''At The Carnival'' is a

puzzle video game Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test problem-solving skills, including logic, pattern recognition, sequence solving, spatial recognition, and word completion. H ...

by Cliff Johnson published in 1989 by Miles Computing. 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 ''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 ...

'', but with enhanced user interfaces. The endgame puzzle is simpler compared to Fool's Errand and ''

3 in Three ''3 in Three'' is a 1989 metapuzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson (game designer), Cliff Johnson and published by Cinemaware and Inline Design. While bearing some similarities to his previous game, ''The Fool's Errand'', ''3 in Three'' took ...

'', 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 An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

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 } Elmer J. McCurdy (January 1, 1880 – October 7, 1911) was an American bank and train robber who was killed in a shoot-out with police after robbing a Katy Train in Oklahoma in October 1911. Dubbed "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up", his mummif ...

Gameplay

Some of the major puzzle types in the games include: * Jumbles - mixed-up words to be reordered. *

Word search 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 ...

es - find words hidden in a grid of letters *

Cryptogram A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by ...

s - decipher encrypted phrases *

Crossword A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...

s - fill answers into boxes based on specified clues. (Not full-sized crossword puzzles.) *Word grids - rearrange 9 letters into a grid to make words in all horizontal, vertical, and

diagonal In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' derives from the ancient Greek δ ...

directions. *

Polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...

s - fit

pentomino Derived from the Greek word for ' 5', and "domino", a pentomino (or 5-omino) is a polyomino of order 5, that is, a polygon in the plane made of 5 equal-sized squares connected edge-to-edge. When rotations and reflections are not considered to ...

-like polygons into a grid; letters on the polygons spell out words. *

Jigsaw puzzle A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaiced pieces, each of which typically has a portion of a picture. When assembled, the puzzle pieces produce a complete picture. In th ...

s - rearrange cut-up pictures to remake the original *

Concatenation In formal language, formal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character string (computer science), character strings wikt:end-to-end, end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of "sno ...

s - several buttons concatenate letters to the current phrase; find the correct order to build a complete phrase *

Maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

s - various types of mazes that must be navigated *

XOR Exclusive or or exclusive disjunction is a logical operation that is true if and only if its arguments differ (one is true, the other is false). It is symbolized by the prefix operator J and by the infix operators XOR ( or ), EOR, EXOR, , ...

displays - a set of buttons XORs various shapes together; the right combination of buttons will produce a word

Release

The original version of the game was for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

. A port to

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

was made, but it is not as visually appealing due to the lower resolution available to

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

-class machines at the time (320×200

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

vs. 512×342 minimum on Macintoshes). In later years the author made the game freely downloadable

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

on his website. Cliff Johnson strongly recommends playing the Macintosh version instead of the MS-DOS version, using an emulator such as

Executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used. Overview An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker of a ...

Basilisk II Basilisk II is an emulator which emulates Apple Macintosh computers based on the Motorola 68000 series. The software is cross-platform and can be used on a variety of operating systems. Christian Bauer (developer of a Mac 68k emulator ShapeShif ...

if necessary.

Reception

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

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

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...

'' 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." ''Macworld'' inducted ''At the Carnival'' into its Game Hall of Fame in 1989 in the Brain Teaser category.

References

External links

Official Site
including downloadable versions for Macintosh and MS-DOS *{{moby game, id=/at-the-carnival, name=''At the Carnival'' 1989 video games Puzzle video games Classic Mac OS games DOS games Cliff Johnson games Freeware games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in amusement parks