head to head

Dark Arcana: The Carnival cover artvsEscape from Monkey Island cover art

Dark Arcana: The CarnivalvsEscape from Monkey Island

Dark Arcana: The Carnival leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos); Escape from Monkey Island leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).

EXECUTION1 /10READS0 /10VARIANCE3 /10OPTIMIZATION5 /10
Dark Arcana: The CarnivalEscape from Monkey Island

Axis by axis

Execution1 vs 1

Even - both lean on execution about the same.

Reads0 vs 0

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance3 vs 2

Dark Arcana: The Carnival leans harder on variance: Object locations are unknown until spotted

Optimization5 vs 6

Escape from Monkey Island leans harder on optimization: Once known, every puzzle has one fixed answer

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Dark Arcana: The Carnival

full breakdown

Escape from Monkey Island