I beat it. It was awesome.
I think two acts is a strange amount to have, I was anticipating going to hell and beating the devil or something. I liked the music a lot and the variation and work put into the backgrounds made it actually seem like I was navigating some place. The second boss was easier than the first boss, I beat him without losing a life. Also my favorite enemy was the masked freaks. What's up with the space crocodile people? They seem out of place.

Made it to the hair cutter so far. This game is really really really really really pretty. It's so pretty it looks like a commercial game. And although not many beat'em'ups have been to my liking this one does stand out somewhat. I liked the Tekken 3 beat'em up - the one in the extra content section. It just played so well because of it's Tekken way of being. That's a weird comparison.
Hm I sort off liked River City Ransom because of the coolness and the characters. I also liked about it that you're this buff guy who can pick stuff up and throw it. In a beatm'em up I like that weapons are straight forward to use and such. Controls should be as smooth as butter. It's not as important that the guy you conttrol is a 100 pixels tall than it is he's got some funky moves.

Double Dragon II. Great great game yet it suffers from being too beat'em'up is for my personal taste. (That's not necessarily bad). What I love is the giant sized bosses, (yes you had that too good job ^^) and the press both buttons and he does a power move at the expense of health (whoops you didn't have that now did you?).
Beat'em ups, in my opinion, should be so action packed that you're taken from one crazy level environment to the next even crazier - like, you start in some sky scraper, then it catches fire, and then you're flying on a giant jumbo jet only to be thrown own in freaking "Turtle the arcade version" land.... anyone played that btw?

Then there's Scott Pilgrim vs The World which for obvious reasons has to be my number one favorite beat'em'up of all (except Golden Axe) so it's not really fair to compare it to Carny Death Peddlers (commercial game made by team vs. game made from scratch in a month). And yes I've played Castle Crashers =)


Just some things to consider...

Hey, those were awesome reviews of SIX games other than this one! Tell me some more things about other games that you did and didn't like! I will consider them!

This game has a lot of neat things about it, it's graphical style, the enemy design and the music all combine to make a cool evil carnival. The gameplay is decent as well. A bit simple and repetitive after a while but luckily due to it's shortness it doesn't get boring too quickly. The bosses were nicely designed as well. Perhaps one of the best beat em ups ever. The ability to block was a nice addition to the arcade formula. The enemies actually have different techniques and attacks as well.

My only problems with the game is the short supply of levels and the length of the individual levels. Also dying in this game has no penalty which makes the concept of lives pointless. As well as score, since you are never presented with a scoreboard of any kind. These things seem like they were only half-implemented which makes the game seem rushed and abruptly cut short. I would really like to see this game done justice with a full version.

Overall it's a fun little beat em up with great style and presentation that only falls short due to it's... well shortness. Carny Death Peddlers is well worth a 7 out of 10.

thanks for the review, death

we really wanted to have a third level (hell, just like charlie said) but we decided to focus our efforts on making the first two stages more polished instead.

With all the large sprites and backgrounds to do as well as programming all the enemies and bosses i'm surprised you's managed as much as you's did in the short amount of time. Spending the extra time on the two stages instead of building a third was probably for the best.

The art was rezolute. As rezolutionary as more fluidity might have been, the choppy animations kind of suited it. All 1,562 people in Bullard, Texas should play this game and also make a clay model of their town.

The score blasted my ears in the same way a glock would've splattered my brain into 8 (or more) bits all over the wall and floor. In a good way.

The gameplay drove me ludamad because my hand kept creeping up from the sdzx region to the wasdy-ersd area, but that isn't really a problem with the game so much as my motor coordination. Even with this, at times it seemed too forgiving to noobs like me; I died and never ended up too far back from where I left off. If it wasn't for this I'd probably never have finished it.

MMORPGguy & death: I was running under the assumption no one wanted to be forced to replay content (and that people would want to play through the whole game without losing any lives if they played through it with lots of resets). Do you think we should make death more fatal in an update ? (maybe a few battle knockback?)

Charlie: I do wish we had time to add the devil : ( It really was in the plans.

I agree that death seems to barely have any penalty at all... maybe, when you run out of lives, you should have to restart whatever act you're on.

I disliked the hud, a few of the set pieces seemed to clash a little bit style-wise, and all you needed to do was button mash your way through the fights.

I liked the option of being able to dodge, punch, and push, but unless there were some enemies that I didn't realize existed, I pretty much got through both acts by just bumrushing and buttonmashing.

The items were pretty varied and had different effects that I enjoyed. I especially liked how you handled the guns because they were neither overpowered NOR hilariously underpowered like a lot of beat 'em ups.

Overall, if this had a little bit more graphical polish (the character designs weren't bad, but some of the animations were a bit wonky) and some gameplay tweaks that made the enemies feel a bit more challenging to fight, this could be something I could see myself playing in my free time.

Good job luda and rez. (7/10)

I learned a lot about animation making this thing, I have more confidence in my abilities now that I know specifically what doesn't look right.

Difficulty is kind of a slippery slope, accessibility was our main concern. A lot of people wouldve stopped playing if they got to shakespeare and had to restart the whole game.

That's something I fight with on every game of mine, because people (including myself) at 64Digits are so fucking lazy. If you make it too hard, people won't finish it. If you make it too easy, they'll beat it too fast. While I think there should have been a bigger penalty to death, I did like how you were forced to restart the fight.

I died a lot.

Also, I'm a bit disturbed as to why most of your characters seem to have empty eye sockets. I'm more afraid of the main character than I am of the enemies.

they replaced all their eyes with onyx, my characters have swagggggg

Shooting vampires with a machine gun is oddly satisfying.

Especially when the guy shooting it is doing a hysterical laugh animation.
Rez, you guys really need some vocals for this.

I'm considering a 'hard' mode for the update (I want to have at least one update, I know of a few bugs ... though they may just be WINE artifacts). Depending on demand I'm willing to add a little more content, otherwise its just tightening up some loose ends.

The music is so unfitting that it fits perfectly, and yes that is a compliment. Also this game was awesome, but fucking hard. The punching feels a tad unresponsive at times and sometimes it's difficult to time your hits. I'm a sucker for beat-em-ups and I can clearly see the Final Fight/Streets of Rage influences in some of the enemies, but I only wish there was a better sound for enemies getting punched to make combat feel more satisfying.

8/10, this game kicks ass for the Lord.

Rez, you got featured on Indiegames Blog!

Yeah... I like how everybody just assumes this is a game by Rez since he's the most recognisable one.

Speaking of which, I'd like to congratulate all of you guys for a successful collaboration with brilliant results.

Very nice team collab on this project. I am always surprised to see people inspired by legacy games. This game leaves me reminiscing the long past era of ROMSTAR/CAPCOM beat-em-ups. Games of this nature where designed around the 3-minute rule. Since, back in the day they were quarter munchers. EZ to figure out. Hard to beat!!!!!

Keep up the good work.

The only thing I honestly complained about throughout the game is that when I'm trying to fight a boss, a little side enemy can step in between us and take the blows for him. I don't see any way around it, but usually in boss fights the other enemies stand on the sides and throw things at you, not jump in and act as a human shield. Especially when the opportunities to hit the boss are so short, and his attacks are so strong.

I died a million times because no one would give me a pretzel. I kept getting the "Too Good For Items!" bonus or something. It was strange. Awesome game though. The music, the design, the story, the idea.

edit: oh yeah! I forgot to mention, the "WHAP" and "WHALLOP" texts when someone dies were fun additions. Kudos to whoever thought to throw it in. Made me smile pretty much all the way through.