Carnival game

A carnival game is a game of chance or skill that can be seen at a traveling carnival, charity fund raiser, amusement arcade and amusement park, or on a state and county fair midway.

Carnival games are usually operated on a "pay per play" basis. Prices may range from a small amount, for example 25¢ (cents), to a few dollars per play. Most games offer a small prize to the winner. Prizes may include items like stuffed animals, toys, or posters. Continued play is encouraged as multiple small prizes may traded in for a larger prize. Multiplayer games—the "Watergun" game is one example—may change the size of the prize with the number of players. In a more difficult game, including the "Baseball and Basket" or "Stand the Bottle", a large prize may be awarded to any winner.

Carnival games have a poor reputation in some areas. This may be that some carnival games utilize optical illusions or physical relationships that make it hard for a player to judge the games' difficulty. Also, some operators have run games that are rigged to take advantage of unsuspecting players. In many areas, these games are tested by local law enforcement to find unfairly run games.

Carnival (video game)

Carnival is a fixed shooter arcade game created by Sega in 1980. It has the distinction of being the first video game with a bonus round.

Carnival was ported to the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, and Intellivision. An Atari 8-bit family version was published in 1982 by ANALOG Software, the commercial software branch of ANALOG Computing magazine.

Gameplay

The goal of the game is to shoot at targets, while carefully avoiding running out of bullets. Three rows of targets scroll across the screen in alternating directions; these include rabbits, ducks, owls, and extra-bullet targets, with higher rows awarding more points. If a duck reaches the bottom row without being shot, it will come to life and begin flying down toward the player. Any ducks that reach the bottom of the screen in this manner will eat some of the player's bullets. A large pop-up target above the top row can either award or subtract bullets or points when hit. A spinning wheel with eight pipes also sits above the top row; these pipes and all targets must be shot in order to complete the round. In addition, a bonus counter increases by the value of every target shot in the three rows. A bonus counter increases for every target hit in any of the three rows, and can be collected by shooting the letters of the word "BONUS" in order as they cycle through the rows. The bonus stops increasing as soon as any letter is shot.

Carnival Game (song)

"Carnival Game" is a single by American rock band Cheap Trick, released as the third and final single from their 1997 album Cheap Trick. It was written by Jerry Dale McFadden, Rick Nielsen, Robert Reynolds, Robin Zander and Tom Petersson. The song was produced by Cheap Trick and Ian Taylor.

Background

The song was released as the third and final single from the album, following the release of the non-album single "Baby Talk".

Both co-writers McFadden and Reynolds would also co-write the Cheap Trick album track "It All Comes Back to You" in addition to "Carnival Game".

The song was recorded at Pie Studios, Glen Cove, New York, along with the entire Cheap Trick album. It was mixed at Cove City Sound Studios, Glen Cove, New York.

Following the song's original release as a single and on the Cheap Trick album, a live version of the track was included on the 2004 live DVD/CD set From Tokyo to You: Live in Japan.

Release

The song was released in Japan only as a promotional single, via Victor. The b-side used for the single was "You Let a Lotta People Down" which was an album track from Cheap Trick, written by Nielsen, Zander and Petersson, whilst being produced by the band and Taylor.