Little Circuses
Little Circuses Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Objective
The goal of the game is to make your part of the circus more famous than any of your siblings' circuses. To do this, you will need to rent and build attractions and then make those attractions perform in the various cities the Little Circus visits.
End of the Game
The game ends when John reaches the end of the Master of Ceremonies board. At that point, the player with the most Fame wins. In case of a tie, the tied player furthest to the left on the player track wins.
Components
- 1 Master of Ceremonies board
- 1 Rulebook
- 7 Circus boards
- 7 Bleachers, each numbered 2, 4, 6 and 8 on its spaces
- 150 Attraction tiles: Starting Attractions and Advanced Attractions
- 7 double-sided Special Attraction cards
- 44 coin tokens
- 36 Use markers
- 10 Fame tokens, 50/100
- 60 Public meeples
- 14 Player markers
- 7 Highlight markers
- 1 John, the Master of Ceremonies meeple
Setup
- Place the Master of Ceremonies board in the middle of the table. Take John's figure and place it on the "Welcome to Starterton" space of the board.
- Place the coins, the Use markers, the Public meeples and the 50/100 Fame tokens where all players can reach them. Leave the Special Attraction cards face down for now; they will be used later, when John reaches the tent symbol on the central board.
- Next, each player chooses a color and receives:
- 1 coin of $3 and 2 coins of $1
- 1 bleacher
- 1 circus board
- 1 score marker (in their color)
- 1 turn order marker (in their color)
- 1 highlight marker
- 1 Public member meeple
Place your Bleacher board in front of you with the Public meeple on space 2. Place your money nearby, but not on the bleachers. Place your Circus board face up in front of you, with plenty of space around it, and place your Highlight marker next to it.
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One player takes the Player Order markers, shuffles them, and without looking chooses one at random, placing it on the leftmost Player Order space on the Central board. That player then takes another marker and places it to the right of the first, and so on, until each player has a Player Order marker on one of the Player Order spaces.
Each player then places their score marker on the Fame track on the Central board, receiving the number of Fame points shown on their Player Order space (the player furthest to the left gains zero Fame, the next player gains 1 Fame, and so on).
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Take the Starting Attraction tiles (the tiles with red tents on the back) and place them face down in the middle of the table, next to the Fame track and the Central board. Shuffle them well and keep them face down. Each player draws 5 tiles at random from the pile. These are your unbuilt attractions. Keep them face up in front of you, but not too close to your Circus board. Leave the Advanced Attraction tiles (with a petrol-blue tent on the back) aside for now.
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Choose which side of the Special Attraction cards to use in the game. The side with numbers in blue circles offers no interaction and is recommended for your first game; the red side offers some interaction. The cards are used from "day 7" (marked with the globe symbol) and will be explained later.
Opening Night
To begin the game, each player takes their Highlight marker and places it on one of the four attractions on their Circus board, then resolves the Action icons on that attraction as described on the Bleacher board. For your first game, it is recommended that you place your Highlight marker on the cotton candy vendor and collect $2.
The Master of Ceremonies
Little Circuses is played in turns, which are controlled by John's movement on the Central board.
Each turn, John moves one space to the right on the board. If there are no more spaces to the right of John, he moves down to the first space of the next row.
This continues until John reaches the last space of Endsville. At that moment the month ends, the Prize scores are added to the Fame scores, and John chooses who will keep the circus.
After John enters a new space, each player simultaneously resolves the action indicated on that space. Once all players have carried out the actions indicated by the space, the turn ends and John moves again. The spaces of the Central board are described below.
Example: John moves from Smallburg to the next space, which is a Full Day icon. All players then build and execute as described below.
Full Day
Each player builds and then executes.
- Build (choose one of the 3 options below).
- A. Raise funds: Gain $2.
- B. Hire help: Buy a tile. If more players want to buy tiles than there are tiles remaining, the players receive their tiles in player order, from left to right. Players who do not receive a tile may choose to raise funds or build.
- C. Build: Build one of the Attraction tiles in your hand. To do this, choose an Attraction tile from your hand and place it orthogonally (not diagonally) adjacent to an attraction already in your circus, or on top of an attraction already in your circus. Then spend money equal to the cost printed in the top left corner of the Attraction tile you are building. If you cannot pay the cost, you cannot build the attraction.
You may build on top of an attraction that has a Use marker. The Use marker remains on the new attraction, however. Likewise, if you build on the attraction where your Highlight marker currently is, your Highlight marker is placed on the new attraction.
Note: Build actions technically occur in player order, from left to right, in the rare cases where timing matters.
- Execute an Action. Do the following:
- Move your Highlight marker from the current attraction to an attraction orthogonally (not diagonally) adjacent to it.
- Place a Use marker on the attraction that your Highlight marker has just left, unless that attraction already has a Use marker.
- Resolve the action icons of the attraction to which your Highlight marker was moved, unless that attraction has a Use marker. The icons are resolved from left to right and are described in the Appendix on the last page.
Example (from the rulebook illustration): the Highlight marker moves to the adjacent attraction, a Use marker is placed on the attraction it left, and the icons on the new attraction are resolved. The illustration's caption reads: gain 1 Fame and 2 Attraction tiles.
Midday
Each player builds or executes, as they choose, as described on the "Full Day" space.
Arrival of New Acts
First, any unbought Starting Attraction tiles (the tiles with red-backed tents) are returned to the box. Then take the Advanced Attraction tiles (the tiles with blue-backed tents) that you set aside earlier, place them face down in the middle of the play area, shuffle them, and turn 4 of them face up beside the Central board.
