| At The Carnival | |
| Developer: | Cliff Johnson |
| Released: | 1989 |
| Genre: | Puzzle |
| Modes: | Single-player |
| Platforms: | Macintosh, MS-DOS |
At The Carnival is a puzzle video game 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, 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.
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.
Some of the major puzzle types in the games include:
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, using an emulator such as Executor or Basilisk II if necessary.
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]