{"id":10297,"date":"2024-06-12T10:43:14","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T14:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10297"},"modified":"2024-06-12T10:43:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T14:43:15","slug":"big-top-couture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/12\/big-top-couture\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Top & Couture."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Big Top and Couture are both light auction games that have been rethemed from their Japanese originals by the publisher Allplay, which specializes in small-box games and has imported a number of great titles from Japan in this way (including last year\u2019s two-player game Sail<\/a>). Both Big Top and Couture offer something clever in the way they approach the auction, with Big Top the better gaming experience while Couture might be easier for less experienced players to grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Top pits 3 or 4 players against each other in a fight to build the best circus by hiring performers from the deck. Each player starts the game with one hand card, $22, and a Ringmaster card on the table in front of them. On your turn, you become the auctioneer, drawing a card and then choosing to put that or your hand card down for auction, making the first bid yourself. Players bid until everyone but one has passed, at which point the winning player pays either the auctioneer or the bank (if they were the auctioneer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you win a card, you then have to \u2018complete\u2019 it to be able to score it at the end of the game and activate any powers. Cards have anywhere from two to nine circles on them showing numerical values from 1 through 12. When you place a bid on a card on the table, if you bid any number shown in an uncovered space on one of your cards, you take a coin from your supply and cover up that space. Thus bidding is nearly always valuable, even if you don\u2019t win the card or even want the card on the table. If anyone\u2019s bid matches an open circle on the card up for auction, you take a coin from the bank (if available) and cover that circle as well. Once you\u2019ve covered all of the circles on a card in front of you, you move it to your completed attractions pile, regain all of the coins that were on it, and activate any powers on it, which can include placing one or two coins on any uncovered circles on your cards, taking the top card from the deck and completing it for free, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game continues until you reach the end-of-game card, which you shuffle into the bottom four cards of the deck. Any player who did not complete a Star attraction, of which there are about eight in the deck, is eliminated immediately. You then add up all victory points shown on attraction cards, plus all variable bonuses on clown cards, and then award points for stars (10 to the player with the most, 7 to second place, 3 to third, with tied players sharing the lower number). The game takes about 45 minutes because of the size of the deck and the fact that auctions can go around a few times, but downtime between turns is limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the bidding system here, which, to be fair, is the only unique thing about Big Top. You\u2019re almost always working on something, and it rewards you for always having a couple of cards in play \u2013 there is no benefit to underbidding just to hoard cash. (You get one point for $5 left at game end, which is a pittance in a game where scores run 60-75 points.) And the three main ways to score seem pretty balanced \u2013 high-point attractions, stars, and clown cards. If you get a clown card early in the game, you can tweak your strategy a little to try to maximize its value, but it won\u2019t fundamentally change how you play. I played this with my stepdaughters, aged 7 and 11, and they both got the concept and scored well, with the 11-year-old winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Couture, which plays from 3 to 6 people, is set in the world of high fashion and also involves bidding on a deck of cards, but here the bids come from your bid cards rather than money, and you\u2019re bidding on slates of cards, nine in each round, three per column, representing New York, Paris, and Tokyo. Players start the game with the same four bidding cards each, valued at 1, 1, 2, and 3. They divide those cards across the three sites, hiding their bids in their hands, and all players reveal their bids at the same time. You may choose not to bid on any one site, but in that case you won\u2019t get any cards from there at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the bids are out, you resolve the three sites left to right, starting with New York. The highest bidder gets to take one card of their choice, followed by the second-highest, and then the third-highest takes the last card. If only two players bid, the first player takes the last card; if only one player bid, they take all three. You must take a card \u2013 you can\u2019t pass, even if the card is a Flop, which can hurt you at game end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deck includes two main types of cards, bidding cards and outfits. The bidding cards you can gain can have higher bid values, up to 4 points, but may be worth negative victory points at game end. Some bidding cards are worth 2 points unless there\u2019s a matching symbol in the column you\u2019re bidding on, in which case they\u2019re worth 4. Some bidding cards have values of 0 or even -1, which lets you sneak in as the low bidder, and they are the only way to expand your hand limit of four bidding cards, even if you later replace them with higher-valued ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outfit cards offer a variety of ways to score, mostly around set collection. You can get points for finishing pairs of matching streetwear cards, worth more points if you\u2019re the first to finish. You gain points for getting cards of five different ready-to-wear brands, up to 8 if you get the whole set. Editorial cards are worth a straight two points each, but beware of Flops, as there\u2019s a penalty for whoever has the most at the end of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Couture\u2019s bidding system is a little easier to play than Big Top\u2019s because it\u2019s simultaneous and you bid just once per round, with seven rounds in the whole game, but my youngest didn\u2019t entirely get the concept of splitting her bids across the three sites along with the need to use all her bid cards every turn. We all loved the theme and the art, though, and they both said they\u2019d play this again. I think Big Top executes the auction mechanic in a cleverer way, but it takes twice as long to complete, and Couture is certainly better to look at. Both come in small boxes and retail for under $20 on Allplay\u2019s site (Couture<\/a>, Big Top<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kids were both asking for more auction games; I just got a copy of QE, and I\u2019ve played some of Knizia\u2019s auction games (Ra<\/a>, Medici) but don\u2019t own them any more. Let me know your favorite auction games in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Top and Couture are both light auction games that have been rethemed from their Japanese originals by the publisher Allplay, which specializes in small-box games and has imported a number of great titles from Japan in this way (including last year\u2019s two-player game Sail). Both Big Top and Couture offer something clever in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1397,582,60],"class_list":["post-10297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-auction-games","tag-board-games","tag-boardgames","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10298,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10297\/revisions\/10298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}