Spectacle is an Adventure Game by GraphMetal for computers running Windows released in 2020.
You play as an unnamed man at a workhouse. One day, he receives a letter with an ad for the Spectacle circus. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so he goes there immediately. Unfortunately, tickets are all sold out. He goes to the back of the tent, finds a silver poket watch, and enters backstage through a hole. A ringmaster who is also a magician and a woman in a costume find him, with the former punishing him with an errand - not working for the circus, but a matter of life-and-death. First, he must go into the box next to the ringmaster. He does so and gets transported to a whole new world - a desert kingdom, full of magic, dangerous creatures, and mysteries. Now the real adventure begins...
The game is first-person, with a graphics window on the top-left, the inventory on the top-right, and the text/interface at the bottom. You can MOVE from screen to screen, EXAM. things, TAKE whatever might be useful, USE items, OPEN doors/books, and TALK to things (assuming they want to talk and not kill you), and there's a SELF option which is used if you need to wear something for instance. The game can be saved and loaded at almost any time. There are plenty of ways to die, but it's not much of a consequence (aside from occasionally having something potentially scary covering the screen and a grisly death description), as you are just moved back to the previous room.
The game is based on the MacVenture series by ICOM Simulations, particularly Uninvited (it's actually something of a prequel to it). The game is also a sequel to a similar NES MacVenture-styled game called Infested, with him announcing the development of another game called Themeire on Halloween of this game's release, which later turned out to be an official direct sequel to Shadowgate called Beyond Shadowgate.
The gameplay trailer can be watched here
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This game provides examples of:
- Achievement System: There are 20 Challenges which also act as achievements to earn, for things like progress, beating the game without dying, discovering certain things, or dying in certain ways.
- Autosave: Defied, the game specifically mentions that it doesn't autosave and you should save before quitting.
- Big Bad: The ringmaster, since he causes the plot by sending you on a life-and-death errand for just sneaking into the circus to the desert kingdom and you face off against him in the final confrontation.
- Big Good: The costumed woman/princess of the desert kingdom, since she came to Earth to find someone who could help her find the magical instrument and defeat the ringmaster/demon, and she plays the magical instrument to reveal his true form for you to defeat. The creator's Twitter account also implies she's the one who left the silver watch behind the tent to make you enter it.
- Black-Hole Belly: The Baksheesh Anteroom guardian can use its giant mouth to suck you up, making you go to the vacuum of space.
- Ceiling Smash: The wind from the well is so strong, it causes you to fly up to the ceiling and smash your head on it, causing death. You also smash the ceiling upon using Polypheme indoors.
- Conspicuously Light Patch: The loose rock in the Khaki Mud Wall is brown, unlike the other rocks which are grey.
- Death by Materialism: Take any item in the dungeon's Treasure Room that is not the lamp and you'll be punished for your greed with the door closing, making you spend the rest of your life surrounded by treasures. A similar situation happens when you wish for endless wealth.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying just sends you back to the previous screen.
- Death of a Child: The death of a young prince was so much it weakened the king's resolve, causing the wizard's curse to return to the kingdom.
- Disproportionate Retribution: What does the ringmaster do for sneaking into the circus without paying (as the tickets are all sold out)? He sends you to another world on a life-and-death errand. Sure, sneaking into a show is bad, but one would expect something like calling the police at most. He does try to kill you later himself and it turns out he's actually a demon, though. After you defeat the ringmaster, the costumed woman/princess of the desert kingdom reveals that the ringmaster sent you to the her world to get the Magic Lamp for him so that he could take over both your and her worlds and after that the ringmaster would kill you. And that if she had not intervened with his teleportation magic, then that would have surely happened and all would have been lost for both you and the costumed woman/princess of the desert kingdom.
- Elemental Embodiment: A flame spirit appears in the Yajna Gaol. It'll burn you if you do something wrong with it, but the magical gusts from the well get rid of it.
- Eye Beams: The manticore fires lethal lasers from its eyes as soon as it sees you. The meteor shards absorb the impact, also lifting its curse.
- Fast-Forward Mechanic: The "Saf" spell advances time by six hours, which is used frequently for puzzles that can only be solved during a specific time and the player wouldn't want to walk from place to place 12 times to pass the six hours.
- Glamour Failure: The ringmaster shows his true form as a demon after you give the musical instrument to the costumed woman.
- Hit Flash: Certain events cause a "CRASH!" to cover the screen.
- In-Universe Game Clock: You have a stopwatch which shows you the current in-game time. It advances by 30 minutes with every move between screens. Many things depend on it, including doors and the scenery.
- Lighter and Softer: When compared to the creator's previous adventure game of this style Infested. The atmosphere is more relaxing as it focuses more on adventure than sci-fi horror, the locations are fantastical and colorful rather than the grey sci-fi ship, the plot is generally more lighthearted if still mysterious, and the ending is genuinely happy. There are still plenty moments of tension and gruesome ways to die, though.
- Lonely at the Top: You can ask the genie to become a king. Unfortunately, it's a long dead kingdom, there is nothing to rule over, nothing to live for.
- The Many Deaths of You: Quite a few monsters waiting kill you, plus plenty of ways to die from other causes. Most deaths from monsters also show a closeup of them.
- Magic Music: In the final confrontation, you give the magical instrument to the woman who plays music that reveals the true demonic form of the ringmaster, then you finish him off with a flute.
- Message in a Bottle: You find a letter which has an elaborate illustration in a bottle floating near the waterfall. The piranhas won't let you simply take the bottle, though.
- North Is Cold, South Is Hot: Inverted. The North Field is a tropical, hot area, while the South Field is more forest-like and temperate.
- Piranha Problem: Trying to take a bottle results in you getting eaten by a swarm of piranha.
- Press X to Die:
- Using the "Polypheme" spell when you're not next to a stone foot and you end up lost in an endless desert, where you die. Or die by hitting your head on the ceiling if you use it indoors.
- You can also impale yourself with the sabre or the polearm.
- Randomly Generated Levels: The dungeon's room and trap layout is randomly generated.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: There's a pair of menacing red eyes in a cave in Begger's Crawl. Coming near them reveals they belong to a dangerous purple creature ready to eat you for a snack.
- Retraux: This game released in 2020 tries to look like the series of NES ports of MacVenture games. There are even some fuzzy lines like in the old televisions at the beginning.
- Scenery Porn: The game ditches typical 8-bit palette limitations to make some breathtaking sceneries. The first locations you visit with the greens and lush trees are a prime example.
- Sdrawkcab Name: The "Niahc" spell, used to make chains rise in a will. This is a reference to the "Epor" spell in Shadowgate.
- Snake Charmer: You have to use the flute and make the cobra entranced with its melody. It's still not safe to try and walk past it, but it'll become vulnerable.
- Three Wishes: Defied by the genie. When you point out to him that genies grant three wishes, he tells you that you read too many fables and he will only grant one wish.
- Timed Mission: You have to beat the dungeon within x*30 seconds, with x being the number of fireflies that you have in your lantern. It's not beatable with only one firefly, so you need two at least, but you can have up to five.
- Time Stands Still: The "Overload Clock" spell (shortened to "O. Clock") stops the in-game time from passing for five moves and makes certain bugs catchable. Don't think this stops monsters from killing you, though.
- V-Sign: The end screen has the costumed woman/princess of the desert kingdom show the v-sign, yet another reference to Uninvited where the player's sister does so.
