to FunFair. I agree that I wish Funfair was a little larger. Maybe they'll come out with an expansion.
@Angela Fortunato - the idea is that once your players get used to Funfair and can play it very well, they will then be primed to play Unfair with a mix of the right themes and Game Changers to suit their preferred experience.
I would give this game a 7 out of 10. But from my edit verison, its a 9 out of 10. For me and my group and family. This game always returns to table 2+ a every year. Its a top fav game for people to play and chill. Also I custom edit cards from unfair to put in Funfair. To add way more play ablity and fun gameplay.
The cards that zee and Mike didn't seem to like look pretty similar to the cards in quacks but i haven't heard similar complaints about that card deck.
Wow, Tom wants a Zombie expansion for Funfair!!!! Clearly people love zombie games and going to fun fairs, so there you have it, perfect match. But strange that Mr. Vasel suggested it.... ;)
I'd love for someone to "compare" this to other income/combo card games e.g. Jump Drive, Race for the Galaxy, San Juan, Duelosaur Island... What does Funfair do better/worse, why consider it over those other similar games, etc. I guess Mike said it just doesn't stand out, but I wonder why that is.
I love San Juan. But it and Race for the Galaxy have a very different feel to Funfair. Funfair only allows you to build 5 attractions and it’s all about upgrading them to get more points. The blueprints feel similar to tickets in Ticket to Ride. Money is tight so you need to find ways to mitigate that. The theme is great and the game is fun. Downside is the AP as you try to figure out the best move to make. 7.5/10 for me. It has some similarities to Duelosaur Island with the theme, probably about the same level of complexity but with a dinosaur building mechanic. If you like those games you listed you’ll probably like this one too. Hope this helps. 🤷♂️
@@TheManofDew thanks, it does help! Duelosaur was a miss at home, even though on paper it should have been awesome. Jump Drive OTOH, although sometimes too swingy, was a surprising mega hit. Funfair looks really good on paper, so trying to get a better feel through people's opinions. Cheers! :)
I really enjoy jump drive and like most of Tom Lehman’s games. I have played San Juan, but the theme is blah to me. I have played duelosaur island once and it was okay (probably need to play it again). I have both unfair and funfair and my opinion would be in line with Tom’s. I like the theme, the game does not overstay its welcome, and less negative interactive are pluses. The one big item I would like to see is additional themes introduced. I like the smash up mechanism of unfair (taking 2 themes and mixing theme together) and i think that is one thing missing from this game. Overall I think it is a pretty good game.
I do not believe the designers would consider this game comparable to race for the galaxy or San Juan. The best way to compare games along whatever parameters you choose is to watch playthroughs, and go to BGG and read the rules. Or try to find the game on board game arena or some other online site and play it.
I think Fort is their most diverse score to date.. it might have gotten a seal of excellence despite a 5/10? Will be amusing once they have a huge swing someday
Part of the challenge is knowing which Blueprints to keep, and which not to. But there is an added safety net in the new Park Designer staff member who immunizes you from the 10 point loss of failed Blueprints too.
Mike, I dont ever recommend you play Unfair. Ever. You gave this a 6.5 without those elements you mentioned that would make it worse (take that destroying your rides and unnecessary length).
Blah. Simplified watered down care bear version of a great tableau builder. The take that features of Unfair is blown out of proportion by Tom, and you really can't blow up other peoples rides. You can blow up parts of them, steal some parts, and make them not produce money for a round but that's about it. There are also ways to counter it, strategy against it, and overall have more depth to the game. Also the different theme decks are a great way to balance how much interaction you want, or what kind of rides people tent to build. As a bonus there are also a lot of game changing extra rules you can play with if you want to tune the experience. The ending comments reflect this a lot. Mundane game with little reason to play this over something else with nothing special.
@C r s have you actually played Funfair? It is absolutely a more stramlined version of the Unfair you love, but it brings many changes designed to appeal to those whom Unfair doesn't appeal to, and some designed to appeal to Unfair fans too. The new positive interaction city events were a popular addition, new staff with a variety of new combo coin and end game points combos too, and more concentrated blueprints (with bonus sections on every Blueprint), the public Award goals, and the higher concentration of cards with abilities all combine to create a tighter Unfair type experience in about half the game length and minimal setup and packdown time some players like Mike highlighted . Even if that doesn't appeal to you, you can assume our research and testing showed that it all appeals to many. Granted, you lose Unfair's event based combos and boosters (ignored by so many in the face of the optional mess with you effects on the tail ends of the same cards) and practically infinite replayability. But that too is by design - to keep Funfair flowing fast as a combo laden build race, while retaining Unfair as the preposterously replayable and challenging engine building, big combo laden interactive game it was always designed to be. They are absolutely intended to be different experiences, with the core gameplay mechanisms as the overlap in the Funfair > Unfair Venn. But in the long term we expect a decent % of Funfair fans to step up to Unfair at some point. Its all part of a very deliberate product strategy for this game line.
