OUR REVIEW

ROBOT FESTIVAL IN ROBOBURG

Steam Park

ROBOTS NEED FUN FAIRS, TOO

Family Park Tycoon was the name of my very first development simulation for a PC, in the early Nineties of the last century. How does that sound, ancient, doesn't it?! But, anyhow, we constructed Fun Fairs, attracted visitors, created our own roller coasters - the first ones were disasters, by the way, the carriages did fly off the rails permanently - and finally we looked after the garden and took care that all the garbage the visitor masses left behind was removed.

I did like the little manikins that were armed with brooms and permanently, like Sisyphus, scurried after the garbage heaps and kept crying for reinforcements. As a clever business men I did not, of course, provide reinforcement, because the manikins would have been hard put to resign.

Fun Fair and Garbage Removal were the cues that enticed me to take a closer look at the board game Steam Park. In this game you construct a Fun Fair for robots, that is, the visitors are robots. Before you start the first game you should plan some time for preparations, there are a few necessary ones, as there six different attractions in three different sizes, plus five different Stands ins four copies each, all of those come as three-dimensional equipment that must be assembled.

Each player is giving a starting area showing a 4x4 squares grid, six dice and a Pig, to be more exact, a tile that depicts a Pig and which you use to place the dice you rolled. Everybody is then dealt six cards from the stack of bonus cards and may keep three of them.

Then you pick one visitor robot of each of the six colors and throw it into a bag, and the fun can begin. The game is played over six rounds comprising four phases each.

The first of those four phases is the dice phase. All players pick up their six dice and roll them simultaneously to try to achieve the necessary results as quickly as possible. When you want to keep a die to use it you set it aside on your Pig. It is important to remember that, once a die is placed on the Pig, it cannot be re-rolled. As soon as all six of your dice are placed on the Pig, you take a turn order marker quickly.

The six sides of all the dice show one symbol each for building rides, luring visitor robots, cleaning up, playing a bonus card, build Stands and one empty side. The turn order markers are numbered from One to Four and have, in ascending order, characteristics of decreasing value. When the first three markers have been taken, the last player has exactly three more rolls and must then place his remaining dice on the Pig.

The next phase is the Dirt phase. Three of the six symbols on the dice carry an additional Dirt symbol. Each player must take a Dirt marker for each Dirt symbol on his dice, one for each visiting robot in his park and, finally, the turn order markers are evaluated: For Number One you may discard four Dirt markers, for Number Two two markers, Number Three can discard none of them and for Number Four you must take two Dirt Markers. In this phase you must pay special attention, it happens again and again that one forgets about the dirt from the visiting robots.

The third phase is the action phase in which you place the dice you chose accordingly. The turn order is determined by the turn order markers you took in the previous phase. Each die can only be used once and, so to say, represents you resources. If you have used/implemented a die you remove it from the Pig.

Each of the six kinds of actions, yes there are six possible six actions, despite there being only five symbols, can only be implemented once in a turn, but sometimes there are multiple actions possible within one action, while you have corresponding dice symbols. There are no parameters in which order you implement actions. You can build three different sizes of rides, between one and three squares. For each square you need a die.

When constructing you must avoid contact between opposing colors or Stands, also not over corners, which makes the starting tile very small, because you only have four corners. Rides of the same color must touch along a long or short side of a square and are considered as one ride from this moment on. Constructing several rides of the same size within one turn is forbidden. This rule ensures that a player does not build all of the small attractions in one turn.

An attraction must, of course, build completely on the starting area and may not stuck out over the border. When an attraction has been built it cannot be relocated. The same rules goes for the Stands, for which is a separate symbol. You also cannot build several Stands of the same kind in a turn.

For each visitor robot that you set aside you take one of the robots and put all of them into the cloth bag. Which of the colors you choose is left to your decision. Then you draw the same number of bots from the cloth that you previously did throw in. Thus you have always six robots left in the bag.