These FACE-UP tiles may only be bought by a player who has chosen Special Attraction card no. 6, "Madame Adam" (blue circle) or "Handy Mandy" (red circle), as their Special Attraction (see Special Attractions, later). Each player then draws 2 Advanced Attraction tiles (blue-backed), which are kept face down.
Special Attractions
Before the game, decide which set of Special Attraction cards to use. The cards with blue numbers present fewer interactions between players and are recommended for your first game.
Place the 7 Special Attraction cards face up in the middle of the play area (returning to the play area any that were chosen by a player in the previous week). The player whose marker on the Player Order track is on the leftmost space chooses one of the Special Attraction cards, immediately performs the card's action if it is appropriate, and then places the Special Attraction card next to their circus.
Then the player whose marker on the Player Order track is on the space to the right of the player who chose first chooses one of the remaining Special Attraction cards, and so on, until each player has chosen a card. The remaining Special Attraction cards are reserved until they are needed.
Then the player whose Special Attraction card has the lowest Initiative number (printed in the top left corner) moves their Player marker to the leftmost Player Order space. The player whose Special Attraction card has the next lowest Initiative number moves their Player marker to the space to the right of that player's marker, and so on, until all players have moved their Player markers to the correct spaces.
New City
When the circus arrives in a new city, remove all Use markers from your circus. However, do not remove your Highlight marker. Your Highlight marker must remain where it is.
Resolving Action Icons
The printed page places the following paragraph under this heading, and it repeats the Objective given on page 2: The goal of the game is to make your part of the circus more famous than any of your siblings' circuses. To do this, you will need to rent and build attractions and then make those attractions perform in the various cities the Little Circus visits.
When an attraction is executed, you must resolve its Action icons in order, from left to right. Each icon must be resolved; you cannot skip an icon.
Each icon is resolved individually. So if you resolved 3 entertainment icons on a single attraction, you would resolve each icon separately, one at a time. You may have the first two icons advance one Public meeple on your bleacher from space 4 to space 8, and then have the third icon advance a different Public meeple from space 2 to space 4. Or you may have all three icons advance three different Public meeples from space 2 to space 4.
Ending the Game
When John reaches Endsville, the game ends immediately! First, all players adjust their Fame points by adding their "Variety Prizes". Then the player with the most Fame wins the game! If there is a tie, the tied player whose Player Order marker is furthest to the left wins the game.
Variety Prizes
At the end of the game, you receive 10 Fame points for each complete set of five attractions of different colors (1 green, 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue and 1 purple) that you built in your circus. Only face-up attractions count. Attractions that have been covered by others do not count for this bonus.
- Cash Prize: You receive 2 Fame points for each $3 left over.
- Act Prize: You receive 1 Fame point for each Attraction tile left in your hand.
- Audience Prize: You receive 1/2 the value for each Public meeple remaining on your bleacher. So a Public meeple on space 8 is worth 4 Fame.
Bleachers and Public Members
One of the best ways to earn fame and money is through your Public meeples. By selling tickets to add Public meeples to your bleachers, entertaining the public to increase their value, and then either making a big sale (for money) or impressing them (for fame), you can build a much more efficient circus than one that relies on fame and profit icons alone. Just remember that no Public meeple can be worth more than 8.
Use Markers
Each time you move your Highlight marker off an Attraction tile, place a Use marker on that tile. This indicates that the attraction has already been seen by the people of the current city, who are now tired of it.
If you move your Highlight marker onto an Attraction tile with a Use marker, do not resolve that attraction's Action icons; your Execute action is wasted.
Use markers are removed from your circus each time you enter a new city, indicating a new crowd of people who have not yet enjoyed your attractions.
Solo Variant
Want to visit John Little's circus but don't have a companion at hand? No problem! John kept meticulous notes of how his Little Circuses performed over the years. Get ready for the game and see where you rank in your glorious career!
Playing the Solo Variant
The setup and playability for the solo mode of Little Circuses are identical to the base game, with the following exceptions:
- Only the Special Attraction cards on the blue side may be used in Solo mode.
When you reach Endsville, see how you ranked against the Hall of Fame next to John's patented chart:
| Fame | Rank |
|---|---|
| 201+ | Off the charts! |
| 151-200 | Amazing! |
| 101-150 | So close! |
| 51-100 | Nice try |
| 0-50 | Wimpy |
Action Icon Reference
The printed reference shows each action icon with its effect. The icons are named here by their pictures.
- Tent icon (buy a tile): Buy a Tent tile from the market. If the players have more New Hire icons than the number of tiles remaining in the market in a given turn, they buy tiles in player order, from left to right.
- Elephant icon (fame from bleacher): You MAY remove a Public meeple from your Bleacher and gain Fame equal to its value (that is, "space 8" equals 8 Fame). If there are no Public meeples on your Bleacher, do nothing.
- Clown icon (advance a Public meeple): Move a Public meeple from space 2, 4 or 6 of your Bleacher one space to the right. If there are no Public meeples on spaces 2, 4 or 6, do nothing.
- $ coin icon (gain money): Gain $1. If no more coins are available, use penny coins or other extra tokens.
- Admit One icon (add a Public meeple): Place a Public meeple on space 2 of your Bleacher. If no more Public meeples are available, use penny coins or other extra tokens.
- Money bills icon (cash from bleacher): You MAY remove a Public meeple from your Bleacher and gain money equal to its value (that is, "space 8" equals $8). If there are no Public meeples on your Bleacher, do nothing.
- Star icon (gain fame): Gain Fame. If your Fame marker exceeds 50, take a 50 Fame token, or flip your 50 Fame token to its 100 side, to track your accumulated Fame.