Played this with my 8 year old in a two player game to learn the rules and then he helped teach his mother and older sisters in a 4 player game in the evening, We all had a good time. solid 7 from me
ha - that's great!
Thanks for this great overview and review of Funfair, our lighter, tighter, faster and friendlier take on Unfair. And a gateway into Unfair's practically infinite world of theme park building.
No game is for everyone and Funfair is ideal for those who want a game to hit the table, be set up and packed down fast, and make 20 - 30 strategic decisions in 30 to 60 mins. It's certainly intended as a gateway + style game that's a little more family friendly than Unfair but is still rated 14+, although game savvy 9 year olds will handle it fine. And yet we found heavier weight Unfair fans in playtesting found it had plenty of strategic variation and nuance to make for a satisfying game.
Funfair is the rose coloured glasses take on the theme park building business. It all fun & positive player interaction and nothing can really go wrong.
Unfair is a lovingly cynical take on the more ruthless whatever it takes business side of theme parks where you have to build the best theme park against the odds, and sometimes against your rivals.
Unfair is a bigger wilder and more replayable modular theme park building ride where you can tailor the experience to your play groups taste. Want to keep it lighter and less Unfair? Choose the Jungle, Pirate, Robot and Western theme packs and the World Peace game changer. Want to spice it up some? Play a Vampire, Ninja, Dinosaur & Alien game. In Unfair's defense the impact of its 'take that' cards are often overstated in our view. They are opportunity costed against unstoppably good halves of the cards that allow you to boost your park and mitigate the challenges the game throws at you. So we hear from many players that they are surprised by how rarely you actually want to attack other players in Unfair. Its just a tool that's available should that be the best strategic choice. And only 1 of the current 10 theme packs (Ninja) has 2 heavily costed cards (out of over 500 available in the game) that allow you to try to demolish a small attraction. You can turn that possibility off by excluding that pack or playing with World Peace. Most other attacks simply mess with rivals a bit, by design, so that in a mid weight engine builder that can go a couple of hours, you wont likely feel you will definitely lose to a powerful engine half way through the game.
You can find our official detailed comparison between Funfair and Unfair on the Funfair forums in BGG.
But I'd love to see a 4 squared comparison between Funfair and Unfair some day! We expect some types of gamers to prefer Funfair, others to prefer Unfair, and some to like both with different player groups.
Thanks again... and I really like the 4 squares format!
I love how passionate you guys are, you’re constantly willing to demo your game and still enjoy it after I don’t want to guess how many plays. This is clearly a project you guys are proud of and congrats on the success thus far. Can’t wait to see what you guys think of next!
@@Chris-nn8cy thanks - yeah we know this generally hits the experience we were aiming for... with Unfair following on from it as the bigger, deeper and more flexible game some gamers will prefer.
We have a really smooth scripted TTS mod for Funfair if anyone wants to try it. Join our discord for a demo.
I’m so happy you guys made funfair. I instantly bought it because I loved the theme and the mechanics in unfair, but sold it because of that take that that was in there. When I saw this I instantly bought it, and hope to be able to play it soon.
I would love for you guys to make a deluxe version some day.
Will there be more card packs for Funfair?
People talk about Unfair as though it was a heavy Take-that game. The take-that is SOOO minimal in that game, because you have to forego the positive benefit of the card, which is generally very strong. Unfair is a solid game and very underrated because so many reviewers way overhyped the take-that.
Not to mention that Unfair literally CAME WITH a variant called “world peace” where you could only play the positive half of the Event cards.
Don't agree. In my play of Unfair I had another player knock out my big ride which completely killed my engine and ground everything to a halt. I then sat there trying to build everything back up again but knowing full well it was a pointless task as I'd never catch up in time.
@@Manny-M there are only 2 cards in Unfair's Ninja theme pack which can destroy small attractions at a high opportunity cost to its player. If you only had 1 play of Unfair, and used the most 'unfair' rated Ninja theme pack, it was against the very deliberate rules instruction NOT to do that. :(
If you dont like that possibility in your game you can simply not ever play with the Ninja theme. Thats a big part of why we made Unfair modular.
Hopefully i can entice you to try again some time with a safer combo of theme packs?
@@GoodGamesPublishing No need! I've got Funfair and it's everything I wanted Unfair to be. Thanks!
