"Ladies and gentlemen, step right up - the carnival is coming to town! In The Grand Carnival, players compete to create the most impressive carnival this town has ever seen. You'll need to carefully plan your carnival's layout, build attractions, hire staff, and manage the crowds, all while learning a few tricks of the trade. "

Uproarious Games and designer Rob Cramer have a new Kickstarter project, the action selection and polyomino placement game The Grand Carnival. In The Grand Carnival, 1-4 players take turns trying to develop the best carnival, by planning walking paths, building attractions and guiding guests into their rides. Players mark one of the numbers 1 through 5 on their board before they select one of 3 actions - place a foundation, build an attraction, or move some guests. The number determines how effective their action will be. Each marked number can only be used once per round.

The first action, placing a foundation, allows players to select one of the foundation tiles from the Railyard. These tiles show 4 squares, either green or brown, for guests or attractions respectively; Guests can only move along the green squares, and polyomino attraction tiles must fit on the brown squares. The selected number determines from how many foundation tiles the player can pick (from 1-5). The second action lets a player place an attraction in their carnival, again only over the brown spaces. Higher numbers allow players to pick bigger attractions. Finally, players can move guests among the attractions on the green walkways, with higher numbers allowing more movement. When a guest reaches an attraction, the player can place a ticket token on the site. Players can even hire barkers to help move more guests around their park. If players match conditions on their Tricks of the Trade cards, they can earn extra abilities that round.

At the end of the games, players earn points for barkers in their carnival, number of guests moved through, number of tickets on attractions, and sets of attractions in the park. Unfinished spaces in the carnival will cost players points. After 7 rounds, one week, the player with the most points wins the game.

The Kickstarter Campaign for The Grand Carnival continues through October 10, and the game is expected to deliver in May 2020. The Grand Carnival comes with over 50 polyomino tile attractions, 4 player boards, a Railyard board, over 80 foundation tiles, 6 Tricks of the Trade cards, 30 guest tokens, 60 ticket tokens, 8 carnival barker tokens, and 32 action tokens in 4 player colors.