CarnEvil

CarnEvil is a light-gun shooter game in which the player, as an unnamed teenage everyman, must clear four levels by eliminating waves of various gruesome creatures such as evil clowns, sideshow freaks and Krampus's elves. The game's premise involves a teenager in the town of Greely Valley, Iowa fulfilling a local legend and becoming trapped in a nightmarish carnival ruled by ringmaster Professor Ludwig von Tökkentäkker. The first three levels can be played in any order with no effect on the gameplay, with the fourth level being accessed upon their completion. Each level opens with a sardonic greeting from Umlaut, a floating jester skull who serves as the game's host.

The cabinet comes with two pump action shotguns that can be reloaded by either physically cocking the gun or pulling the trigger off-screen. The gun fires single shots much like a pistol, and most of the enemy characters are dispatched in four shots. The player can temporarily upgrade their gun by shooting bullet-shaped symbols, granting it the quality of a shotgun, machine gun, flamethrower, or acid rounds. Enemy attacks drain the player's health, which can be replenished by shooting heart-shaped symbols.

CarnEvil was conceived by games designer Jack Haeger in 1988 while working on the run and gun game Narc. As part of the development team's experiments with live digitized footage for video games, Haegar began working with stop motion puppets in an attempt to recreate a cinematic experience. Haegar was fond of the classic horror movie premise of a teenager daring a friend to run through a graveyard, and sketched a concept piece based on this idea titled "Horror Show". The sketch, primarily depicting a decrepit haunted house, featured a poster with the "CarnEvil" name and a prototypical version of Umlaut named "Smeek". Although Haeger was aware that technical limitations at the time made the concept impractical, he saw potential in the "dark carnival" theme.

Midway Games approved Haeger's concept following the successful releases of the light-gun shooters Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Revolution X (1994), which Haegar co-directed. The game originally had a tone similar to The Haunted Mansion, and featured an old caretaker character with a Punch and Judy-style puppet. After this version was harshly reviewed by Midway's management, the development team revamped the concept with characters that were more aggressive and darkly humorous. This tone was set by Haeger's conceptual character Hambone, a large brute with a goaltender mask and a gatling gun arm who would become the miniboss of the Haunted House stage.

Mark Hain of Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game's visuals and comfortable pump action gun, but was disappointed by the lack of extra gameplay features and hidden background secrets compared to Atari Games' Area 51 and Maximum Force. Jason Wilson and Tyrone Rodriguez of Tips & Tricks also praised the graphics, writing that "the stunning 3D environments are portrayed in such gruesome detail, you will think you're trapped in a horror film". French magazine Player One gave the game a score of 69%, regarding it as a House of the Dead clone, but commending the gun's design and precision as well as the gory graphics. Adam Bregman of LA Weekly proclaimed CarnEvil to be "undoubtedly the best of the genre" and "perhaps the most twisted video game ever created".

According to Haeger, the game's sales exceeded those of Mortal Kombat 4, which encouraged Midway's arcade team to conceptualize a 4D ride adaptation that ultimately never materialized. CarnEvil was never ported to home consoles despite the success of The House of the Dead, Time Crisis and Point Blank on those platforms. Pikulski claimed that a developer had intended to create an original home console game that bore the CarnEvil title. Bregman observed that by July 1999, the game had disappeared from most Los Angeles County arcades, which he attributed to the game's perverse presentation.