You're visiting the circus-themed Exhibit of Smiles. There's some music playing. Interact with the exhibits to progress, and explore and enjoy to your heart's content. But whatever you do, do not upset the clown.
Exhibit of Sorrows is a point-and-click horror game created by adayofjoy. It is available for free on its itch.io page
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As the game takes only a few minutes to play through and is virtually impossible to talk about properly without giving away all the major twists, all spoilers are unmarked. It is highly recommended that you check it out personally before reading the rest of this page as many of the trope names listed below are spoilers by themselves. You have been warned!
The Tropes are interactive:
- An Arm and a Leg: On Ms. Stretch's exhibit, you have to pull one of her arms onto a button to proceed. This works fine the first time you do it, but after the second time the button suddenly moves further away. Unfortunately, Ms. Stretch's flexibility has a limit and trying to reach the distant button tears her arm clean off. It's implied by the pictures hanging behind her that the clown did a very similar thing to her when she was still human.
- And I Must Scream: The clown dolls are heavily implied to be former visitors whom the portrait clown has turned into attractions in the exhibit after murdering them in gruesome ways. Even worse, their changing facial expressions suggest that they're somewhat alive in their new forms, but can't move, rendering them unable to defend themselves when you're forced to torture them to get their red keys.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: The ending seems to heavily imply that the protagonist is turned into yet another attraction in the Exhibit of Sorrows by the Monster Clown antagonist.
- Backtracking: After you finish the exhibit the first time, the lights suddenly go out and you're forced to walk all the way back to the emergency switch. Following that, you have to go through every exhibit again, only this time it's not nearly as fun or cute.
- Blank White Void: The portrait clown seems to trap the player in one during the ending of the game. Given the implications that all of the attractions in the Exhibit of Sorrows are children that were imprisoned by the clown it seems that the same fate has now befallen the player character.
- Circus of Fear: What the Exhibit of Sorrows is revealed to be.
- Creepy Circus Music: Present when you start the second half of the game.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: In order to get the red keys and escape, you have to hurt the clown dolls. There is no way around it.
- Fingore: Getting Mr. Handy's red key requires doing his finger-counting game again - and then breaking said fingers one by one. The last one several times.
- Foreshadowing: The clowns' nameplates change after the lights go out in ways that foreshadow their eventual fates.
- Ms. Stretch's nameplate changes to "What is the furthest she could reach?" and her arm snaps off when trying to press a button that is out of her range.
- Mr. Handy's nameplate changes to "8, 7, 6, 5...," and the player must break his eight fingers one at a time to progress.
- Mr. Washy's nameplate changes to "Nothing feels better than staying clean," and he is killed when the faucet breaks and dispenses a mysterious black liquid into his tub instead of water.
- Mr. Floaty's nameplate changes to "He liked balloons, how they float, how they pop," and the air pump inflates him to the point of literally popping like a balloon.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The jack-in-the-box briefly sports these after the lights go out, hinting at his more malevolent nature.
- Monster Clown: The portrait clown and the Jack-In-The-Box both reveal themselves as malicious otherworldly monsters in the end. The clown regularly lures children into his exhibit to turn them into exhibits. What exactly the Jack-in-the-Box's deal is isn't even hinted at, but he's terrifying in his own right.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The portrait clown has these, as shown when he smiles.
- Non-Ironic Clown: Mr. Floaty, Ms. Stretch, Mr. Washy and Mr. Handy all mean you no harm and are heavily implied to be victims of the clown themselves.
- No Name Given: While the other clown dolls in the exhibit have descriptive names, the portrait clown just goes by his job title.
- Ominous Obsidian Ooze: Mr. Washy's bathwater turns into a tar-like black substance when you do his exhibit the second time, seemingly drowning him in the tub.
- Sadist: The portrait clown takes a disturbing pleasure in hurting children, going so far as to sabotage the exhibits in a way that forces you to maim and hurt the clown dolls to get the red keys, when before you only had to perform silly games that did not require harming them in any way. He also happily describes their last living moments on their signs to you after you're done destroying them.
- Scary Jack-in-the-Box: The jack-in-the-box seems to be one of the few outright malevolent entities in the exhibit, especially once it's eventually confirmed to be some type of horrifying monster towards the end of the game.
- The Smurfette Principle: Ms. Stretch seems to be the only female character in the game.
- Spoiler Title: The game tries to slowly build up a creepy atmosphere before it finally reveals itself to be a horror game by shifting from friendly bright and colorful graphics to a much more dark and violent setting as it goes on. Of course, with a title like Exhibit of Sorrows any moderately savvy player will likely have it pegged as a horror game long before the first jumpscare happens.
- Would Hurt a Child: The changing pictures behind the clown dolls on your second round in the exhibits heavily imply that the portrait clown lured children into his exhibit, killed them in cruelly ironic ways that mirrored what they liked about it most and then turned them into clown dolls.
