Game Review: Everyone Loves a Parade

The town parade is one of the most colorful, vibrant and enjoyable events on the yearly calendar in your small little town and today is the day to get ready for it! We are all float designers and together we will make the beautiful displays that move down the parade route. But we will need to compete for the best resources to really make our floats pop and listen to the crowd to see what they will cheer for the most. It’s time to plan the parade route!

Everyone Loves a Parade is designed by Mike Mulvihill and illustrated by Matthew DeMino. It is published by Calliope Games and is designed for 2-6 players.

Overview:

Players compete to build the most beautiful floats for the hometown parade and design better than their opponents. Players take turns building those floats and trying to at the same time influence the crowds. The player who builds the best floats will be crowned the Grand Marshall!

Gameplay:

Each player begins with a Chassis card and score marker along with Float pawns of their chosen color. The Chassis is the front card of the float as decorations are added to it. The decoration crds are placed in a line of 5 to create the Warehouse from which players will get decorations for the floats.

Next you need to create a crowd by drawing crowd tiles equal to the number of players times three.

The game is played over three rounds with three turns per player in each round. First players will reveal crowd cards to see the matching dice that will be used for the card. Then Order cards are dealt secretly to players. Some of the Order cards have secret abilities that will activate when played later in the round.

Each turn players will chose one of the five decoration cards and add it to their float and then perform the action. The Warehouse is then refilled. Here players are best suited to pick a Decoration card that matches one or more of the color or item on the crowd cards. Your turn ends when a Decoration card has been chosen and added to the float. The action is played optionally and then play passes to the left. Once all players have taken three tuns the round ends and the floats move to the crowds!

Placing Floats happens in turn order based on revealed Order cards. After each player has placed a float pawn and taken their special ability scoring for the round begins. Players earn points only if the color and or item dice on their chosen card match the decoration cards that make up their float. Each matching die scores the full points on the card. If the decoration card has both an item and color die matching it will score twice.

Game continues for the next round and after scoring the third round the player with the highest score is the winner and becomes the Grand Marshall of the parade!

Impressions

Everyone Loves a Parade is the latest in the line from Calliope Games called the Titans of Gaming where they ask some of the best and biggest game designers to come up with an entry level game that can be enjoyed by many. This game definitely fits into the entry-level category, as it is a simple game to learn and get to the table with just about any level of gamer. It is one I suspect will be easily played and welcomed at a family game night even with younger players.

One of the best aspects of this game is the design. The artwork is beautiful and the characters really pop on the Order cards. I enjoyed the aesthetics of this game and really appreciate the time and effort put into this one. The art is vibrant and stands out not only on the cards but the dice and tokens are all very nice as well. The game is very colorful and will attract the eye of a younger player.

Overall I would recommend this one for a family looking for a step up game from any of the regular simpler games that they play on a normal game night. It is sure to be a hit with anyone who enjoys a game with vibrant art and design and the ease of entry level gameplay will keep the whole family coming back for more. Everyone Loves a Parade is a solid addition to any collection and one that you are sure to enjoy constructing together as you compete to make the most beautiful floats and become the Grand Marshal!

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