Circus (video game)
Encyclopedia
is an arcade game
released by Exidy
in 1977
. The game is an arranged version of Breakout, where the player controls a seesaw and clown in order to destroy all of the targets in the level. The game has been copied and released under different names by numerous other companies in both the United States and Japan.
appears from the edge of the screen where there is a jumping board, and the player must move the seesaw
located at the bottom of the screen so that the clown can bounce back off the seesaw once he jumps off from his starting position. However, it is impossible to make contact with the clown with the seesaw in certain locations. The 4 jumping boards located on the sides of the screen serve to decrease the area where it is impossible to make contact.
If the player successfully gets the clown onto the seesaw, the clown on the other side shoots off into the air towards the 3 balloons on the top of the screen. The clown may not have enough speed to reach the balloons if the first clown does not land squarely on the seesaw. Clowns bounce off of balloons, walls, and jumping boards, but will pass directly through multiple balloons if they are moving quickly enough. They will only bounce off the jumping boards when they are heading downwards, and will pass straight through the boards while moving upwards.
Hitting any of the balloons with the clown causes them to burst, and the player receives 20 points for bursting the yellow balloon, 50 points for the green balloon, and 100 points for the blue balloon. Bursting the entire row of balloons causes a sound effect and awards the player 10 times the original points as a bonus (i.e. 200 points for the yellow balloon). A new row of balloons instantly replaces the old one when the entire row is destroyed.
Destroying all of the blue balloons causes another sound effect and allows the player to play one more time (1 clown) after they have depleted their stock. The words "BONUS PLAY" appear to indicate this bonus, but destroying all of the blue balloons a second time will not allow the player to gain another clown (the bonus can be activated while the player is using the extra clown). This may differ in certain levels like 7 and 8, where all 3 rows of balloons must be destroyed in order to active the bonus.
A clown will die if the player fails to receive them with the seesaw at the bottom of the screen, and 2 measures of the funeral march in Frédéric Chopin
's Piano Sonata No. 2 are played as a sound effect. The player can continue if they still have stock remaining, or if they have been rewarded the bonus play. When the player has depleted all of their stock, the screen switches over to the demo screen, where the number of balloons is the same as that of the player's before they lost their final clown. If the player has reached over a certain amount of points, they can play one more time like the balloon bonus (the availability of this bonus may differ, as indicated in the list of rules shown after the player enters the credits). The player cannot gain another clown in the same way during this play bonus.
Nyankoro (IPM)
Gypsy Juggler (Meadows Games)
Ripoff (Exidy)
Field Goal (Taito)
Plump Pop (Taito)
Kozōsentai Gaccho (cancelled, Irem)
home computer
systems. It is also supported on MAME
, with original sound effects and colors. In 1980 it was ported to Atari 2600
as Circus Atari by Mike Lorenzen. It was colorized unlike the arcade version and it supported the paddle controller. A mobile game phone titled Seesaw Jump 2005 was released for the i-mode
network by Sega, and a similar game was released for the au
brand by A.D.2000Limited. The later game is similar to the original in that a stick figure is thrown back and forth across the screen, but there are no balloons, and the number of catches made by the seesaw becomes the number of points gained by the player.
Circus Atari was made available on Microsoft's
Game Room
service for its Xbox 360
console and for Windows-based
PC
s in June 2010.
, Japan
until 2002
, and in the Mazā Bokujō theme park in 2006
, though the machinery inside was changed to that of another game. The only known remaining location of the game in Japan is the Circus Circus game, housed in Izu, Shizuoka
.
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
released by Exidy
Exidy
Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1974 until at least 1986 . The company was founded by H.R."Pete" Kauffman...
in 1977
1977 in video gaming
-Events:*Agnes Kim opens the first Electronics Boutique, a kiosk at the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania selling transistor radios and calculators....
. The game is an arranged version of Breakout, where the player controls a seesaw and clown in order to destroy all of the targets in the level. The game has been copied and released under different names by numerous other companies in both the United States and Japan.
Gameplay
3 rows of triangular balloons move along the top part of the screen, each overlaid with blue, green, and yellow (colors used in the original version), counting from the top row. A clownClown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
appears from the edge of the screen where there is a jumping board, and the player must move the seesaw
Seesaw
A seesaw is a long, narrow board pivoted in the middle so that, as one end goes up, the other goes down.-Mechanics:Mechanically a seesaw is a lever and fulcrum....
located at the bottom of the screen so that the clown can bounce back off the seesaw once he jumps off from his starting position. However, it is impossible to make contact with the clown with the seesaw in certain locations. The 4 jumping boards located on the sides of the screen serve to decrease the area where it is impossible to make contact.
