Saturday Morning Gaming: Circus Electrique
I’m playing through my far-too-large backlog of games and I stumbled across something I got during one of last year’s steam sales. Circus Electrique. “I don’t remember getting this…”, I thought. Then I looked at the description. Steampunk RPG with circus management.
Okay. Yeah, I can see that.
The general story is that you are the daughter of a circus performer who died in a horrible accident. It’s now decades later and you are returning to your Uncle’s circus to write a newspaper story when the circus is attacked by some of the Steampunk cops who have, suddenly, become automatons who want only to destroy.
You fight back with various circus performers in a combat style that is nigh-identical to Darkest Dungeon’s. Four slots for your dudes, they have different skills that work against different slots of the villains you face, and your enemies can really mess with your guys by moving them around (making it so that your tanky strongman can’t use his best attacks or your glass cannon fire-breather is moved to the front).
After you have your first fight, you get access to the circus itself. If you’ve played Darkest Dungeon, you will totally recognize the setup. Hire people at the train station, heal them up at the sleeping cart, purchase buffs at the artisan (assuming you’ve got the crafting parts you need, of course), and so on.
One thing that is very different is that, while you’re back at the circus, you can set up a circus show.
Pick your opener, pick your main event, pick your aftershow. Oh, and they need to have synergy.
Performers that work less well will give you fewer “stars” to spend on what you want your show to do. Check this out.
That’s a team that doesn’t synergize well. Here’s one that does:
That’s two whole stars! To be spent here:
Do you want a packed house? Do you want your show to put an emphasis on entertainment? How much complexity do you want? Every star you spend in this column won’t be going in one of the others.
And then, after you are ready to go out to the map, you pick your path:
And then, after you get in a fight, you get a report of what has been going on including a report of how well your show was received.
And then you do it all over again. The story leaks out in drips and drabs and you learn why people are going crazy and attacking your circus people, what’s *REALLY* going on in this Steampunk London, and what the story was that caused your mother’s death those decades ago.
It’s pretty good. I’d say that I recommend it to everybody if they can get it on sale but only to Darkest Dungeon addicts who want a somewhat less depressing setting at full price.
So… what are you playing?
