Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child

Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child

Developers
	Third Law Interactive
Publishers
	Gathering of Developers
Engines
	LithTech 1.5
Release dates
Windows	July 14, 2000
Reception
Metacritic	71
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Fantasy, Horror
Series	Kiss

Kiss
Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child	2000
Kiss Pinball	2000

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS and shooter game in the Kiss series.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail

Essential improvements

Run Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child on modern systems

Use Felizpe's patch
FIxes "rainbow colors" on intro videos and menus. Forced resolution allows high resolution without shrinking the HUD. Allows for bigger resolutions and widescreen support.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\autoexec.cfg <path-to-game>\default.cfg <path-to-game>\server.cfg <path-to-game>\server_bighead.cfg

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\save\

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor			See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen			See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD			See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)		The FOV slider in the game options under Interface is not truly Hor+, as it only handles horizontal FOV, the vertical FOV is still cut off at wider resolutions than 4:3, squishing the image. Instead, follow the Instructions for other aspect ratios section of the FOV Fix to change the FOV.
Windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Game logic is tied to frame rate. At over 60 fps, mouse is jerky and cutscenes are too fast cutting off characters' voice lines. At extremely high frame rates, game runs inhumanly fast. Set the monitor refresh rate on 60 Hz to fix it.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

Edit autoexec.cfg and <user-id>.cfg
Open <path-to-game>/autoexec.cfg and <path-to-game>/profiles/<user-id>.cfg. Change the lines "ScreenHeight" and "ScreenWidth" to the desired ones. Notes Vert-: FOV is cropped on wider resolutions than 4:3. Use the FOV Fix to fix it.

Run the game in widescreen resolutions
Download Kiss - Widescreen Fix. Extract to the installation folder and overwrite if asked to. Run KISS: Psycho Circus launcher and either change the resolution inside the launcher, or inside the game. Notes The FMVs are rendered only in 8bit color and the Cutscenes higher than 16:9 have many gliches. HUD is rendered too small at higher resolutions.

or:

Use Felizpe's patch
Download the fix on ModDB page. Install the fix following the instructions on the screen. Run KISS: Psycho Circus launcher and either change the resolution inside the launcher, or inside the game. Notes This fix only works when the game is installed on the main C: drive.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		A3D 1.0, EAX 1.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play
LAN play		16
Online play		GameSpy services have been shut down; see GameSpy for workarounds.

Issues unresolved

Can't uninstall the game on Windows 10

If the game is installed in any other drive besides the main one, the uninstall information gets corrupted and it can't be uninstalled from inside the Control Panel, returning a "catastrophic failure" error message.

Set the compatibility mode to Windows 98/Windows ME for the Setup.exe file located on the game's CD-ROM then install the game. The uninstaller will work fine after from the Control Panel - Programs and Features.

Issues fixed

Weird colors on startup videos and menus

Install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit. During the installation, in the Select features you want to install section, tick the box Application Compatibility Tools (Untick all the other boxes, they aren't needed for this fix). After installing, go to Windows search and search for Compatibility Administrator (32-bit). After opening it, go to System Database (32-bit)>Applications>KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child. Right click the first client.exe and click in Disable Entry. Notes This method works with dgVoodoo 2, so the widescreen fixes aren't needed to fix this issue.

Mouse movement jumping pixels/stuttering

Use dinputto8
Download and extract dinput.dll to <path-to-game>. Go ingame, open the mouse options in Setup, and set Mouse Input Rate to the maximum and lower Mouse Sensitivity until the jittering is gone.

Can't reinstall the game after the above error

Delete the corrupted files
Enable hidden folders to show up on Windows Explorer. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield Installation Information\. Delete the folder with the setup's GUID of the game.

High FPS Issues

Limit the Framerate to 60 FPS
See Frame rate capping.

Set refresh rate on 60 Hz

Game crashes on startup

Use custom DLL
Download dinput.dll and place it in <path-to-game>.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	7

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System	5.0d 5.0f version 1.1
Cutscenes	Smacker Video Technology	4.0d

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 266 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 8.0 compatible