Penarium

Penarium is a frantic 2D arena arcade game where you take on the role of Willy, trapped in a sinister circus show. Run, jump and avoid an array of killer death-traps while being cheered on by a sadistic crowd that’s out for blood.

Penarium is a indie, action and funny game developed by Self Made Miracle and published by Team17 Digital Ltd.
Released on September 22nd 2015 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 5 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain and Russian.

It has received 400 reviews of which 336 were positive and 64 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 8.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Penarium into these genres:

Indie Action Funny Difficult Platformer Pixel Graphics Controller Colorful Singleplayer Retro Local Co-Op Fast-Paced Co-op 2D Platformer Adventure Gore 2D Arcade

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Penarium through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *: Windows Vista
Processor: Dual Core CPU 2.4 gHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce 8000, ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 300 MB available space
Sound Card: Windows Compatible Card

MacOS

OS: OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or equivalent
Storage: 500 MB available space

Linux

OS: Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit or later
Processor: Dual Core CPU
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000, Nvidia GeForce GT 7800, ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Storage: 500 MB available space

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

May 2022

Fun but tough arena platformer. Basically, you are tasked to break barrels, collect items or press buttons while you try to avoid countless death traps that come at you in a single screen arena. Took me a bit to figure out different tactics for different traps and obstacles, but managed to beat the campaign with less than 250 deaths.

July 2021

Simple, fun, challenging, and addictive! Simple run and jump, avoiding traps and obstacles ... sounds simple, but it's a bloody tough challenge. Great for two player couch coop as well!

June 2021

Penarium is a retro-look platform game with three controls - left, right, jump. That's pretty much all you get. There are 30 levels of increasing difficulty to play through on a campaign 'story' mode, with some funny jokes along the way including the nostalgia reference that reminds me of BBC micro gaming... and then you can play 'arcade' mode on any of the three level designs you encountered previously. The idea of arcade is to survive as long as possible, or in my case to reach a score of 150 to tick off the last achievement. This game is seriously hard. Really, proper, seriously hard. This is Skyroads hard, but with more of a sense of humour. The other reviews are a fair reflection of the game, it's repetitive, it's frustrating, there's not much to the game, but it is incredibly difficult. Some other reviews point to the game using artificial levels of difficult, bombarding our little jumpy man with more and more nonsense to have to survive. I don't think this is artificially difficult, I can feel my skills improving in order to survive. It's just not very complicated. Anyway, I have finally finished all achievements and can now happily say I have finished the game. In my recent world of being bored with games for not offering enough challenge or enough to care about, suffering 20 hours of determined finger smashing I am pretty happy for the value I got on my $1 spend on this game during a discount day.

June 2016

Penarium is a pure platformer. No exploration, no shooting. Only moving and jumping. What else is there? A self-contained level whose borders you can cross to find yourself on the other side, and traps. Tons of traps that cycle during the duration of the level. Machine-guns, homing missiles, bubble-gum to make the platforms sticky while a see-saw journeys across… The goal of the game is to collect items that spawn in the level while avoiding different sets of traps. Simple, and yet effective. This game is exactly what I was looking for. I am quite sick of the ‘muscle memory’ platformers where you have to learn by heart at which point of the level you jump, the perfect trajectory to land between spikes, and so on. Penarium focuses on the moment-to-moment frantic experience. Quick skills are required instead of a good finger memory, and it is rather telling that less than 20% of the players completed the 1st world. Penarium is very difficult, and as it sports a “sadistic circus” theme, you would have to be a masochist to like it. And yet I never found its difficulty to cross the “unfair” invisible line. The hitbox of the character is actually smaller than he looks. The movements are perfect, with double-jump and responsive controls without either the sliding momentum or the input delay that harm many platformers. The traps are more or less hard to avoid, but all can be predictable or give the player visual cues. But yeah, quick thinking and fast reflexes are mandatory. Oh, and I really appreciate that there is no timer adding an external pressure to the action. It is possible to either rush through the traps, or time them carefully. So despite the high difficulty, moving like a madman and surviving amongst the chaos is exhilarating. It is fun. It does not feel like the game is punishing the player, because the action is constant and the threats come from everywhere while still being manageable. And the variety/movement of traps help make the game not feel repetitive. It can be finished in a few hours, and this type of game is not enjoyable if it gets much longer than that. To extend the fun, there is an endless mode with permanent progression. To conclude, I was surprised to love this simple game so much more than the other hardcore platformers. I think it’s due to the good maneuverability, the difficult yet manageable design, and most of all the dynamic traps that require quick skills and provide a lot of fun by getting rid of the ‘muscle memory’ level design that usually goes with that kind of platformers. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=712733656

June 2016

Oh the joy and the lower back pains this game gave me.. Penarium is an addictive game. It is so simple and I had so much fun, a game you would expect from Team 17. I hope Willy gets to do some other things except from jumping and running in the sequel (if there is one?). 10/10 would recommend! \(^_^)/

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