First Impression: Festival

By W. Eric Martin
October 3, 2007

Publisher: Grimpeur
Distributor: Japon Brand
Designers: Shinsuke Yamagami & TCD
Players: 4-5
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Price: €18
Release Date: Released

Game Played: Published copy
Number of Plays: Twice with 4 players

It’s difficult to describe how precious and adorable the artwork is in Festival. Each of the 60 cards features a unique drawing—pastel, decorative, flowing—of a different character, and though the artwork is superfluous to the game play, you appreciate being able to enjoy all the fabulous drawings while waiting for your turn to come around.

As for the game play, Festival is a set collection game for four or five players. The deck consists of 60 cards, which are divided equally into five, differently-colored professions: Tamer, Clown, Dancer, Gladiator, and Minstrel. Within each profession, the cards are numbered 1-9, with two 1s, 8s and 9s and one of each other number. The 9s have two stars on them, while every other card has only one star.

The game lasts ten rounds, and each round proceeds the same way. The start player draws a hand of cards equal to one more than the number of players, chooses one of these cards, places it either face-up or face-down in front of him, and hands the cards to any other player. This card drafting continues until the final player chooses one of the two remaining cards, places it face-up or face-down, and discards the remaining card. The player who laid down the face-up card with the lowest number starts the next round. In subsequent rounds, those who played their latest card face-up will draft a new card before those who played cards face-down.

After the tenth round, players reveal their cards and sort them by type. Whoever has the most stars in a profession earns 6 points, while the player with the secondmost stars scores 3 points. Players also score for collecting diverse professions: 3 points for three professions, 6 points for four, and 10 points for all five. Finally, players subtract 1 point for each 9 in their collection. Whoever has the most points wins.

If you’re like me, you might have responded to this description with an anticipatory “And....?” The description sounds so simple that it’s hard to see the game. But just as Geschenkt proved that a game designer can still do new things with dirt-simple rules, Festival provides an interesting playing experience. Knowing when to reveal your latest card isn’t always a straight-forward decision. You have to weigh what others have played, what others might play from the cards remaining in the round, what colors people have shown they’re collecting, what colors you think they might be collecting, how desperately you need a card of a particular color, and so on.

You want control in order to pick earlier in the round as the game is a mere ten rounds, and to net the big bonus for diversity—which is possibly essential given that the winning scores in my two games were 18 and 21—you have to spend half your picks taking different colored cards. This desire for control might encourage you to play cards face-up, but then people have a better idea of what to snatch from you.

You might decide to be contrary and reveal nothing. After all, if players don’t know what you’re collecting,you’ll have more information than them and can possibly make better decisions as to what to collect. In the first game, for example, one player revealed nothing and won. For the second game, however, she tried to do the same thing and I decided to never give her cards unless she was the last player remaining. Just as she can deny information to other players, the other players can deny card choice to her. The result? A third place finish for the concealer and victory for yours truly.

One thing to keep in mind going into the game is that the decisions aren’t strenuous, but the first couple of rounds might take far longer than you’d expect for such a light game. As with Citadels, in which players take turns choosing role cards from a single deck, you have a single hand of cards that’s being passed from player to player. Once players get a foothold in a couple of professions, the turns pick up speed.

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