At the Carnival

Last updated
At The Carnival
At the Carnival Coverart.png
Developer(s) Cliff Johnson
Platform(s) Macintosh, MS-DOS
Release1989
Genre(s) Puzzle
Mode(s) Single-player

At The Carnival is a puzzle video game by Cliff Johnson published in 1989 by Miles Computing.

Contents

It was intended to be the first of a series of games called Puzzle Gallery, but Miles Computing went out of business before any further games could be made.

At The Carnival is a collection of games similar to some in The Fool's Errand , but with enhanced user interfaces. The endgame puzzle is simpler compared to Fool's Errand and 3 in Three , consisting merely of a crossword puzzle filled by key words found in other solved puzzles.

Plot

The game has no overarching story as such; each puzzle shows a small section of Hazard Park, an amusement park with woeful disdain for its customers. Completing the puzzles in a particular section displays the fate of the unfortunate guests at a given ride, attraction, or location for that particular section.

One puzzle in the game has Cliff Johnson describing the discovery of Elmer McCurdy.

Gameplay

Some of the major puzzle types in the games include:

Release

The original version of the game was for Macintosh. A port to MS-DOS was made, but it is not as visually appealing due to the lower resolution available to IBM PC-class machines at the time (320×200 VGA vs. 512×342 minimum on Macintoshes). In later years the author made the game freely downloadable Freeware on his website. Cliff Johnson strongly recommends playing the Macintosh version instead of the MS-DOS version,[ citation needed ] using an emulator such as Executor or Basilisk II if necessary.

Reception

Compute! stated that players would find At the Carnival "hard to stop playing", with "the best mazes you'll ever see on the Mac". [1]

Macworld noted that At the Carnival made certain improvements on Johnson's previous game The Fool's Errand, including color graphics and built-in hints; however, for the reviewer, At the Carnival missed some of the magic of The Fool's Errand, lacking its mythical journey and animated finale. The review concluded that At the Carnival was an enjoyable game, that its "only real problem may be that it has to follow a masterpiece." [2] Macworld inducted At the Carnival into its Game Hall of Fame in 1989 in the Brain Teaser category. [3]

Related Research Articles

Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crossword</span> Grid-based word puzzle

A crossword is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases ("entries") crossing each other horizontally ("across") and vertically ("down") according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to separate entries. The first white square in each entry is typically numbered to correspond to its clue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptic crossword</span> Multifaceted crossword puzzle

A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa. Compilers of cryptic crosswords are commonly called setters in the UK and constructors in the US. Particularly in the UK, a distinction may be made between cryptics and quick crosswords, and sometimes two sets of clues are given for a single puzzle grid.

Cliff Johnson is an American game designer, best known for the puzzle video games The Fool's Errand (1987) and 3 in Three (1990). Both games use visual puzzles and a metapuzzle structure. Both won GAMES Magazine's Best Puzzle Game of the Year.

<i>The Fools Errand</i> 1987 video game

The Fool's Errand is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles, and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves the enchantments of the High Priestess. A sequel titled The Fool and His Money was released October 25, 2012.

<i>Uninvited</i> (video game) 1986 video game

Uninvited is a black-and-white horror-themed point-and-click adventure game. It was originally developed for the Macintosh by ICOM Simulations released in 1986 by Mindscape as part of the MacVenture series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Word search</span> Word game

A word search, word find, word seek, word sleuth or mystery word puzzle is a word game that consists of the letters of words placed in a grid, which usually has a rectangular or square shape. The objective of this puzzle is to find and mark all the words hidden inside the box. The words may be placed horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Often a list of the hidden words is provided, but more challenging puzzles may not provide a list. Many word search puzzles have a theme to which all the hidden words are related such as food, animals, or colors. The puzzles have, like crosswords and arrowords, become very popular. Also in common with these latter puzzles, have had complete books and mobile applications devoted to them.

