The race is on! In just 5 months, Mayor Tenpenny wants to see this town turned into the new home of the world’s most amazing theme parks! You’ll have to inspire your visitors and fill them with awe and joy through thematic attractions, delightful concessions, and memorable souvenirs. Attract the most visitors to win Fairview’s Golden Key! Let’s get building!

What Is It?

Worker Placement – Each round, players will place their 3 workers out on the board for various actions: buying attractions, gaining money, cutting down trees to make space on their property, gaining concessions, or buying expansion boards

Tile Placement/Grid Coverage – As players gain attractions and concessions, they’ll place them on their property board(s). They must follow certain placement restrictions, and can potentially gain bonuses for the emotion tracks if they cover pre-set icons on their boards

Track Movement – Throughout the game, players can move up on the emotion tracks based on symbols on attractions, concessions, and their player boards. They can earn special bonuses, or points, at the end of each round if they are leading on the tracks, and they can earn points at the end of the game if they reach a certain point on the tracks.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 4 Players – Solo is good, as long as you don’t mind a lot of set-up for your solo games. Multi-player works well at any count, but definitely gets tighter the more players you have
  • Ages 12 & Up / Mig-Weight Gamers – Pretty simple ruleset, but does offer some light strategy
  • Fans of worker placement, tile placement, and track movement
  • Fans of amusement park theme!

Variants

Solo – Play against “Becky” who has a set list of actions she goes through each round, and has slightly altered rules for bonuses and advertising – I thought solo was fine, if you like worker placement for solo play. There wasn’t too much upkeep, and you always know what Becky will do, so you can plan ahead a bit. I also thought Becky was competitive, for AI, but certainly not impossible to beat, which I like. Personally, I think I prefer multi-player, but solo is okay.

Fast Pass Mini Expansion – One fast pass token goes out on its specified spot each round, in rounds 2 to 5 to enhance the spot for the first player to go there. The spots become gain $4, remove 4 trees, advance one space on any emotion track, and pay only $1 for an expansion board – It’s a nice little bonus for one player, but I just thought this little expansion was forgettable. It wasn’t valuable enough to compete any harder to be first in a round, in my opinion. The tokens were also rather small, and blended into the board a bit.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Good looking game, nice art, vibrant colors
  • Components – Nice quality all around. The carousel is a great touch!
  • Theme – There aren’t enough theme park games, in my opinion. It’s a fun theme, and the actions fit the theme well
  • Rules – Clear/well-written
  • Smooth turns
  • Accessible to a wide audience
  • I like that any number of players can do most actions, but only 1 player can gain each type of attraction each round. It fits the theme well of trying to race for the best attractions for your park

CONS

  • Super Tight Economy – If you go into your 1st game not knowing that (especially against someone who does) you’ll likely struggle with money the whole game. It can be frustrating because there’s often a lot you want to do, but sometimes you just don’t have the funds
  • Variability – It didn’t seem like there were many different strategies to try, so I’m not sure how much replay value it holds. There’s not a ton of variety in attractions or concessions, and you see a lot each game, especially with more players
  • No insert in the box, just have to bag everything and shove it in

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this was a nice worker placement game. It’s pretty light, and the amount of unrestricted worker spots makes me feel like I always have something useful to do, even if someone takes an attraction I might have wanted to build.

I liked the competition on the emotion tracks too, especially because some of those bonuses are really valuable (my favorite it the extra worker).

If you want a lighter worker placement/tile placement game with a great theme, definitely check this one out! If you’re looking for something with a bit deeper strategy, this might not be the one.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designer – Nate Linhart
Artist – Vincent Dutrait
Publisher – Thunderworks Games
MSRP – $59.95
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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