A Beginner’s Guide to a Carnival Like No Other

Before we go too far into the guide, let’s take a quick look at the basic point structure:

Clown heads – 2 points

Clown arm – 4 points

Clown legs / pants – 1 points

Clown skeleton / body – 1 point

Umbrella – 3 points

Pie of doom – 5 points

Carnival of Terror, if you ask anyone who is adept at it, is the perfect game tailor made for a multi-tasker. Whilst trying to get most points out of shooting down the Chias, you have to keep an eye on pies flying at you, your Health level, and at the same time glance occasionally at the clock to see that you are not out of time.

In such a case, it is best to prioritise your shooting options. Let’s start with the parts in a clown. Looking at the point system alone, it is easy to draw up a suitable list of priorities for shooting just the clown:

1. Clown arm

2. Clown heads

3. Clown legs

4. Clown body

If you have the luxury of time on your hands (for example, in a stretch of time when you don’t see any pies, or when there are very little clowns around), try to click on each part of the clown, in the order mentioned. You may also shoot the umbrella from a falling clown for some extra points. Remember to aim well, since you have ample time on your hands.

Here we see that the main aim each time we see a clown is its arm. Go for the arm that faces you, and disregard the one on the other side of the clown’s body – you are most likely to miss it, and in turn waste your ammo instead.

Warning – a clown with both the leg and the arm shot down is extremely explosive. Do be careful not to simply ignore such a clown, because when it explodes it will affect your Health level. In my opinion it is best to quickly destroy the robot clown by clicking on its body before it can explode. Otherwise, you may choose not to shoot the legs at all in the first place.

You might also like to note that it is not always profitable for your points to aim for a clown that is far away (which thus looks small on the screen). In the process of trying to shoot down that one clown you may end up losing quite a lot of ammo (due to inaccuracy), and also miss other more important components of the game (like shooting the pies).

But the clowns are not the only things in the game. You also need to pay attention to the pies of doom. Should you see them in the course of playing the game, you are encouraged to quickly shoot down these pies before anything else (don’t even worry about the clowns), for two good reasons:

1. They give you the most points per shooting.

2. If they hit you, your Health level will drop. Shooting them will prevent them from hitting you, thus saving your Health.

Take note though, that the pies usually fly at a very fast rate, so always keep an eye open for them, so that you can see them coming from afar and get yourself ready. From experience and close observation it seems the pies come from those Clown Chias that are “far away”. So each time you notice a small Chia figure, be extra alert to take note of any pies flying in your direction. It is best that you can shoot them while they appear small. If you hesitate, it might just be too late to fire at them – they would have hit you already.

So that’s that for the gaining of points. But what about all the Health and ammo that I have been talking about?

Your Health, ammo level and time left are located at the bottom right corner of the screen. The green “+” signs indicate your Health level (each time a pie hits you, or a clown explodes, it goes down), the black strip shows how much ammo you have (each time you left click on the mouse it will go down), and the red clock shows how much time you have left. Never waste your time counting how many “+” signs you have, or trying to figure out what the time on the clock says. Simply make a rough gauge. An example of being in short supply of each component would be:

· You have less than half the black strip than when you started. When the strip starts blinking, that’s when you have an extremely low amount of it.

· The red clock starts blinking.

· You have only a few “+” signs left.

Should any of these three components run out completely, your game will be instantly over. Which means you should always try to replenish them even before you see that they are depleting.

In the course of the game, you are bound to encounter wooden boxes, first-aid boxes or clocks floating down from the top of the screen. My strategy would be to always pick up the wooden boxes (which gives ammo – these always run out pretty fast) and clocks (for extra time) but only to pick up the first-aids (for Health) when I see that my Health is on the low. With ample practice, you would have no problem shooting down pies and clowns before they explode, which means your Health will hardly be affected at all.

If you see that your ammo is getting pretty low, stop clicking on things altogether until you see the wooden crate floating down. This will help prevent further depletion of ammo. There are some exceptions though. Do click on pies or clocks even if you have low ammo. This is so that you do not need to worry about the time wasted waiting for a wooden box to appear, nor about the number of pies destroying your Health level while you wait.

If you see that your red clock is blinking and that there aren’t any clocks for you to click, don’t waste more time waiting for a clock to come by. Always try to make full use of the leftover ammo and shoot as many clowns or pies and as fast as you can before your game is over. Of course, make sure you also keep an eye out for any clocks at the same time.

After some time of playing, you will definitely become familiar with the game and at this point players tend to be able to play for longer periods of time. This is when stamina and perseverance comes in. By that I mean not giving up due to lack of interest. Playing a single game of Carnival of Terror for fifteen to twenty minutes straight can be tiring and can get a bit dry, but let the points you can get out of it motivate you. Remember, the longer you play, the more points you get.

Most of the time in the game you would be rushing around, trying to click on specific parts of the clowns, aiming for the wooden crates, checking your ammo meter. Remember that practise makes perfect and that you’ll need at least some experience in the game to get the hang of it, or even to play it well. Practise also means that your skills in aiming will get better, you will fire a lot faster, and that you will know immediately what to shoot first even in the face of a scene with lots of movement and action.

To sum it up, Carnival of Terror is a game of speed and which requires a clear mind. Know for certain what to shoot in a particular situation and do it fast. Never let the three important components (Health, ammo and time) run out, so that you can stay longer in the game and earn even more points. By then it would be a matter of perseverance and doggedness that separates a good player from an amateur.

I hope that this beginner’s guide to Carnival of Terror has helped you in one way or another. Hope that you will get onto the high score board very soon, and perhaps even earn you that elusive trophy you’ve always wanted!