If the player successfully gets the clown onto the seesaw, the clown on the other side shoots off into the air towards the 3 balloons on the top of the screen. The clown may not have enough speed to reach the balloons if the first clown does not land squarely on the seesaw. Clowns bounce off of balloons, walls, and jumping boards, but will pass directly through multiple balloons if they are moving quickly enough. They will only bounce off the jumping boards when they are heading downwards, and will pass straight through the boards while moving upwards.
Hitting any of the balloons with the clown causes them to burst, and the player receives 20 points for bursting the yellow balloon, 50 points for the green balloon, and 100 points for the blue balloon. Bursting the entire row of balloons causes a sound effect and awards the player 10 times the original points as a bonus (i.e. 200 points for the yellow balloon). A new row of balloons instantly replaces the old one when the entire row is destroyed.
Destroying all of the blue balloons causes another sound effect and allows the player to play one more time (1 clown) after they have depleted their stock. The words "BONUS PLAY" appear to indicate this bonus, but destroying all of the blue balloons a second time will not allow the player to gain another clown (the bonus can be activated while the player is using the extra clown). This may differ in certain levels like 7 and 8, where all 3 rows of balloons must be destroyed in order to active the bonus.
A clown will die if the player fails to receive them with the seesaw at the bottom of the screen, and 2 measures of the funeral march in Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's Piano Sonata No. 2 are played as a sound effect. The player can continue if they still have stock remaining, or if they have been rewarded the bonus play. When the player has depleted all of their stock, the screen switches over to the demo screen, where the number of balloons is the same as that of the player's before they lost their final clown. If the player has reached over a certain amount of points, they can play one more time like the balloon bonus (the availability of this bonus may differ, as indicated in the list of rules shown after the player enters the credits). The player cannot gain another clown in the same way during this play bonus.
Direct copies
- Clowns (licensed release by WMS Industries)
- Acrobat (licensed release by Taito CorporationTaito CorporationThe is a Japanese publisher of video game software and arcade hardware wholly owned by publisher Square Enix. Taito has their headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company....
) - Circus Circus (Universal, current AruzeAruze, is a Japanese manufacturer of pachinko, slot machines, arcade games and other gaming products, and a publisher of video games. Aruze possesses licenses to both manufacture and distribute casino machines in the American states of Nevada, Mississippi and New Jersey. The company's corporate...
) - Seesaw Jump (SegaSega, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
) - Devil Circus (BanprestoBanprestois a Japanese toy company, best known in America for game development, headquartered in the Shinagawa Seaside West Building in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It was founded April 1977 as Hoei Sangyo, Co. Ltd. The company was renamed Coreland in 1982, and during the 1980s it worked mainly as a subcontractor for...
) - Pierrot (Uko)
- Piccolo (IPM, current Irem)
- Fūsen-wari game (lit. "Balloon popping game" Data EastData Eastalso abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game developer and publisher. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, when it declared bankruptcy...
) - Bonpa (Nihon Bussan)
Arranged versions
Balloon Circus (Data East)- The screen was changed to a vertical rectangle, and all in-game messages were converted to katakanaKatakanais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
. Data East was one of the first companies to use katakana in game displays. A cabinet version titled Mini Balloon was also released by Data East.
Nyankoro (IPM)
- The balloons were changed to kittens, and the mother cat appears to prevent the player from progressing after a certain amount of time passes. The number of colors was increased, and katakana is also used for in-game messages.
Spinoffs
Trapeze (Exidy)- The character gathers stars by swinging off the trapeze. The same game was also released by Taito with the title Trampoline.
Gypsy Juggler (Meadows Games)
- This game uses otedamaOtedamais a traditional Japanese children's game. Small bean bags are tossed and juggled in a game similar to jacks. Although it is generally a social game, Otedama can also be played alone. It is rarely competitive and often accompanied by singing...
as a motif, and was also released by Taito.
Ripoff (Exidy)
- This game uses sky diving as a motif, and continues the original game's sound effects for the start of the game and game over scene (Der FlohwalzerDer FlohwalzerThe Flea Waltz is a simple piano piece, often one of the first learned:It is known all over the world. According to an article by Hiromi Oketani in the Osaka Shoin Women's College Annual for 1994, it is known in Japan as...
for the opening and Auld Lang SyneAuld Lang Syne"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song . It is well known in many countries, especially in the English-speaking world; its traditional use being to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight...
for game overs). It was released in Japan by Data East as Nice On.
