Nightmare Circus

To do

Expand Characters, Enemies, Bosses tables.
Build Tweaker variables definitions table.
Find more November-December 1995 magazine previews.
Ask Typhoon for help with screenshots cause I'm dumb.

CartridgeCulture (talk) 06:20, 15 November 2022 (EST)

Gameplay stuff

Players, in additional to every one of the game's enemies, can spend any MP they have to heal themselves.
Players can borrow (how much?) MP from the Jester with the "Jester Loan" ability. Canonically, this is done by stealing "power" directly from Jester, the final boss. I almost feel there was meant to be a "saving the day by becoming a little evil" kinda vibe by allowing you to borrow the bad guy's powers, but of course the game does nothing with it outside the name.
Players can grab the souls that float out of defeated enemies to acquire MP. Ensure this means actually colliding with something and not it being a wordsy way of saying "you automatically acquire it once the enemy is defeated".
Ensure I didn't write "players have to kill every enemy in the stages/game" anywhere, because you don't. Some areas need players to kill all its enemies before progressing, but that's any game really. Interestingly, a defeated enemy will stay defeated forever (barring infinitely-respawning ones/etc), because you've freed their soul. I believe. Galapagos talks about Raven "purifying" the souls. Is there any penalty for not physically grabbing the souls that float out of enemies (like they respawn or go back to the Jester?) Anyway, defeated enemies staying defeated forever ties into the below...
Can't understand Galapagos here: "In addition, Jester doesn't become a game if Jester converts "The Sea of MP" to his own HP. Apart from "Sea of MP", "Jester's MP value" is set as a numerical value. The specification that the Jester in the game can recover his own HP within that range." Is this saying Jester's healing amount in the final battle is related to how many Jester Loans players have taken from him? OR maybe defeating (freeing the souls of) more of the game's enemies before the final battle gives Jester less MP to pull from to heal himself? If true, this would be one of the game's genuinely clever gameplay ideas.
Spirit Warrior state spend MP to: prevents the spawning of non-boss/basic enemies, attacks drain players' MP and not HP, allows for "turning a bosses MP against them by using a powerful I-PSI shockwave ability" (small chance this could be speaking figuratively about it being a literal ability). Okay wow there's more to this. The basic enemies don't spawn because it's really just for bosses? Apparently, when you're in Spirit Warrior and fighting a boss, your attacks (or just the shockwave attack) also drain from the bosses' MP? Galapagos frames this as entering "MP vs MP" mode, and this kinda "normal world/spirit world" dualism already lines up with everything else the story's about. On a gameplay level, this ties into the MP system above. Thankfully, the "HP" system side of it seems to be limited to "its a health bar, and you can heal with your magic", so at least I'll get to keep some of my sanity. Either way, I think we're finally digging up the metaphorical skeleton for all these seemingly-disconnected gameplay concepts. If only it had enough organs to actually function.
When players die, their MP gets absorbed by Jester. While they continue, each death seems to increase Jester's MP reserves by whatever players had upon death (if Jester's MP reserves don't have a cap).
Galapagos: Each boss enemy is only (defeated? uses Jester Loan?) once when it falls below a certain standard (HP? MP?). You can borrow a certain amount of MP from Jester and recover the MP. However, whether you borrow it or not depends on the boss's own will. (frick is there a hidden "boss stinginess" value too? what does this mean?)
STARTING MP VALUES: 0/1000. Every boss defeated expands the maximum by 1000MP. Think of these expansions like on-screen E-Tanks, in that they're shown as separate, individual spaces besides the main MP meter. Health is easy, starts at 2000/2000 and never gets expanded.
Speaking of Mega Man, you can only have one special ability at a time. Meaning you start the game, pick which of the four stages to play, fight your way through it, beat a boss, and get their powers. Unlike Mega Man, you can only hold one at a time, forcing players to strategize on the route they take. What I want to know is, when defeating a boss in co-op, does the power go to the character that delivered the killing blow, or to both characters? If it's the former, that would allow for some REALLY interesting strategies in terms of "one character picks up this, another character picks up that". And weirdly, as much as this game seems kinda shallow, the Tweaker allows for some Mario Maker-level brutal stuff. I don't know if this was planned, or just an obvious side effect of a full debug menu for an object-oriented game, but the Tweaker seems to have been the one thing which future-proofed Nightmare Circus' gameplay. In a way, it allowed for people to make "rom hacks" with nothing more than console and controller, turning up the difficulty or pouring on the enemies or giving everything an ugly palette.

