Editorial policy
What the search results around The Freak Circus are missing is not content. It is a way to tell who is telling the truth. This page explains how we answer that.
Official sources last checked
The four labels
In game
Seen or read directly in the current public build of the game.
Creator confirmed
Stated by Neko Bueno (Garula) in a devlog, an AMA answer or on the official itch.io page.
Planned
Officially announced as upcoming content. Not playable in the current build.
Community theory
A reading proposed by players. Consistent with the game, but never confirmed.
Unconfirmed
Frequently asked, but there is no reliable answer yet. We would rather say so than guess.
The sources we use
Primary
- · The game itself, in the current public build (prototype v0.2)
- · The official itch.io store page
- · The official devlog
- · The developer's Tumblr and AMA answers
Secondary
The community-maintained Fandom wiki, used only where an entry cites the developer's own posts. We follow the citation back to the primary source. Anything we cannot trace does not get labelled creator-confirmed.
What we do not use
Other guide and aggregator sites. They are currently the main source of bad information in this topic — invented ending names, made-up character stats, the end of the build written up as an "open ending". We do not repeat them, and "everyone says so" is not evidence.
How often we re-check
We periodically re-read the itch.io store page, the full devlog list and the developer's Tumblr, then update the "last checked" stamp at the top of each page. That date is when we actually checked, not when the page was published or restyled.
Current stamp:
Things we will not do
- 01Invent ending names, unlock requirements or hidden stats to fill a page.
- 02Write up the point where the current build stops as an ending.
- 03Give a character a specific age. The developer has only published an order.
- 04Quietly pick a side when an in-game narrator and the developer disagree, without saying so.
- 05Guess at an unannounced release date.
- 06Re-host the game. The developer has explicitly asked people not to reupload it elsewhere.
A worked example
Were Columbina and Pierrot lovers?
In the game, the Jester's puppet show tells it as a love story. That is something a player can see, so "the Jester tells it this way" is labelled in-game. But in the anniversary Columbina AMA the creator said the two were never romantically involved, so "they were not lovers" is labelled creator-confirmed. We publish both and say they conflict — because the conflict is the most interesting thing about the character. A lot of sites copied only the puppet-show half.
Corrections
If you find an error, tell us. When something is shown to be wrong we correct it rather than deleting the page and pretending otherwise. If the developer disputes anything here, the developer's account wins.
contact@thefreakcircus2.com