Imagine yourself stepping beyond the gates of a strange fairground. The air shimmers with flickering neon, and a crooked smile welcomes you in. This isn’t just a place of rides and prizes—it’s a world stitched together with temptation, danger, and mystery. That is the stage of Carnival of Sins, a board game built not simply to entertain, but to challenge players with choices that feel as heavy as they are enticing.
Building a Carnival Out of Shadows
The designer’s journey began not with cold mechanics on a page, but with a feeling. A fascination with blurred morality and the spectacle of vice became the creative anchor. The carnival wasn’t a decorative overlay—it was the beating heart. Strip it away, and nothing remained.
To give this mood structure, the designer reached for the seven deadly sins. These abstract forces became the skeleton of the game, but shaping them into mechanics wasn’t so simple. Across countless prototypes:
- Sometimes the sins acted as resources to be managed.
- Other times they felt more like actions, driving player interaction.
- In darker drafts, they were traps—hazards lying in wait to cripple overreaching players.
Each iteration danced between theme and function, a balancing act where leaning too far into chilling aesthetics slowed the play, yet overemphasis on clean mechanics risked draining the atmosphere entirely.
What It Feels Like to Play
Sitting down at the table, the game unfolds as a blend of risk-taking, resource tug-of-war, and sly area control. But unlike lighter strategy games, every choice here feels like part of a bargain with the carnival itself. At any moment you’ll face questions such as:
- Is that tempting sin worth grabbing for a short-term gain, knowing the cost down the line may be steep?
- Do you gamble that opponents ignore a deadly but rewarding combination of actions?
- Should you strike boldly now, or build cautiously and pray no one sabotages your position?
What makes these dilemmas bite isn’t just mathematics—it’s the tone. Uneasy artwork, unsettling card text, and atmosphere thick with dread transform the strategy into a role you’re inhabiting. Every move feels personal, a whispered agreement with forces you may not fully control.
The Bigger Picture: Games That Aren’t Afraid of the Dark
Carnival of Sins joins a growing wave of games pulling board gaming into deeper, darker directions. Themes once considered rare—psychological tension, survival horror, moral ambiguity—now ripple across the hobby. Players have shown they’re ready to face stories that unsettle as much as they entertain.
In that sense, the carnival mirrors the hobby itself: bright lights, excitement, spectacle on the surface, but always the possibility of riskier, more complex experiences just under the skin.
Final Thoughts
The designer’s diary reveals the hidden layers that shape a game—not just how it ticks, but how it haunts. Carnival of Sins is more than a competitive puzzle; it’s a theatrical performance, an attempt to make temptation, risk, and delight swirl in equal measure. Commercial success aside, its very existence is proof that games can blur lines between pastime and art form.
Over to You
So the question shifts to us, the players: what themes captivate you most at the table? Should designers keep plumbing darker wells of imagination, or does the magic still shine brightest in lighter worlds of whimsy and warmth?