Last year, the winner of the Dream-Build-Play competition was The Dishwasher: Last Samurai, game that has gone on to become a fully formed Xbox LIVE title, soon to be released.
This year’s winner, CarnyVale: Showtime, is a whole different ball-of-wax. Instead of sidescrolling hacking and slashing, Carnyvale: Showtime involves clowns and stretchy claws, which is not a creepy as it sounds. Strictly speaking, I’m not the biggest fans of clowns (they eat babies), but I was willing to give CarnyVale: Showtime a chance.
The striking thing about CarnyVale: Showtime, is the art direction. The developer, Team Gambit, really knows how to make a fantastic looking game. Colors are bold and vibrant, the character designs are adorable (even the game’s clown, Slinky), and the actual game is absolutely vivid. And since we are talking about a game called CarnyVale,: Showtime, obviously there’s going to be strong carnival theme, which comes through in spades. The game is a pleasure to look at, even with Slinky flopping around like a rag doll.
Hit the jump for the rest of my hands-on.
Which brings us to the issue of gameplay: mix one of those goofy ragdoll Flash games with the Game Boy Advance title DK: King of Swing, and you’re not too far off. Players start off by firing Slinky out of a cannon upward. From there on out, players don’t really have much control of Slinky, but they do have control of these rotating pegs that hold stretchy claws. As Slinky flies by, you can stretch the claw to grab him; then the claw rotates, ready to fling him again. You do this over and over across the stage until you launch our floppy hero into a flaming hoop, and move on to the next challenge.
I’ll be frank: these sort of games always try my patience. It’s all about flinging the clown tangentially to get the guy where you want to, and try as I might, I struggled like crazy to get Slinky to do simple stuff, like fly straight up. Of course, considering all of the hype the game is starting to make, I’m thinking this might just be a problem on my part, not something I can blame on the clown. But the game certainly feels like something you could lose yourself into for a few hours, or just pick up and play.
Other stuff to keep an eye out for includes a level editor for people who want to make their own levels and built-in achievement points. Some of these include flipping Slinky three times in one toss or getting Slinky to reach terminal velocity. While not as exciting as the official Achievement Point pop-up, having a little sign encouraging you to do cool stuff is always nice.
Overall, CarnyVale: Showtime is a really great sign of the future of XNA developed games. It looks amazing, has a great pick-up-and-play design, and allows for plenty of replayability. It may not be perfect for some (coulrophobes need not apply), but anybody else, CarnyVale: Showtime looks to be a game to keep an eye out for on November 19.
