Sure, no problem with you adding my blog. It’s true, circuses have become rarer over the years… especially travelling ones. Now they’re almost always only seen at theme parks or variety shows on TV. Personally, I blame the rise of television for the decline in circuses. When you have variety shows like Ripley’s Believe It or Not piped directly onto a screen in your living room, you’re much less willing to go out and spend money to see amazing performances anymore. Surprisingly, though, the concept of a carnival or funfair hasn’t declined… just the circus performances. Maybe that’s why people only associate funfair and carnival activities with circuses nowadays.

Thanks for the comments about Showtime and Wiip… yeah, the circus motif really stood out well, I think. Which is great. I hope that with the success of Showtime, the CarneyVale brand can be established and more good circus games will come out. It’s time to bring back the mystery and wonder of our childhood days.

Jeremy here. How have you been? Haven’t heard from you in a long long time. Heard you’re back at NUS TA-ing and furthering your studies now. How’s that coming along?

Anyway, would you mind if I added your website as a link on my game blog at:

http://dark-manifesto.blogspot.com/

Feel free to drop by and discuss some of the games that I write about as well.

And yes, I remember Circus Charlie, it was one of those games that I played so much, and always ALWAYS died at the 5th stage I think.

But yes, Circus games are definitely a lot less common these days, not like they were ever common at all, and it seems to not break the casual-mini-game-market.

I guess that the influence’s of Circuses in general are not so prevalent in our context today. I mean everyone knows what they are, but they are seen a lot less and a lot less relevant as a valid form of entertainment today. I mean when was the last time a circus was actually in town?

Instead, they have morphed into new art forms such as Cirque de Soliei, and strayed further and further away from the potpourri of amazing acts that they used to be.

For me, the near-extinction of circus games is purely due to the commercial-relevance and the lack of the “cool” factor that it had in its heyday.

But having said that, Carneyvale Showtime captured the essence of the circus environment quite well, as did Wiip, and in some ways, believe it or not, reminded me of Circus Charlie, when I first saw it.