‘Exhibit of Sorrows’ Does Discomforting Things to Eerie Clowns
Exhibit of Sorrows seems like a cheery little clown show. Just a few cheerful tricks and playful folks. Until someone starts taking things too far.
Things seem fairly innocent at first. You walk through a few sideshows, each with a clown you can do something with. You can blow air into one clown until they float, help another one pour a cool bath, or assist in stretching a long arm to reach something. Still, there’s something off about the quiet music and the silly clowns that you keep running into, right? Or maybe there’s something off about you. No matter who you think is the more disturbed individual here, you won’t be leaving this happy show easily.
Upon finding you can’t escape, you have a couple of choices. You can shut the game off and leave these poor clowns alone, or you can start playing with their mechanisms again. Put a little but too much air into the inflatable clown. Pour too much water into that tub. Pull on the stretchy clown’s arm until things get really, really uncomfortable. Things grow menacing fairly quickly, especially when you have to crank a jack-in-the-box. Nothing scary ever happens in games or movies after you do that, right? Surely that will just open the door and let you be on your way.
Exhibit of Sorrows is a brief, but chilling little horror experience. Having unsettling things happening to cute little clowns does tend to disturb, and your own willingness to do so just because you got locked in here can be a bit worrisome, too. I’m a bit more creeped out at how quickly I jumped right into hurting these clowns once I couldn’t find the door out. Does that make me one of the more sinister creatures in this place? Or do I just want to get away from creepy clowns real quick when the lights go out?
Exhibit of Sorrows is playable now on itch.io.