@@Manny-M awesome :)
@@readilium3432 You assume I WANT a deeper version of Funfair.
I don't.
The nature of it, to me, is perfect being straightforward and lightweight.
I have a shitload of deeper games... I don't want a card game about theme parks to be one of them.
One thing that wasn't covered: The theme decks in Unfair weren't just for variety. They also let you customized certain aspects of the game, such as take-that. Because of this, I never understood people's complaints about the take-that in the game since you could customize it out if you chose. This version just sounds like a simplified care bear version for people who prefer multiplayer solitaire games. ;)
Tom - I think it is time for you to play Unfair again but make sure you use the World Peace game changer which takes away all the 'take that' abilities on the cards. There are other game changers in Unfair that allow you to customize the game to your liking, which is what our family loves to decide which ones to use before the game begins.
This review confirms for me that there is no need for me to play Funfair, but if it would have come out before Unfair I would have definitely played it.
I was just coming here to say that too! 😄
The modular customization of Unfair adds huge replayability for sure. But with that flexibility comes a little more admin overhead that not everyone values against the replayability it provides. What Funfair gives is a straight up focused experience from game 1, in a shorter & tighter game, with minimal admin and... errr... no unfortunate stuff to manage. It's a building race with various strategies to explore right out of the gate.
Funfair brings enough new elements to play like a tight Unfair expansion... But yeah if you love Unfair then outside of that and the various gameplay tweaks, the main appeal of Funfair would be the speed of play and the ease of introducing new players / gamers to the system.
Tom rated Unfair 5/10, probably due to "take that" (which can be taken out using World Peace).
I may be misremembering, but I think he acknowledged the World Peace variant at some point but said he wasn’t a fan because it unbalanced the game somewhat. I tend to agree with that. If you only use the positive side of the event cards in Unfair, the game becomes somewhat luckier because some positive events are just obviously better than others, so the luck of the draw affects the game more.
@@ski6913 he did. And Unfair's ability to mess with rivals is there as an option for when people's engine gets too good and needs to be somewhat disrupted. But many players routinely play and enjoy Unfair with World Peace in play (we track it through our scoring app).
Funfair's lack of giant event based combos and the mess with a rival effects on some of their tail ends does result in a smoother & tighter ride.
We think of Unfair as a roller coaster with big ups and downs... And Funfair as a really tight leisure ride.
Bought this game almost a year ago. Super fun game. Wish there was an expansion for more than 4 players. Amazing graphic design. 8 out of 10.
I think I’m closer to Tom on this one. I’d LOVE to be able to control the theme of my park more. A spooky theme! Pirates! Medieval!
I’d also love to see more of the similar games Mike talked about. Good top ten subject?
@Mr Dreadful - then we urge you to take a deeper look at Unfair which is exactly that. Unfair gives you a modular game with so far Jungle, Pirate, Robot, Vampire, Ninja, Gangster, Alien, B-movie, Dinosaur and Western theme packs you can chose to construct each game from... with 16 more themes in development across the next 4 expansions. You can mix and match the themes and the unique game mechanisms each brings each game. And tune your experience further or turn off or moderate the amount of interactive elements in the game with various official Game Changer cards included in the box.
Funfair is aimed more at people who want a faster to the table experience that plays in 30 to 60 minutes. Unfair has huge scope and is one of the most flexible game systems on the market.
Hope that helps!
Roy's Mic sounds crisp.....everyone else is talking on a walkie talkie.
That’s likely because he’s the “host” of the video call they’re recording. Just a guess.
Zee sounds like he’s drunk with that laggy internet. Hahaha
Roys hair is fantastic!
We gotta get Zee's internet upgraded. Maybe I should have sent some $ during the Kickstarter.
This is a great game! It quickly became my wife’s favourite game due to its theme and mechanics. If you love the amusement park theme, definitely pick up this game. It’s a very welcoming game for new people, but plenty of strategy play after play!
2 things: 1 the events are cool, because most of them, maybe all, I have only played once with my 11 year old, but most of them have a strategic choice you need to make, it's not just you get something free, it's get this or this free.. or like the one he mentioned, when you build a card from the marketplace you draw a card. Well, that might make you rethink some of your actions that turn.
2. The Showcase ride is a cool mechanic as well, because you basically have to decide how early do I want to get 4 actions and is it worth 20 to me? My 11 year old bought it first thing action 1 turn 1. He had 4 actions the whole game. I waited until I had 10 coins on it and built it on my 3rd turn. So I had 4 actions for half the game. Now, I won, but not by much, and I still think I should have done it on turn 1.
Both of those things up the strategy of this game in my opinion.
