Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game

by Dan Lenois
previewed on PC
From the moment it was formally announced, I've had my eye on this particular game, and during the hustle and bustle of PAX East, I was fortunately able to find some time to get hands-on and see whether the reality lived up to the potential.
Clowning around has consequences...
For the single match I got to play, I took on the role of the survivor, tasked with finding a way to escape the trio of murderous klowns before the klownpocolypse, a match-wide wave of destructive energy that vaporizes all players within its range, heralds the end of the match. Survivors are encouraged to work together, at least up unto a point.
The map we played on was well-balanced, offering both a number of enclosed places for the human survivors to hide, safely out of sight away from the klowns, as well as a number of more open-ended areas you are eventually forced out into, as the latter tends to be where you find the escape routes and other important points of interest.
This is not one of those games where you can just cringe in a corner and hope for the best. Only the proactive live to get fatally pranked another day...
Exiting with style
Each of the available exit points, from an energy teleporter, to a getaway boat stationed along the dock, to a specific door requiring a keycard, require their own item in order to become usable. During my playthrough, I got to escape using the teleporter.
The screen I was playing on at the PAX East booth began experiencing excessive screen tearing, but luckily the other player holding open the teleporter was right next to me, and was more than happy to allow me to peek over at their screen so I could imprecisely move my character into the teleporter's range from their PoV.
A killer sight
Visually the game has a vivid, engaging tone that puts colour first and foremost without entirely losing that edge which all horror games have to hold onto in order to be taken at least semi-seriously.
Objective truth
One of the only downsides present in Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game, setting aside its occasional performance hitches, which seemed to be a common enough issue with a number of the titles at PAX East this year, is the lack of in-game clarity regarding the game's core objectives.
While the developers and other attending staff provided written material and verbal guidance to help PAX East attendees figure out what was what, day one players will not be have access to the same when the game launches later this year.
I'm not sure if the objectives need to be pinned to the UI or whether additional contextual in-game visual cues can be added in to offset this, but this was a concern both my friend and I raised when talking through our shared hands-on experience at the convention.
Overall:
Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game is shaping up to be an absolutely splendidly silly and yet still moderately spooky experience, one which will hopefully improve over time, given Illfonic's public commitment to post-launch content, quality of life improvements, and other additions.