The Moonlight Circus

The Moonlight Circus

Crooked Creep Creators · May 5, 2022 · VR, Horror, Singleplayer, Immersive Sim, Atmospheric

The Moonlight Circus is free to play — no purchase needed. We track it so you know if that ever changes.

PC
Mixed61% · 44
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →

The Moonlight Circus price

The Moonlight Circus is free to play — there is no purchase price, on Steam or anywhere else we track. We keep watching it, so if it ever stops being free the price history on this page will show when that happened and what it changed to.

About The Moonlight Circus

In the Moonlight Circus , you wake up in the middle of an empty circus arena, with a syringe in your arm and the feeling of being watched.
Who are you? What happened? And how do you get out of here?


Take on the role of the protagonist and escape the Moonlight Circus. Unravel the mystery of the circus and its artists and get out alive.

Features

  • Explore three circus areas
  • Movement through Arm Swinging
  • Physics based gameplay

Team


The Crooked Creep Creators, a team of four students realized The Moonlight Circus with the help of one Sound student and two voice actors in three months as part of their studies at the h_da.

Ben Wührer - Programmer, Game Designer, Sound Manager
Lara Meyer - Vision Keeper, Character Artist, 2D/3D Artist
Lea Wagner - Production Manager, 3D Artist, Animator
Max Rupp - Tech / 3D Artist, Lighting Artist, Shading Artist

Awesome Sound & Music from:
Fabjén Rauch

And the voices behind our characters:
Andrew Latheron
Will Edmisten

The Moonlight Circus was made using Unity and FMOD.

HTC Vive Users:
If you use a vive you have to change the controller mappings, for example switch the menu button on both sides to left primary and right primary in the SteamVR settings. Example image is in the folder with the game files.

The Moonlight Circus — game info

Platforms
Windows
Steam Deck
Unsupported
Player modes
Single-player
PC Game Pass
Not included

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

✦ AI summary

The Moonlight Circus is a VR-exclusive tech demo with an atmospheric spooky circus setting and decent graphics that shows promise in its story and animations. However, players consistently criticize severe technical issues including poor visibility, clunky movement controls, unresponsive hand tracking, lack of menus or customization options, and unclear objectives, making the overall experience frustrating despite its potential as a short horror experience.

Not recommended Dec 16, 2024
"The Moonlight Circus" is a simple student project/tech demo for VR. You're in a spooky circus. You look around, etc etc, in amazing VR... yep, VR support is all this has going for it. The graphics in this game are passable, but could be better. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here. It looks a bit like they "borrowed" some stock assets for this one... if so, that's something instructors should not be encouraging that students do. It's VR exclusive, and that shows the developer failed to understand the most basic axiom of VR game design... if the only cool thing about your product is VR support, your product is not cool. Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game. Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving…
1 found this helpful
Not recommended Oct 1, 2026
Spent the entire playtime trying to figure out how to exit the first room. Spoiler alert: I never found out how :D
Not recommended Apr 27, 2025
ass
Not recommended Sep 11, 2024
Probably the worst game I have ever played in my life. So dark you can barely see anything, The movement controls are terrible. You have to swing your arms & you move at a snail's pace. Sometimes the hands won't even move where you want them to. Once I got stuck in the open & couldn't move anywhere. The sound is terrible. You have no idea where to go. There is no menu. There is no way to save anything or change the controls. Climbing the ladder it was almost impossible to get off it. I only played this game for about 30 mins then had to quit in frustration. No wonder it's free. Nobody would pay for this garbage.
Recommended Jun 12, 2024
This is a really good short story game that is really good for a few scares, however there are a few parts of the game that are hard to understand and the gameplay may be a little bit weird. Overall this game has a pretty decent story for being so short as well a decent graphics and smooth animations on the killer and all of that. It just needs a few things to be fixed and polished A good 7/10 game
Not recommended Jun 9, 2024
bugy

Community reviews

—

0 reviews

Sign in to write a review.

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this game.

More like The Moonlight Circus

News

All news →
Games like Undertale that remember what you didPC

Games like Undertale that remember what you did

Undertale's own listing calls it the RPG where you don't have to destroy anyone. Games like Undertale that keep that idea: permanent choices, fights you can talk past, worlds that notice.

Nov 14, 2026
Games like Slay the Spire that keep the branching climbPC

Games like Slay the Spire that keep the branching climb

Most games like Slay the Spire copy the cards and lose the map. These keep the risky-or-safe choice, from a three-floor train to a deck made of poker hands.

Nov 14, 2026
Bodycam game price: what the zombie update changes about buyingPC

Bodycam game price: what the zombie update changes about buying

The Dead & Damned put Bodycam's zombies back on 13 November. What our dated record says about the Bodycam game price, and why the store's end date matters more than the sticker.

Nov 14, 2026
SilkMU is our new partner: MU Online Season 6 in a browser tabBlog

SilkMU is our new partner: MU Online Season 6 in a browser tab

SilkMU, a MU Online Season 6 server that runs in a browser tab or as an app, opened on 6 November 2026 and is now our partner. What it offers, what is free and what costs WCoin.

Nov 13, 2026
Games like Dying Light, where nightfall changes the rulesPC

Games like Dying Light, where nightfall changes the rules

Games like Dying Light are easy to find if you only want parkour or only want zombies. These eight keep the part that matters: a city that becomes a different place after dark.

Nov 13, 2026
Games like Portal 2, where one idea carries the whole gamePC

Games like Portal 2, where one idea carries the whole game

Games like Portal 2 all share one habit: teach a single impossible trick, then spend a campaign breaking it. From rewinding objects through time to Escher geometry that loops back on itself.

Nov 13, 2026
Planet Coaster DLC: skip the collection, buy the packsBundles

Planet Coaster DLC: skip the collection, buy the packs

The Planet Coaster DLC catalogue closed in 2019, so there is no curve left to wait out. Our record shows the collection bundle costs far more than assembling the same packs one by one.

Nov 13, 2026
Toxic Commando Game Pass: subscribe, or buy the key?Xbox

Toxic Commando Game Pass: subscribe, or buy the key?

The Toxic Commando Game Pass add landed on 12 November. Our price record since late September shows the key route barely moved, which changes what a subscription is worth.

Nov 13, 2026

Top games right now

All rankings →
  1. 1Counter-Strike 2Free
  2. 2Dota 2Free
  3. 3PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDSFree
  4. 4Grand Theft Auto V Legacy—
  5. 5Terraria$2.11
  6. 6Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six SiegeFree
  7. 7Rust$20.19
  8. 8Garry's Mod$6.19
  9. 9Team Fortress 2Free
  10. 10Black Myth: Wukong$35.72
  11. 11HELLDIVERS™ 2$23.99
  12. 12ELDEN RING$38.88
  13. 13Apex Legends™Free
  14. 14Left 4 Dead 2$9.99
  15. 15Stardew Valley$12.11
  16. 16Wallpaper Engine$3.99
  17. 17Cyberpunk 2077$17.99
  18. 18Euro Truck Simulator 2$4.99
  19. 19Dead by Daylight$6.81
  20. 20Red Dead Redemption 2$12.97
  21. 21The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt$9.77
  22. 22Baldur's Gate 3$53.52
  23. 23Phasmophobia$15.60
  24. 24War ThunderFree