Paraphrased: "There is an alternative element of the game's interconnected MP system called "I-PSI Reserve". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working (/or only works in very minor ways). There is a possibility that this is due to the game's unfinished development."^[1]

Blurb (probably unnecessary but moving here)

“

The maniac Jester resurrected the Circo del Diablo Amusement Park from the flames of hell. Now, terrifying demons roam the park spreading fear and destruction where there was once children and lots of fun.

Only Raven, a native indian with mystical and telepathic powers, can defeat Jester and his followers in this amusement park. Well, amusing is not the most appropriate word to describe this place...

Defeat your enemies with over 100 moves: punches, kicks, combos and lots of magic.

4 different ways to play: join the adventure alone, or with a partner; control Jester and his evil legion or choose one of 18 fighters and enter a bloody tournament.

„

— BR box^[2]

Character table variables

Every character's description should also include whether they have a non-standard Incarnation Rate (healing rate), a non-standard Travel Speed (ground movement speed), or anything else notable. Every character that can perform the ability Jester Loan (name?) should have the charges listed.

Name
HP (C-PSI)
MP (I-PSI)
Power (attack strength)
Attacks (list)
Special ability (list)
Jester I-PSI Loan amount (number of times can perform ability)

User:CartridgeCulture learns basic formatting

Nightmare Circus dismystified - Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHTfV6e_hXE

Having a lot of trouble with both the proper text link, and the reference for this YouTube video. EDIT: Thank you for this and for fixing that youtube link! CartridgeCulture (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

Template:Ref ... to add your signature (with date and time) to a conversation, add four tildes (~) at the end of each of your replies (in the not too distant past, you just needed to click on an icon at the top of the page to add your signature , but this feature is "broken" and still needs to be fixed) --Asagoth (talk) 00:03, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

Is there a style guide for this wiki? Also is there a list of these special codes that we use for replacing words with other things? ALSO could you assist me in adding an Interviews section to this page, and then adding this into it?: https://segaretro.org/Interview:_Stefano_Arnhold_(2015-11-16)_by_Sega-16 I know there’s a wway to do it all properly and cleanly but I have no idea how to do it. Thanks if you can, appreciate all the help too c;

Image tagging, Sega Retro templates, Help page... another good way to learn is to see how others do it (just look for a similar page to see how it was edited) ... if you have any more doubts about something just ask our Experts Black Squirrel and SorachiJirachi‎ a.k.a. BSonirachi on Sonic Retro (Wiki Sysops) and Hivebrain (Administrator)... I'll add an interview section to Stefano Arnhold's page for you... and again... don't forget to add your signature at the end of each of your replies...Asagoth (talk) 07:11, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

Some observations...

In the back cover the story is told this way... :

"The maniac Jester resurrected the El Diablo traveling carnival (it says "parque de diversões" which in Portuguese means "theme park"... a "traveling carnival" would be a "parque de diversões itinerante"... but that's exactly what we have in Nightmare Circus... a traveling carnival) from the flames of hell. Now, terrifying demons roam the carnival, spreading fear and destruction where once there were children and lots of fun.
Only, Raven a native (American) with mystic and telepathic powers can defeat Jester and his followers in this carnival. Well, "fun" is not the most appropriate word to define this place..."--Asagoth (talk) 22:48, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Thank you, this is awesome. I wanted text confirmation that Raven was Native American. Also those refs are so cool. I saw the missing photo of the dev team too, so sad :( Maybe if I send enough emails I can find whoever has the original :p 20:51, 23 December 2021 (EST)

His brother is called White Eagle (player 2 on 2 player mode)... yep... it hurts when cool stuff gets lost... so sad... by the way... Leto Diablo is in fact Jester... I just don't know why TecToy made such a mess with the villain's name...--Asagoth (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2021 (EST)