Send In The Clown packs familiar Japanese RPG features—experience points, skill unlocks, party building, and turn-based combat—into roughly an hour of play. Its entire story unfolds at one disastrous 12th birthday party. You control Pockets, a downcast clown brought in to save the day for Miranda. Nearly everything you do leads to the game’s sole battle: a showdown with Miranda’s brother, Tad.
Quick answer: Send In The Clown is a roughly one-hour comedy RPG from Mad Herons with a single turn-based boss fight. A demo is on Steam now, and no release date is confirmed.
Send In The Clown’s setup: Pockets, Miranda, and Tad
Pockets is an underdog in a crowded market. In the opening, a business directory lists competitors such as “Party DJs / DJs Who Party” and “Three DJs Named JD.” Party DJs have taken over children’s entertainment, and clown work is hard to find. So when Pockets and his colleague Betty finally land a booking, they celebrate in the office.
The gig goes badly from the start. It is raining, the backyard is a mess, and Miranda tells Pockets her birthday is a disaster. Then Tad shows up with a cloud of green fumes behind him and announces, “It’s my party now!” The rest of the game is about winning the party back.
Pockets’ design is consistent: white face paint, a red nose, and a compact fedora accompany his orange collared shirt and purple-and-white striped overalls with suspenders. He also has white gloves, enormous red shoes, a painted, downturned mouth, and a teardrop.
Exploring the party and leveling up clown skills
Most of the hour is spent walking around the house, the backyard, and even the rooftops. A quest tracker in the lower-left corner shows the current goal, such as “Find the cake.” Objects you can interact with have rings on the ground around them. Activities shown so far include delivering pies, twisting balloon animals for guests at the pool, stacking sandwiches, and dealing with a missing supply of hot dogs.
Pockets doesn’t learn swords or spells. He learns clown tricks. Completing tasks earns XP, with pop-ups like “+20 XP,” and leveling up unlocks new skills. At Level 2, Pockets gets Flower Power. Holding RT makes his flower spray strong bursts of water that soak kids and adults and knock hats off people in the crowd. Other skills involve managing piles of questionable hot dogs.
Recruiting party guests for the fight against Tad
Every guest has a problem to sort out. Complete a minigame, solve a light puzzle, or choose the right dialogue to win them over; friends are eligible to join the final battle. Recruits come with Strength, Charisma, and Magic stats, along with one special ability. As you add or remove members on the team-select screen, the “Picks Left” counter shows how many slots remain.
| Guest | How you win them over | Special ability | Stats (Str / Cha / Mag) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ned | Dance-A-Tron 10,000! rhythm game | Dance Troupe | Not shown |
| Nasser | Barometric Cheer-U-Lator pool game | Be A Hero | 4 / 8 / 0 |
| Eleanor | Backyard vulture fight | Throw Baby Alia | 5 / 5 / 0 |
| Carol | Not shown | Flirt With Pockets | Not shown |
Ned is a single father who insists he can’t dance. The Dance-A-Tron 10,000! is a button-prompt rhythm game in the style of Guitar Hero. Clearing it unlocks Dance Troupe, a group attack.
Nasser is a nervous boy in snorkel gear who admits he’s scared. Pockets fills a meter by getting the pool crowd excited. When Nasser joins, a “You’ve Got A Friend In Nasser” title card appears, and he brings the defensive Be A Hero move.
Eleanor is an exhausted mother in need of a break. Her sequence plays as a timed quick-time event reminiscent of Uncharted. Pockets must keep a vulture away from Baby Alia while prompts appear, including “Shoo Vulture!”, “Fight Vulture!”, “Brave!”, and “Heroic!” Completing it grants the offensive Throw Baby Alia attack.
Other guests also appear in the battle party, including Linda, Hector, and Jen. Some recruits can also interrupt Tad’s turn with a comedic moment, but only if Pockets built the right relationship with them earlier.
How the single boss battle with Tad works
The fight takes place on the backyard lawn under a “MIRANDA VS TAD” banner. Tad’s health bar sits at the top of the screen. It is the only combat encounter in the game, so everything you did earlier comes into play at once.
Pockets doesn’t deal much damage himself. He plays a support role, and his command menu has three options.
- Empower: buffs an ally and triggers that guest’s own special, such as Ned’s Dance Troupe or Carol’s Flirt With Pockets.
- Heal All: restores health to every party member in one go; displayed amounts include +36 and +105.
- Item: uses items collected before the fight.
Tad fights back with poison gas. A green cloud spreads across the lawn and marks characters as POISONED, which is why party-wide healing matters. When Pockets buffs an ally, green arrows and muscle icons appear above them. Damage numbers in the footage range from double digits up to a 408-point hit. The fight ends with Pockets belly-flopping into the birthday cake.
Exploring the house also changes the fight. Behind a door covered in “No Girls Allowed” and “DO NOT ENTER” stickers, Pockets finds Baby Tad photos. He can also trigger a secret event called “Found Religion” and wake up a sleeping Nanna. These discoveries change the conditions of the battle, so a thorough search of the house leads to a different fight than a quick run.
Branching choices, endings, and RPG parody
Dialogue choices change both the path through the party and the ending you get. One prompt shows Pockets thinking “(Better choose carefully).” Bad choices can push Miranda to announce she’s joining a nunnery, “the least happy place on Earth.” Mad Herons designed the game for multiple playthroughs, so you can try different relationships and outcomes on a second or third run.
The game is packed with jokes, and many of them poke fun at RPG conventions.
- A retro shoot-’em-up in the style of Space Invaders, America Shoots Guns At The World, where Pockets tries to beat a kid’s high score.
- Dating options with the household plumbing: a bathtub and a shower.
- A sun god who admits, “Sorry, I’m useless in tough situations!”
- Side trips to a snowy mountain camp and a garage jam with Brian and Cory.
Mad Herons and the team behind Send In The Clown
Mad Herons, a new Los Angeles studio, was founded by improv comedy veterans Jacques Mouledoux, Karen Park, and Nick Park. Jacques and Nick share directing duties on the game. The concept took shape at the 2024 Global Game Jam, where Mouledoux, Nick Park, and Conner McCabe made the initial version; development continued for the following two years. Tyler Hutchison, director of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, created Pockets’ facial animations. The voice cast features LA improv comedians, including Courtney Vineys, whose credits include Hades and Hades II.
Send In The Clown demo and release date status
Announced on September 4, 2026, Send In The Clown made its debut at The MIX indie showcase. The game is headed to Steam, with wishlisting and a demo available now. In the demo, you can explore, recruit guests through minigames, and battle Tad. No official release date is confirmed yet, and no other platforms have been announced.
