The Amazing American Circus, by developers Klabater and Juggler Games, is a game about collecting cards and performers to create the best circus in America. The game isn’t released yet, but the demo version I played was quite promising, and I’m excited for the game’s full release!
I’m fairly new to the card-collecting genre of games, so it took some getting used to, but I was able to pick up on the playstyle fairly quickly. The game has three main elements: collecting or “hiring” circus performers, leveling up their skill cards, and performing for a virtual audience.
The game demo begins with a tutorial of the stage performance. This part of the game was a little strange to me, I’ll admit- I was confused at first because it appears you’re actually competing against the audience. There’s a lot to pay attention to all at once – the tutorial is helpful, but it’s still a little confusing.
However, after a few rounds, I got the hang of it. Your goal is to impress the audience using the abilities of various performers, while the audience will resist being impressed and will use their own “attacks” to demoralize your circus troupe.
Each performer’s abilities are listed on cards making up a playable deck. In each round, five cards are dealt to you, and you can choose which cards or abilities to use to impress the audience. Once you’ve “defeated” an audience member, they will sit down, and once you’ve successfully impressed all the audience members the show will end successfully.
The successful completion of a show will reward you with money and experience for the performers. In the demo version of the game I played, there’s not much to spend money on, but there will likely be many more options added before The Amazing American Circus’s full release. For the time being, money can be spent to level up your performers; in leveling them up, you can unlock new ability cards, upgrade current cards, or increase your characters’ overall stats (such as “health”).
You can also buy new performers. In the game demo, there are only three performer types currently available. However, more will probably be added in the full game, which will add another exciting aspect to it.
I only had one major issue while playing The Amazing American Circus. While in one of the performances, I got stuck. I ended my turn after using my abilities, but nothing happened. I tried clicking the “next turn” button again, but nothing was happening- the game seemed to have just frozen. I exited out of the game and restarted it, and it didn’t happen again, but it was a little annoying having to restart because of a glitch. To be fair, though, The Amazing American Circus is still in development – bugs are somewhat expected this early in development. And that was the only real problem I ran into; the rest of my playing experience was great!
One aspect of The Amazing American Circus that I really liked was the art style. It has a vintage feel to it that I really like, and it fits the circus theme perfectly. Each character’s design seems to have a unique personality and mood, and the background environments are immersive and interesting.
Despite only playing a demo version of The Amazing American Circus, I had a lot of fun and would definitely recommend the game to others once it’s released. I only experienced a small slice of what the final game will have to offer- there will be new locations to perform, more characters, different abilities to unlock, and much more. I look forward to its release, and if you’re interested in this game, make sure to add it to your wishlist on Steam!
Check Out The Amazing American Circus Trailer:
The Amazing American Circus will be released on May 20, 2021. It will be available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and next-gens.
In addition, the Kickstarter campaign for the game is now live with 15 more days to go if you wish to support it.
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I'm a student of game design at Michigan State University, and I enjoy playing all types of video games, from competitive multiplayer games to simple solo games. Some of my favorite games have been Minecraft and Among Us.
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