Field Goal (Taito)
- This game uses American football as a motif. Though the game uses a normal paddle instead of a seesaw, the game is similar to Circus in that the objective is to eliminate 3 rows of football players wearing uniforms of different colors. Eliminated rows are refilled along with a similar sound effect to the original game.
Plump Pop (Taito)
- This game was released as a remake of Circus in 1987. It was later ported to PlayStation 2PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
. The seesaw was changed to a trampoline, and features cuter characters, new items, levels, and bosses.
Kozōsentai Gaccho (cancelled, Irem)
- This game was a remake similar to Plump Pop, and contained 40 levels, with pictures of famous world locations used as background images. The game was cancelled due to poor feedback in test plays.
Ports
The game has been ported to the TK-80 and FM-8FM-8
The FM-8 was a personal computer developed and manufactured by Fujitsu in May 1981. It was Fujitsu's second microcomputer released to the public after the LKIT-8 kit computer, and the first in the "FM" series. The FM-8 would later be replaced by two new models in November 1982 - the FM-11, aimed...
home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
systems. It is also supported on MAME
MAME
MAME is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. The intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten...
, with original sound effects and colors. In 1980 it was ported to Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
as Circus Atari by Mike Lorenzen. It was colorized unlike the arcade version and it supported the paddle controller. A mobile game phone titled Seesaw Jump 2005 was released for the i-mode
I-mode
NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocol, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail and the packet-switched network that delivers the data...
network by Sega, and a similar game was released for the au
Au (mobile phone operator)
, or au by KDDI, is a mobile phone brand in Japan marketed by KDDI Corporation in the main islands of Japan and Okinawa Cellular in Okinawa.-Naming:...
brand by A.D.2000Limited. The later game is similar to the original in that a stick figure is thrown back and forth across the screen, but there are no balloons, and the number of catches made by the seesaw becomes the number of points gained by the player.
Circus Atari was made available on Microsoft's
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Game Room
Game Room
Game Room is a gaming service for the Xbox 360 video game system, Microsoft Windows PCs, and Windows Phone 7. Launched on March 24, 2010, Game Room lets players download classic video games and compete against each other for high scores...
service for its Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
console and for Windows-based
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s in June 2010.
Recent availability
Circus is no longer common in arcade centers. The copied version by Taito (Acrobat) was active in a department store in FukuokaFukuoka, Fukuoka
is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu in Japan.Voted number 14 in a 2010 poll of the World's Most Livable Cities, Fukuoka is praised for its green spaces in a metropolitan setting. It is the most populous city in Kyushu, followed by...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
until 2002
2002 in video gaming
The year 2002 in video gaming saw the release of many games to sixth-generation video game consoles, predominately, the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox.-Events:...
, and in the Mazā Bokujō theme park in 2006
2006 in video gaming
-Events:* January 26, 2006 -- Nintendo announces its newly redesigned handheld, the Nintendo DS Lite. The new model is lighter, smaller, has configurable brightness and features an improved user interface.* January 26, 2006 -- Konami Corp...
, though the machinery inside was changed to that of another game. The only known remaining location of the game in Japan is the Circus Circus game, housed in Izu, Shizuoka
Izu, Shizuoka
is a city located in central Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka, Japan. As of 2009, the city had an estimated population of 35,397 and the density of 97.3 persons per km². The total area as 363.97 km².-Geography:...
.
Appearances in other media
- In the animated movie version of Ace o Nerae!Ace o Nerae!is a sports shōjo manga by Sumika Yamamoto begun in 1972 and serialized in Margaret. Hugely successful, it was adapted into a TV anime series in 1973 by Tokyo Movie Shinsha with the Madhouse animation studio , and was originally aired on MBS.Another TV anime, a movie retelling of the first series,...
, the main character, Hiromi Oka, plays arcade games at gamecenters and cafes in several scenes, and the sound effect for when an entire row of balloons is destroyed is used as part of the background music. - Japanese electropop band Yellow Magic OrchestraYellow Magic OrchestraSakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
included a song titled "COMPUTER GAME 'Theme From the Circus'" in their first albumYellow Magic Orchestra (Japan Mix)The album was intended to be a one-off project for producer and bass player Haruomi Hosono and the two session musicians he had hired: drummer Yukihiro Takahashi and keyboard player Ryuichi Sakamoto...
, where they include some of the sound effects from the game. The sounds were created in semblance of the arcade music using a synthesizer rather than recording directly into the track. - One of Akira ToriyamaAkira Toriyamais a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...
's early works, Wonder Island 2, includes a scene where Circus is parodied. This scene is also included in Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater Vol.1.