Nightmare Circus Is a Cute but Creepy Action Adventure from Thailand’s Fairplay Studios
/
I attended a closed-door Xbox virtual developer session where fellow creators, media representatives, and I got a look at five indie titles currently in development from the Southeast Asian region. One of them was Nightmare Circus—a cute yet nightmare-ish action adventure game from Fairplay Studios based in Bangkok, Thailand.
A cute dark world
Despite its eerie setting, this was probably the cutest game in the showcase. It’s an action adventure that reminded me a bit of Bastion by Supergiant Games, especially while watching the gameplay footage during the presentation. The developers later mentioned they were inspired by Tunic, which made me feel like my initial comparison wasn’t far off at all.
You play as a puppeteer trapped in a dark realm as a member of a wandering circus troupe. To escape, you’ll need to explore this world, battle enemies, and rescue others who are also stuck there. The puppeteer is equipped with a wooden crossbar and strings—the main mechanic of the game. You can wrap enemies together to knock them around and stun them, or latch onto one enemy to wind up and launch yourself toward them with a devastating push attack.
What makes the game stand out is how players can use enemies and objects to deal damage creatively. A boss fight shown during the presentation featured a towering enemy wielding a long dumbbell in each hand. Launching yourself into the boss would briefly stun him, forcing him to drop the dumbbells. This created a damage opportunity, as you could then propel yourself into the dropped dumbbells to hurl them back at the boss. These were later shown turning into two kettlebells—it's unclear how that interaction works just yet, but I’d like to think you can throw those at him, too.
It’s a fun combat concept that encourages players to manipulate the environment and enemy positioning to gain an advantage.
A World Built for Exploration
Exploration was briefly teased, and while the map seems compact, the game looks like it aims for a decently sized world with multiple paths and zones as I briefly saw the ability to fast travel. The puppeteer can sling their strings onto poles to reach higher ledges or break through obstacles like rocks. This suggests a bit of backtracking and progression-based exploration—areas you’ll return to once you’ve unlocked the right abilities.
Nightmare Circus Is Still in Its Infancy
Kachain Puttiwarawut, CEO and co-founder of Fairplay Studios, was present to answer a few questions. He shared that the string mechanics are meant to be intuitive, despite offering a wide range of functions. The game is just a year into development, with the studio now in full production. It’s a young project with a solid core concept that looks like it can be meaningfully expanded over time.
They’re aiming for around 30 hours of content spread across seven chapters. A demo is planned that will feature one full chapter, though no release window was given for that just yet.
As for the full release, they’re currently targeting sometime in either 2026 or 2027. It’s set to launch on PC and Xbox.
ID@Xbox Puts the Spotlight on Southeast Asia
This is my second time attending the Xbox Developer Sessions for Southeast Asia, and once again, it placed a spotlight on just how far the region has come in game development—highlighting promising projects from across the region. Nightmare Circus is the youngest project among them, but it shows how confident these teams are in presenting fresh, experimental ideas that already show promise.
Nightmare Circus’ art direction is striking, and the gameplay has real potential, especially with its creative use of strings to manipulate enemies and the environment. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how it evolves as Nightmare Circus. By contrast, it is still very early in development, as it feels entirely possible that it could evolve significantly as production continues. Even so, it already looks like a title worth keeping an eye on.
The other titles—13Z: The Zodiac Trials from Singapore, Agni: Village of Calamity from Indonesia, Vapor World: Over the Mind from Korea, and Kriegsfront Tactics—were also showcased and made strong impressions in their own unique ways. It was a diverse lineup, ranging from tactics to survival horror, and even a side-scrolling Soulslike with a distinct hand-drawn art style.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows greatly blends the classic Assassin’s Creed stealth with the RPG elements of recent entries. Its dynamic world, seasonal changes, and improved stealth mechanics make exploration a joy, but Yasuke’s restrictive gameplay, overall story, and a half-baked notoriety system hold it back.