Big Top
Designed by: Taiki Shinzawa
Big Top is a game of auctions. Each player has some cash and a single card on the table at the start, and your goal is to collect the most valuable cards that get auctioned for the win. But it’s a rather quirky beast, as we’ll see.
On your turn, you’ll auction a card and set the starting bid. The auction goes around the table until all but one player has passed, who then pays you the winning bid ( or if you’e the winner, you pay the bank). The card you win goes in front of you on the table, but before you can claim it for points you must fill the numbered spaces with coins. How do you do that? By bidding that number in subsequent auctions! Whether you win the auction or not, if one or more of your won cards have ‘7’s on them, bidding seven during an auction lets you cover the 7s up with coins from your supply. When all numbers are filled, you keep the card as points and reclaim the money from it.
Additionally, if anyone bids a number on the card that’s currently being auctioned, the bank will cover it for you, meaning that a card may become more alluring during the auction itself!
For scoring, all the cards all have a points value, but many have an extra way to score too. They might score extra points for the cards you have, or make your leftover money, which normally scores a point per 5 coins, worth a point for every two instead. Some cards have stars on them which award points for most, second and third. What you mustn’t do is have no stars at all, as you then automatically lose even if you have the most points of all!
Sam says
I think Big Top is great. I like bidding games, especially ones where it’s up to the players to decide what something is really worth. And while I’d never argue that this is the most accessible bidding game, the quirky mechanisms at play here do make it very moreish once you’re past the slight opacity of that first play or two. Though it’s largely a tactical affair, there is space here for strategy too and, once in a while, a big surprise. Does it feel like you’re running a big top? Not in the slightest. But it’s still a game worthy of the name.
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Take That!
No direct combat/sabotage, but plenty of indirect interaction as players force up prices or deprive each other of things they want or need.
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Fidget Factor!
Low! Everyone is involved on everyone else's turn, at least to some degree.
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Brain Burn!
The basic rules are simple and the brain-burning is about calculating worth of things in a mostly closed-economy game. There's some slight fiddliness over the game's bonus point icons, but you do have a reference sheet behind your screen, where your money is hidden.
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Again Again!
Fans of auction-led games will find much to enjoy revisiting here. The canny systems at play always provide drama, tension, and occasional mirth.