If you want big and grandiose play Unfair. The level of "meanness" is both player dependent (most games I've played rarely attack until the last round or two if at all because they don't want to risk a vendetta/the positive aspects of the cards are no longer useful to them) and colored but your own sensitivity to that, but also entirely customizable! You can ignore negative event effects, or drop the unfair city events. Indeed, if you play with the six round version you really get the "I need a bit more feeling" that Zee enjoyed in this spin-off.
That's definitely the intention - Funfair is a great entry into the Unfair game system that requires nothing more than the standard approach to learning any new game. Unfair brings a much bigger and more flexible system you can tune to your tastes - but that comes with an admin, time and grok load that has challenged some players.
I'd love to see a Four Squares review of Unfair and comparisons to the Funfair experience so the whole Funfair > Unfair > Expansions infinity makes sense. Challenge is Unfair wants 3-5+ plays to see the scope and patterns of minimal take that style play over combo boosting play really set in.
Seeing the opportunity costed ability to mess with your rivals a bit routinely interpreted as the ability to "wreck an attraction you have spent 4, 5 or 6 actions working on..." where that isn't actually possible in the game, and whatever limited destruction is in Unfair can be blocked, mitigated or played around... is a little frustrating. Specially when it's from a reviewer who hasn't yet played Unfair.
Here's hoping!
I really enjoy Funfair and Unfair, but my family is definitely more partial to FunFair. I agree that I wish Funfair was a little larger. Maybe they'll come out with an expansion.
I believe they have said there will not be expansions. It's a stand-alone gateway into Unfair which will have multiple expansions.
@Angela Fortunato - the idea is that once your players get used to Funfair and can play it very well, they will then be primed to play Unfair with a mix of the right themes and Game Changers to suit their preferred experience.
Funfair looks to be everything I wanted when I backed Unfair's initial campaign.
Need to get on this one
@@readilium3432 You're exactly the kind of douchebag I'm very happy is not in my gaming group.
Funfair and Santa Monica are summer staples
I would give this game a 7 out of 10. But from my edit verison, its a 9 out of 10. For me and my group and family. This game always returns to table 2+ a every year. Its a top fav game for people to play and chill. Also I custom edit cards from unfair to put in Funfair. To add way more play ablity and fun gameplay.
The cards that zee and Mike didn't seem to like look pretty similar to the cards in quacks but i haven't heard similar complaints about that card deck.
Vincent Dutrait is the art dude for a theme park game coming out this year. Not much shown, but cover art looked nice. I like his style.
Kind of odd. Really positive comments and then most scores and final overviews didn't match the rest of the video.
7 is a good score, it was what i was expecting after the Video, Toms 8 suprised me
Since he is looking for more theme park themed games I hope Tom will have time to take a look at Wishland when it comes out next month!
Great review!
@Mike - what would be your 5 or 6 titles that you would choose over this in that 45 minute family weight games?
I kept thinking back to your recent 4 Squares Review of Meeple Land. For some reason, Meeple Land looked more fun.
Yeah, I like the tile-laying more than tableau it makes it feel more connected to the theme of building a park.
Wow, Tom wants a Zombie expansion for Funfair!!!! Clearly people love zombie games and going to fun fairs, so there you have it, perfect match. But strange that Mr. Vasel suggested it.... ;)
We have him covered... in Unfair where the Z theme will be Zombies. But he would have to tread back into that dangerous space again ;)
Zoo has become a strong contender, with Zombies moving... elsewhere.
Where can I buy this game?
Its widely available in retail globally and online. Any store that doesnt have it should be able to order it.
I'd love for someone to "compare" this to other income/combo card games e.g. Jump Drive, Race for the Galaxy, San Juan, Duelosaur Island... What does Funfair do better/worse, why consider it over those other similar games, etc. I guess Mike said it just doesn't stand out, but I wonder why that is.
I love San Juan. But it and Race for the Galaxy have a very different feel to Funfair. Funfair only allows you to build 5 attractions and it’s all about upgrading them to get more points. The blueprints feel similar to tickets in Ticket to Ride. Money is tight so you need to find ways to mitigate that. The theme is great and the game is fun. Downside is the AP as you try to figure out the best move to make. 7.5/10 for me. It has some similarities to Duelosaur Island with the theme, probably about the same level of complexity but with a dinosaur building mechanic. If you like those games you listed you’ll probably like this one too. Hope this helps. 🤷♂️
@@TheManofDew thanks, it does help! Duelosaur was a miss at home, even though on paper it should have been awesome. Jump Drive OTOH, although sometimes too swingy, was a surprising mega hit. Funfair looks really good on paper, so trying to get a better feel through people's opinions. Cheers! :)
I really enjoy jump drive and like most of Tom Lehman’s games. I have played San Juan, but the theme is blah to me. I have played duelosaur island once and it was okay (probably need to play it again). I have both unfair and funfair and my opinion would be in line with Tom’s. I like the theme, the game does not overstay its welcome, and less negative interactive are pluses. The one big item I would like to see is additional themes introduced. I like the smash up mechanism of unfair (taking 2 themes and mixing theme together) and i think that is one thing missing from this game. Overall I think it is a pretty good game.