It is checked if the robots you drew from the bag correspond to rides as regards to color and either place them at those rides, if there is room for them there, or put them back into stock. A ride can take one visitor for each square that it takes up on the park area.

Then you take care of cleanliness in the park! For each corresponding die symbol you can return 2 Dirt markers. With the last available symbol you can play bonus cards to acquire some money. Cards relate to rides, Stands, colors or other combinations in the park of a player. Variety is mostly in demand, but there are a few cards that aim for monotony.

As a sixth action you can choose any die (not an empty side) and swap the die for an additional park are of grid size 2x2. This you can do once or twice in a turn. This supplementary area must be added to the existing area with its total width or length. Those extensions of the park areas are very important, because you run very soon into the problems of limited available building space is those extension are a far cry from the consolation price that they are looked upon for in the rules.

Stands have a very important additional function: Each Stand you build always relates to a die symbol: Toilets double the symbol for "cleaning up", so that you can discard four instead of two dirt markers. The Promotion Stand doubles the number of visitors, the Info Point enables you to place visitors on rides that do not correspond in color. Those visitors must be put back into stock after the next income phase. Casino enables you to turn a die to the result you wish for and for Security you can put back a visitor, which you have drawn this moment, back into the bag and draw a new one.

The fourth phase is the income Phase, in which you receive 300 Danari - this is the currency in Roboburg - for each visitor in your park. If you hold less than three bonus cards you are given two new ones for each one he lacks, chooses one of them and discards the other one. Now you should have three bonus cards again.

Now we are able to begin the next round.

The game ends at the end of Round Six and at that point you count your Dirt markers and check the table for the amount of Danari that you would have to pay to clean up your park. Should any player, at this point, own more than 30 Dirt markers, he has lost the game in any case. Among all other players, you have won if you have most money left. Ties are resolved this way: First, if you have more visitors in your park, and second - this is a funny one - if you are first to touch the Cranio Logo on the back of the box.

For beginners or families with younger children you can leave out the special functions of the Stands and you score three Danari for each Stand in your park. To avoid confusion I would recommend to remove the corresponding bonus cards.

The group of three designers is not an unknown entity. Thy have already published two other games with Cranio Creations, named Dungeon Fighters and 1969. For some years now, the Italian company Cranio Creations has been publishing quite interesting games and has presented them at Essen. At Essen 2012 they showed Dungeon Fighter and were also involved in the creation of Terra Mystica and Sheepland

The game is made up from two quite distinctive parts, one is the hectic and chaotic phase of dice rolling, and the other one is the construction phase. In the dice phase the emphasis is on speed and the ability to keep track of what you want and need and, of course, you also need that very necessary bit of luck. If you keep rolling the wrong symbols for your needs and have the necessary control and overview to change your tactic quickly to fit the symbols that keep coming, you will find that the chance element is put into perspective quite quickly. You can wield a lot of influence by setting up the right Stands. I love to play with two Casinos and without a Toilet, which enables me to always being able to manipulate two dice, which results in a quick finish for my dice rolling phase and therefore I almost never have to take Dirt markers due to turn order but usually manage to get rid of some of those Dirt markers.

The construction phase depends on what you rolled, and, especially in the later stages of the game, on what you could still construct, because, especially in case of four players, the Rides and Stands become scarce quite quickly. The overall flow of the game is very smooth, provided that players devote a bit of consideration beforehand of how to use their dice. The individual phases are short and implementation of moves evolves logically and they are done quickly. Four Reference cards provide a summary of the most important moves and of the functions of the Stands, albeit written in very small print. Here is was again, age breathing down my neck, as I joked with my wife "eyesight gets worse after 40!"

The rules are written very clearly, offer enough examples and leave no question unanswered. What I like especially about the rules are the small cute and witty side comments and due to those cheeky remarks the rules come across as entertaining and are quite easy to read. Twelve pages don't frighten people away, because the pictures are big and, when you take a very close look, the rules could have been fit onto one A4 page.

