Festival Board Game Review

Written by Emma Garrett

Inside Festival

Do you ever feel, like a plastic bag? A plastic bag is something you’ll definitely not find in this firework-themed game. Its environmental credentials are second to none, and noticeable from the off. Stickers replace the traditional shrink wrap in a move that makes me wonder why we ever do any different. The game feels special right away and nothing disappoints. From theme to appearance to gameplay, Festival has it all. It’s got so much to offer from the very first play and leaves you plenty of room to improve your tile placement, tile stacking and crowd pleasing skills. It’s quick to learn and doesn’t take long to play either. No sooner has one display ended than you’ll want to start another. 

Tile Placement Game

All you have to do to make the crowd “ooh” and “ahh” is draw firework tiles and place them in spaces on your personal board. They come in four colours and four patterns. Each player is allocated one colour and one pattern that score them bonus points if they’re visible at the end of the night. These tiles score one point if there are no tiles underneath them, but if one of your tiles is on the fourth level, you score four points. Players are allocated one scoring card to start with and can choose to spend their turn taking other scoring cards throughout the game. The first player to achieve certain in-play milestones known as crowd-pleasers wins the tile and the points that accompany it. 

Festival Review

It’s the kind of game you want to play again and again. You select tiles from a pile to your left or right, meaning the game works just as well with two players as it does four. Whilst there is always an element of luck where you are drafting tiles, Festival has mostly balanced this by the fact you pick the patterns you are working towards as you go. There is space for up to five different goal cards, so you can spread your options and work towards more than one thing at a time, changing tack if you see something that works better given what’s available. It feels neat and contained. The small grid feels much bigger when you can build up, as placing a firework in one spot doesn’t prevent another going there later. Although, it’s so disappointing when you have to build on top of one of your bonus scoring tiles. 

I love the boards. The line drawings of city skylines are inspired. They’ve managed to create something striking and recognisable through single colour line drawings alone. It’s a great summary of the game: stunning simplicity achieved through good design. We had fun finding words to use to differentiate between the firework shapes. We named them the palm tree, the rose, the waterfall and the star. I’m sure each table will find their own words when they need to tell the player next to them that they just stole the exact tile they needed. 

I am completely blown away by the thought that’s gone into this game. There’s an impressive list of its environmental considerations, none of which negatively effect the quality of the production. If anything, it’s brighter to look at, more solid to the touch. As well as looking beautiful, it’s a game entirely based on colours and patterns, that is colour-blind friendly. They’ve ticked just about every box I can think of to make an excellent game. It might be too abstract for players who prefer to make their patterns in nature themed games like Cascadia or Harmonies, but not every game can have animals. This game contains no animals, they’re all safely indoors away from the noise. 

Verdict on Festival Board Game

We think this is a must play game. It’s colourful, it’s thinky, it looks great. And it’s in three dimensions!

You should try this if you liked My Shelfie, in which you make colourful patterns to meet individual goals and compete to be first to achieve shared goals. 

On the box

Designer: Grégory Grard

Publisher: Scorpion Masqué

Time: 20m

Players: 2-4

Ages: 8+

Price: £17

Inside the box

• 4 Double-sided Player Boards (each with its own Firework and colour)
• 64 Firework Tiles
• 32 Objective cards
• 4 Starting Objective cards
• 4 Double-sided Crowd-Pleaser Tiles
• Starting Player token
• Rulebook