I do not believe the designers would consider this game comparable to race for the galaxy or San Juan.
The best way to compare games along whatever parameters you choose is to watch playthroughs, and go to BGG and read the rules. Or try to find the game on board game arena or some other online site and play it.
@@Therisktaker3 thank you for sharing your thoughts! 😊
lol Mike having AP in the overview 2:44
That's nothing, my friends have 10x as much AP.
@@heathwashburn194 Yeah, but I think the point was more, that it happened during a review though!
I'm waiting for one of these games to get like a 9 and a 3
Yes! I'm hoping for more disagreement!!
I think Fort is their most diverse score to date.. it might have gotten a seal of excellence despite a 5/10? Will be amusing once they have a huge swing someday
@@pesmerga275 Whose was the Excellence? I knew it wasn't an average that counts for that.
@@kchorst5037 zee liked it the most I think. Can't remember if it was a 8 or excellence 8.5
No take that, but it sounds like the Blueprints are take that cards you play on yourself!
Kinda but it’s more like taking extra tickets in Ticket to Ride.
Part of the challenge is knowing which Blueprints to keep, and which not to. But there is an added safety net in the new Park Designer staff member who immunizes you from the 10 point loss of failed Blueprints too.
Tiffany says how dare you!
There are several more amusement park games coming out this year. Hopefully one of them will really nail it.
What about this didn't nail it for you?
Oh wow you weren't joking...it's literally the same designer
Mike sure has a striking resemblence to Anthony LaPaglia
he looks EXACTLY like a guy i work with..its uncanny.
I more often get Brad Pitt, but sure.
So they made a second edition for the game.
Funfair is more of a prequel to Unfair. There are many many differences between them.
What I'm hearing is that a zombie themed amusement park game should exist.
the Z theme in Unfair will be Zombies!
Surprised this game got a 4 Square Review.
how so?
Tom blasted Unfair years ago and said he wanted to play “Funfair”. I agree it was still bad because who mentions it today? No one.
I've seen discussions on it, and a few saying it's their #1 favourite game.
Unfair is way better
Mike, I dont ever recommend you play Unfair. Ever.
You gave this a 6.5 without those elements you mentioned that would make it worse (take that destroying your rides and unnecessary length).
Blah. Simplified watered down care bear version of a great tableau builder. The take that features of Unfair is blown out of proportion by Tom, and you really can't blow up other peoples rides. You can blow up parts of them, steal some parts, and make them not produce money for a round but that's about it. There are also ways to counter it, strategy against it, and overall have more depth to the game.
Also the different theme decks are a great way to balance how much interaction you want, or what kind of rides people tent to build. As a bonus there are also a lot of game changing extra rules you can play with if you want to tune the experience.
The ending comments reflect this a lot. Mundane game with little reason to play this over something else with nothing special.
Unless you're trying to teach people who aren't in the board game hobby. This is much more of a gateway game than Unfair is, in my opinion
@C r s have you actually played Funfair? It is absolutely a more stramlined version of the Unfair you love, but it brings many changes designed to appeal to those whom Unfair doesn't appeal to, and some designed to appeal to Unfair fans too.
The new positive interaction city events were a popular addition, new staff with a variety of new combo coin and end game points combos too, and more concentrated blueprints (with bonus sections on every Blueprint), the public Award goals, and the higher concentration of cards with abilities all combine to create a tighter Unfair type experience in about half the game length and minimal setup and packdown time some players like Mike highlighted . Even if that doesn't appeal to you, you can assume our research and testing showed that it all appeals to many. Granted, you lose Unfair's event based combos and boosters (ignored by so many in the face of the optional mess with you effects on the tail ends of the same cards) and practically infinite replayability. But that too is by design - to keep Funfair flowing fast as a combo laden build race, while retaining Unfair as the preposterously replayable and challenging engine building, big combo laden interactive game it was always designed to be. They are absolutely intended to be different experiences, with the core gameplay mechanisms as the overlap in the Funfair > Unfair Venn.
But in the long term we expect a decent % of Funfair fans to step up to Unfair at some point. Its all part of a very deliberate product strategy for this game line.