FTW Staff Picks - Circus Flohcati

This week we're going from one of the longest games in our catalogue, to one of the shortest. Circus Flohcati was recently repainted and repackaged from its 1998 release. It's one of the many Reiner Knizia titles. The reprint was a result of a Kickstarter campaign to get the game back into gamer's hands. Grail Games have done an excellent job revitalizing the title with an aesthetic that looks straight out of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. 

Circus Flohcati is about as raw a press-your-luck style game as you can get. A deck of cards featuring 10 sets of Attraction cards along with a handful of Action cards, is the entire game. Each player's turn consists of two choices: choose one of the already available Attraction cards or draw more cards to add to the row before eventually taking one. However, if one of the added cards matches the colour of any of the cards already in the row, that player's turn ends immediately and they do not receive a card.

To score points, players may form Trios from their hand of cards of any 3 cards with matching values. Each Trio is worth 10 points. Any player may call the end of the game once they are holding at least one of each type of Attraction card. The highest values of each type of Attraction held by each player are totalled up and added to any points scored by Trios to determine total score. The player with the highest score is declared the winner. 

Circus Flohcati is a great game with excellent pacing to it. It's often overlooked because of its box and unusual name. In fact, I can probably count the amount of times its been played at our café on one hand. So I'm hoping to change that by featuring it here. Circus Flohcati won't be the highlight of your night, nor should it be expected it to. But what it provides in 15 minutes, is colourful and quick fun that is sometimes not easy to find.