The theme is all an act
THE MAGNIFICENT
Designer: Eilif Svensson, Kristian Amundsen Østby | Publisher: Aporta Games
In The Magnificent, players are competing to bring the biggest circus show to town. As exciting as the theme of performances and circus acts sound, it disappointingly has very little to do with the game itself. While some artwork and game pieces attempt to carry the theme, The Magnificent is almost purely mechanical. The actions are an amalgamation of moving various pieces and tokens around the board and resource management that in themselves have very little to do with running a circus or the art of the performance. So, if you were looking forward to immersing yourself into the running and drama of a circus, this is not a game for you. However, if you fancy a robust midweight Eurogame that mixes dice drafting and with Tetris-style tile placement, then, please, come right in.
Putting its theme completely aside, The Magnificent is a collection of mechanisms that work together in a surprisingly satisfying and challenging way. The core of the gameplay is the dice drafting: a pool of dice are rolled at the beginning of the round and players select several dice to activate various actions.
Value of dice corresponds to, for example, how many tetromino pieces you can take to build your camp or how many spaces to move along the game’s several tracks. Typically, the bigger the dice value, the better the reward, which then translates into victory points. However, in The Magnificent, rushing to get the six pipped dice is not necessarily the right strategy. At the end of the round, players pay for the highest value dice of the same colour, including any joker (white) dice they used. If you can’t pay – you lose victory points.
The Magnificent also introduces an interesting mechanic where dice of the same colour power each other up. If the player used a purple dice for action, and on the next turn once again picks up a purple dice, their values combine together to become more powerful. It is possible, for example, to perform an action of a power 18, if you desire, just remember to pay for that at the end of the round. Together this creates an interesting interplay where low-value dice can still create powerful effects, if used in the right combination. Picking up a dice is not so much a matter of luck, instead it is a carefully considered and weighted decision.
In other parts of the board, you will be busy arranging tetromino tiles for bonus rewards and victory points or progressing along a travel track to gain gems that can enhance your dice rolls. Everything you do around the board in one way or another is linked, enhancing, and supplementing each other, and making every action feel worthwhile.
The downside of this, however, that it takes some time to wrap your head around all available actions and their outcomes. This is not helped by a board bustling with colours, tracks, shapes and symbols, attempting to emulate the circus feel, but instead making the board feel overwhelming.
While it is disappointing that one of the biggest appeals of The Magnificent – its theme – is also its biggest let down, this alone is not a reason to disregard this game. Mechanically, it is one of the more exciting, innovative dice-drafting games available, offering players plenty of freedom in how they want to approach the game and rewarding their thoughtful decisions.
ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA
WE SAY
With its theme less magnificent than expected, this mid-weight dice drafting game successfully hits all of its gameplay notes.
WHAT'S IN THE BOX?
► 1 Game board
► 4 Player boards
► 56 Master cards
► 54 Poster cards
► 15 Circus tents tokens
► 40 Coins
► 19 Dice
► 48 Gems
► 3 Wagon tokens
► 4 Scoring tokens
► 8 Hat figures
► 32 Trainer markers
► 12 Trainer tiles
► 84 Camp tiles
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED COIMBRA…
The Magnificent, like the medievalthemed Coimbra, packs a lot of gameplay and decisions in its box, while making dice-drafting the centrepiece of its gameplay.