{"id":1836,"date":"2009-02-06T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/?p=1836"},"modified":"2009-02-06T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T14:00:00","slug":"showtime-a-unique-gale-of-fresh-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1836","title":{"rendered":"Showtime a Unique Gale of Fresh Air"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-illustration\"><a href=\"http:\/\/gambit.mit.edu\/loadgame\/showtime.php\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/gambit.mit.edu\/images\/slinky_balloons.jpg\" alt=\"Slinky with balloons\" width=\"200\" height=\"207\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gambit.mit.edu\/loadgame\/showtime.php\"><i>CarneyVale: Showtime<\/i><\/a> is making waves in the press and around the Internet!  Our latest glowing review comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/gamecritics.com\/brad-gallaway\/carneyvale-showtime-review\">Brad Gallaway at Gamecritics.com<\/a>, who calls <i>Showtime<\/i> &#8220;interesting, exciting, finely tuned, and most of all quite unique&#8221;.<br \/>\nGallaway&#8217;s review begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A perfect example of the old adage that good things come in small packages, the unassuming, overlooked, practically invisible <i>CarneyVale Showtime<\/i> from the Gambit Game Lab is one of last year&#8217;s best titles that nobody played. Located in the user-created Community Games section of the new Xbox 360 dashboard, there&#8217;s not really anything to distinguish <i>CarneyVale<\/i> from the dozens of uninspired games tucked away there&#8211;but only after a minute or two of play, it&#8217;s clear to see that it stands head and shoulders above the rest.<br \/>\nAlthough initial impressions might be deceiving, <i>CarneyVale Showtime<\/i> is in fact, an extremely elegant and clever design that requires a good degree of hand-eye coordination. Its challenge is nicely complemented by the absolutely spot-on controls and impeccable level of polish present everywhere throughout the game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Be sure to jump over and read the whole thing, but the review&#8217;s ending is incredibly flattering.  &#8220;Relatively simple, tactile games like <i>CarneyVale Showtime<\/i> are few and far between these days, and ones as well-done as this number even fewer,&#8221; Gallaway writes. &#8220;It may be found in the amateur section, but <i>CarneyVale Showtime<\/i> is a consummate professional.&#8221;<br \/>\nAs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/games\/platforms\/xbox360\/carneyvaleshowtime?q=carneyvale\">revealed at Metacritic<\/a>, Gallaway gives <i>Showtime<\/i> a 9 out of 10 (!), which is the same as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/destructoid-review-carneyvale-showtime-116309.phtml\">Jim Sterling recently gave the game in a review at Destructoid<\/a> (!!!).  As Sterling begins <i>his<\/i> glowing review:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When I first started challenging Community Games developers to submit their work for review on Destructoid, I had hoped that some real gems would come out of the woodwork and prove their worth. I had not, however, expected <i>CarneyVale Showtime.<\/i><br \/>\nAt the risk of spoiling the whole review before you even read it, let me say that if you&#8217;re at all interested in the potential of XNA games, then you really, really, <i>really<\/i> need to check this one out. A breath of fresh air? This is more like a gale of the stuff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sterling goes on to describe <i>Showtime<\/i> as &#8220;inventive, addictive, charming and very clever, with deceptively simple gameplay that soon gives way to something far more complex and fiendish&#8221;.  (Mwa ha ha.)  &#8220;If there were any justice, this game would be expanded and end up on the Xbox Live Arcade,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;As it stands, however, <i>CarneyVale<\/i> is an absolute steal for 400 Microsoft Points.&#8221;<br \/>\nTo say that we&#8217;re proud of <i>Showtime<\/i> is an understatement, but it&#8217;s Gallaway&#8217;s description of it as &#8220;overlooked&#8221; and &#8220;practically invisible&#8221; that we&#8217;re out to fix.  If you haven&#8217;t tried <i>Showtime<\/i> yet, what are you waiting for?  If you have, tell your friends!  Tell your friends&#8217; friends!  Or jump onto Metacritic.com and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/games\/platforms\/xbox360\/carneyvaleshowtime?q=carneyvale\">tell the world what you think!<\/a>  (Unless, of course, you didn&#8217;t like it -&#160;in which case we humbly suggest that you try playing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lemon64.com\/?mainurl=http%3A\/\/www.lemon64.com\/games\/details.php%3FID%3D470\">something else<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CarneyVale: Showtime is making waves in the press and around the Internet! Our latest glowing review comes from Brad Gallaway at Gamecritics.com, who calls Showtime &#8220;interesting, exciting, finely tuned, and most of all quite unique&#8221;. Gallaway&#8217;s review begins: A perfect example of the old adage that good things come in small packages, the unassuming, overlooked, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-1836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4e5QR-tC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}