The Amazing American Circus is a card battling RPG where the premise is that your battles are circus performances. In terms of mechanics, it’s identical. Your audience is your enemy, they inflict damage on you by booing and sneering, and once you inflict enough entertainment on any given audience member, they start to cheer instead. This does not heal you, they just stop inflicting damage, just like a slain orc.
The game takes you from one end of the continental United States to the other. You have to choose whether you want to go through the Midwest or the South to get from the west coast to the east, which is annoying, but the writing on the side quests is fun. You often encounter cryptids and ghosts, and sometimes blunder into major historical events of the late 19th and early 20th century, in a way that makes it clear that the exact year the game takes place in is a non-committal mumbling sound.
When you arrive in Michigan, you can go hunting for a vaguely Nessie-esque lake monster (not that specific shape, but same idea), and as is often the case, you’re given a chance to express skepticism or belief at the existence of this monster. We’re about halfway across the States now, so it’s pretty hard to get this far without seeing a bunch of the supernatural. Side quest completionist that I am, I had a girl possessed by a fire demon, a clown cured of alcoholism by a magic ritual, and a literal ghost in my circus troupe. But a lake monster? Come on, no way, I’m totally with Scully on this one.
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