Greasepaint

Marrow & Sons Travelling Circus, 1931. One night only.

Ada Quill sold the tickets. Everyone else in the company has gone back on — in greasepaint, in the ring, under one hard sodium spotlight — and they are not people any more.

She stays in her seat. She has the deck they taught her while they were still human: cream pies, umbrellas, a bottle of smelling salts, a box of matches. She plays it act by act against whatever walks into the light, until the Ringmaster takes his bow.

One run is one night. Most nights end badly. Lose and the night starts over with a fresh deck.

---

How a turn goes

You draw five cards and get three Breath to spend on them.

• Gags hurt the clown — Cream Pie, Seltzer, Rubber Mallet, Honk.
• Guards put Block in front of you — Umbrella, Barrel.
• Tricks bend the turn — Sawdust halves the next blow, Mirror sends it back at the clown, Smelling Salts heals, Match burns a curse out of your hand, a Curtsey buys the house's silence and is gone for the night.

The clown telegraphs. Above it you can always read exactly what it does the moment you end your turn: how hard it swings, whether it guards, whether it laughs — and most of what it does laughs a little as well.

Any pile is readable. Tap DECK, SPENT or BURNT (Tab, or the pad's west button) and it opens, grouped and counted, so you can find out whether the card you need is still coming.

The tent is listening

Along the top of the screen is Laughter. Clowns fill it. Some of your own cards fill it too — Honk buys three damage and a cheap laugh with it.

At 100 the tent gets its laugh, and it takes one of your cards for it. That card comes back as a Grin: black, unplayable, feeding the meter every turn it sits in your hand and costing you a Nerve for every turn you end still holding it. Seltzer takes the meter back down. Match burns a Grin out. A Curtsey quiets the house for one card's worth. Nothing else will.

And the house warms up. Every laugh the tent gets raises the heat — three lamps beside the meter, and they never cool. At full heat every laugh in the room lands close to half again as hard, and Mr. Marrow starts talking to you directly.

At 0 Nerve the tent paints you instead, and the night is over.

The company

• Pinch the Auguste — hits, hits, then laughs harder than either hit hurt.
• Bello the Whiteface — guards, then swings for thirteen and takes the house with him.
• Slats the Stilt-Walker — swings and laughs in the same breath, every turn, from a long way above you.
• Mr. Marrow, the Ringmaster, closes the show.

Acts I–III are the first three in a shuffled order; act IV is Marrow. Between the acts the ring goes empty and you get one decision — and you are told who is coming next, and exactly how they fight, before you make it.

Beat a clown and three cards are laid out: take one, or TAKE NOTHING and keep the deck thin enough to draw what you need. Before the Ringmaster the offer turns around — three of your own cards on the sawdust, and one of them does not go back in.

Controls

It plays the same three ways, and you can switch between them mid-run.

	Mouse & keyboard	Touch	Controller
Pick a card	Arrow keys, or hover it	Tap to read it	Left stick / d-pad
Play it	Space / Enter, or click it	Tap it again	A / Cross
End turn	E, or click END TURN	Tap END TURN	Y / Triangle
Look in a pile	Tab, or click DECK / SPENT / BURNT	Tap the plate	West / X
Pause	Escape, or the corner glyph	Tap the corner glyph	Start
Menus	Arrows + Enter, Backspace to go back	Tap a row	Stick + A, B to go back

Worth seeing

The company is voiced — the barker calls the show, each clown has something to say when it walks in, when it laughs and when it goes down, and Mr. Marrow notices when the house gets warm. Every line is printed as well as spoken, so it plays fine with the sound off.

The tent is lit by one lamp and nothing else, and whatever the spotlight does not reach is simply gone. Stilt-walkers arrive from above the top of the frame. The cards are 1931 handbills, two inks on cream paper, and the ring is still there behind every one of them.