At the Carnival

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At The Carnival
Developer(s)	Cliff Johnson
Platform(s)	Macintosh, MS-DOS
Release	1989
Genre(s)	Puzzle game
Mode(s)	Single Player

At The Carnival is a 1989 computer puzzle game by Cliff Johnson.

It was intended to be the first of a series of games called Puzzle Gallery; however, publisher 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.

Release Information[]

The original version of the game was for Apple 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.

Puzzles[]

Some of the major puzzle types in the games include:

• Jumbles - mixed-up words to be reordered.
• Word searches - find words hidden in a grid of letters
• Cryptograms - decipher encrypted phrases
• Crosswords - fill answers into boxes based on specified clues. (Not full-sized crossword puzzles.)
• - rearrange 9 letters into a grid to make words in all horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions.
• Polygons - fit pentomino-like polygons into a grid; letters on the polygons spell out words.
• Jigsaw puzzles - rearrange cut-up pictures to remake the original
• Concatenations - several buttons concatenate letters to the current phrase; find the correct order to build a complete phrase
• Mazes - various types of mazes that must be navigated
• XOR displays - a set of buttons XORs various shapes together; the right combination of buttons will produce a word

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]

References[]

External links[]

• Official Site, including downloadable versions for Macintosh and MS-DOS
• At the Carnival at MobyGames