A travelling show with no listed stops — played on phones everywhere

CIRCUS AFTERLIFE

The tent went down a long time ago. The show did not. Walk the grounds, meet the troupe, find out who is still selling tickets.

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  • Story-driven
  • Dark surreal
  • Mobile

What this show is

CIRCUS AFTERLIFE begins the way most careers in this trade do: badly, and at night. You arrive at a fairground that burned out of the world some time ago and never agreed to stop running. The bulbs are on. The sawdust is fresh. Somebody has written your name in the programme, in the slot right after the knife act.

From there it is a game about walking in and finding out. Each ground you unlock is a small, hand-built stage with its own performer, its own rules of behaviour, and its own reason for not letting you leave until the number is finished. You are not fighting the circus. You are working it — holding the rope, cueing the lights, taking the bow you were given whether or not you earned it.

It is made for players who would rather be unsettled than reassured: people who read the signage in a game, who poke the thing that is clearly going to move, who want a story that keeps its face straight all the way to the end of the act.

Tonight's programme

What is actually in the tent, listed the way a barker would list it.

Start here

The Main Programme

The story campaign, told in acts, each one a separate ground with its own performer and its own exit.

  • Hand-built stages, no repeated corridors
  • One headline act per ground
  • Choices that the next act remembers
  • An ending that commits to something
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The Troupe

Performers you unlock by finishing their number — each with a card, a history and a routine you can run again.

  • Collectible acts and performer cards
  • Backstage notes on who they were before
  • Routines replayable outside the story
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The Midnight Matinée

Short timed runs on grounds the main programme skipped — same tent, meaner lighting.

  • Self-contained one-sitting runs
  • Rotating stages and conditions
  • Rewards that follow you into the story
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Press & Playtest Row

Seats we keep aside for writers, creators and testers who want in before the house opens.

  • Early builds of unreleased acts
  • Direct line to the people making it
  • Capture material and act notes
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The programme changes between acts. Anything listed here is part of the show, not an extra ticket.

How it behaves in your hands

A world you move through, not a menu

Grounds connect. You can turn around, go back to the booth, and find the booth has an opinion about that.

A troupe that unlocks by being understood

Performers join the collection when you finish their act properly — not by paying for a shortcut past them.

Sound carrying half the story

Brass that goes flat in the wrong rooms, applause in a tent with no audience. Headphones are the intended seat.

Dark visuals that stay readable

Heavy contrast, bulb-light and fog — built to hold up on a phone screen on a bus at night, not just in a trailer.

Acts sized for a real evening

Each ground is a sitting. Put it down at the end of a number and nothing is lost in the middle of one.

How it gets made

Every act starts as a one-page description of a performer and the thing they cannot stop doing. Then it is drawn, then it is scored, and only then does it become a level — which is backwards from how most mobile games are built, and is the reason the grounds feel like places rather than stages for mechanics.

The audio is recorded with the tent in mind: organ and brass pushed slightly out of tune, room noise left in, applause treated as a character rather than a reward sound. We cut anything that could only exist because a feature list wanted it there — no daily nagging, no act interrupted to show you something else.

Working with us

If you write about games, make video, run a playtest group, or you are a studio with something to propose, the enquiry form at the bottom reaches the people building this rather than a queue. Tell us plainly what you want: a build, an interview, art for a piece, or a conversation. We reply to the useful ones and we say no clearly to the rest.

From the stalls

★★★★★
I played the first two acts on a night train and had to take the headphones off once. That is a compliment.
Dani
★★★★☆
It never explains the circus to you, which I appreciated. You work it out from signage and from how the performers talk.
Marek
★★★★★
The troupe cards got me. I went back and redid an act properly just to get the knife thrower's history.
Priya

Ask for a seat

Press, creators, playtesters and partners — leave a name and an address and we will write back.

  • Someone on the team reads it, not a mailbox robot.
  • Enquiries are answered in the order they arrive.
  • The first reply tells you exactly what we need from you next.

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