<i>The Colony</i> (video game) 1988 video game

The Colony is a first-person shooter developed by David Alan Smith. It was published by Mindscape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fill-In (puzzle)</span> Crossword-like puzzle

Fill-Ins, also known as Fill-It-Ins or Word Fill-Ins, are a variation of the common crossword puzzle in which words, rather than clues, are given, and the solver must work out where to place them. Fill-Ins are common in puzzle magazines along with word searches, cryptograms, and other logic puzzles. Some people consider Fill-Ins to be an easier version of the crossword. Since the Fill-In requires no outside knowledge of specific subjects, one can solve the puzzle in another language.

<i>3 in Three</i> 1989 video game

3 in Three is a 1989 metapuzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson and published by Cinemaware and Inline Design.

Games World of Puzzles is an American games and puzzle magazine. Originally the merger of two other puzzle magazines spun off from its parent publication Games magazine in the early 1990s, Games World of Puzzles was reunited with Games in October 2014.

A metapuzzle, also known as a meta-puzzle or meta, is a puzzle that uses the solutions to a set of puzzles to create or provide data for a final puzzle.

<i>Shadows of Mordor</i> 1987 video game

Shadows of Mordor: Game Two of Lord of the Rings is a text adventure game for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, DOS, and Macintosh. It is based on the second part of The Lord of the Rings story. It's a sequel to Lord of the Rings: Game One and The Hobbit.

<i>The New York Times</i> crossword Daily American-style crossword puzzle

The New York Times crossword is a daily American-style crossword puzzle published in The New York Times, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals, and released online on the newspaper's website and mobile apps as part of The New York Times Games.

<i>Lord of the Rings: Game One</i> 1985 video game

Lord of the Rings: Game One is a video game released in 1985 and based on the book The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was the follow-up to the 1982 game The Hobbit, but did not reach the same level of critical success as its predecessor. It's generally considered inferior by the gaming community, with many complaining about the removal of the real-time aspects and complex AI patterns of the previous game, and puzzles that lacked coherent solutions. To promote the game, Melbourne House commissioned hologram picture of a Nazgûl from a company called Holographix. It was available to purchase from Melbourne House directly using an order form on the instruction booklet included with the game. A sequel, Shadows of Mordor: Game Two of Lord of the Rings, was released in 1987.

<i>Ishido: The Way of Stones</i> 1990 video game

Ishido: The Way of Stones is a puzzle video game released in 1990 by Accolade and developed by Publishing International. It was designed by Michael Feinberg and programmed by Ian Gilman and Michael Sandige. The game's producer was Brad Fregger, and Brodie Lockard contributed with graphics.

<i>Welltris</i> 1989 video game

Welltris is a puzzle video game, developed by Doca and licensed to Bullet-Proof Software. It is an official game in the Tetris series. Adaptations were made by Sphere, Inc., for Spectrum HoloByte, and by Infogrames. It was released for MS-DOS compatible operating systems in 1989. Ports for Macintosh, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, and Atari ST followed 1990, then ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 1991.

<i>Balance of the Planet</i> 1990 video game

Balance of the Planet is a simulation video game developed by Chris Crawford. He self-published it in 1990 for Macintosh. It was ported to MS-DOS and PC-98.

XOR Corporation was a video game developer and publisher based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, founded in 1982 by Glenn Diamond. XOR was active until 1990 and primarily released games for DOS and Macintosh, but also released the DOS business applications Blu Chip, a stock portfolio manager, and Thoth, a database manager, and the C utility C Tools.

References

  1. ↑ Aycock, Heidi E. H. (December 1989). "Compute! Specific: Mac". Compute!. p. 16.
  2. ↑ Beekman, George (March 1990). "Puzzle Gallery: At the Carnival 1.0". Macworld . 7 (3). Macworld Communications, Inc.: 200.
  3. ↑ Levy, Steven; Mello, Adrian (December 1989). "The Game Hall of Fame". Macworld . 6 (12). IDG Communications: 165–166.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.