On the web you find the rules in other languages, too, you just need to change publishers, because Heidelberger is the producer for the German-speaking countries, and Iello for the Anglo-Saxon and French regions.

To create a three-dimensional game results, of course, in problems with the components, especially when you put your trust in cardboard. Setting aside the cuttings, which carry their own potential for improvement, the cardboard components tear easily and the printed coating paper comes off at the edges. When you bend the cardboard components and assemble the pieces the cardboard comes off in layers and you must be very careful when assembling the pieces - give this task to players with lots of patience and special motor skills in their fingers.

Unfortunately the money notes are printed unevenly. If one invests so much care and painstaking detail in three-dimensional Rides one should also provide Visitor Robots looking like robots and not like miniature versions of the pieces used in "Heimlich & Co.".

As regards to graphics, opinions differ widely. I have heard everything from "sensational" to "well, that could have been done more nicely". But this is the signature of Marie Cardouat, whose creations we could already admire in Dixit. For me, personally, they are too bleak, because even robot visitors could visit a theme park or fun fair in daylight. But the graphic design neither hinders nor supports game play itself.

I was surprised by the tactical possibilities that the game offers, but yet a tactical genius is not all-powerful in the game. Tactics also differ in relation to the number of players. In case of four players you must be fast as regards to Stands and small rides, because they become exhausted relatively fast, and rounds Five and Six are governed by the number of visitors you might be attracted, who can discard what dirt and, most and foremost, which cards one is able to play.

To play the right cards will - when all is said and done - also earn you most money, and it is often better to play a card that yields a lower number of points and thus get rid of it and hope to replace it with a better one. Money is only earned with visitors in your park or with cards and those are the two strategies for the game. On the tactical side one depends on the result of the dice, but the real element of chance is not in rolling the dice, but in drawing the visitor robots from the bag.

Our experience in all our games was that one always draws the wrong ones. There may be six blue ones in the bag and five others, but you don't draw one single blue on. For this calamity the stands Info Point and Security provide assistance, in by opinion Info Point is the better one of the two. All in all, the game works well for all numbers of players, but works best in case of four players.

I cannot recommend or provide a suggestion for tactic, I only know that monotonous building or too much of a variety achieves the least results. Actions must be correlated with the bonus cards one holds. You must take card when rolling dice that no dice are pushed off the Pig tile or otherwise moved, because the rules list restrictive parameters for using the dice. In a game for two you take either Number One or Number Four of the turn order markers and, in cause of unexperienced players, Numbers Two and Four. This makes keeping an overview of your intentions even more important when choosing dice.

The topic is fun, robots having a good time at the Fun Fair. Visitors produce garbage and dirt, building activity produces Dirt, each visitor wants to try certain rides, you do promotion with your stands, clean up, take some risks and influence things. Those details give a certain authenticity to the game and this in turn produces quite some flair that pulls you into the game, and suddenly you prefer to construct the Haunted Castle or The Roller Coaster.

I can only congratulate designers and publisher on this lively and entertaining game, it is harmonious all over, can be played by all kinds of groups and a game never takes longer than 60 minutes. You always love to sit down to recreate your Fun Fair and to try new ways again and again to earn a little bit more money.

Kurt Schellenbauer

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 60+

Designer: Lorenzo Silva, Lorenzo Tucci Sorrentino, Aurélien Buonfino

Artist: Marie Cardouat

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Heidelberger Spieleverlag 2013

Web: www.craniocreations.com

Genre: Dice, development

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de en fr it

In-game text: no

Comments:

Easy to learn

Also good for experienced players

Nice component, good graphics

Hectic dice phase

Clear flow of the game

Compares to:

Rummelplatz, Coney Island

Other editions:

Cranio Creations, iello

My rating: 6

Kurt Schellenbauer:

I felt catapulted back to the Nineties of the last century when we built Fun Fairs on the computer and tried to attract as many visitors as possible. And back then, we had difficulties with garbage, too.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown):1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 1