Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival

Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival is the tenth in the series, and the first by Elephant Games. In this game, the Master Detective is sent to an to investigate an anomaly, which turns out to be now-rotting-in-a-cornfield Fate's Carnival.
Oh, and the Master Detective accidentally releases Alister Dalimar from the Ball of Fate and has to kill his bad, evil, book with silver to recapture him.

Debug Options#

Create a profile named Cheater (not case-sensitive) to have access to a couple of debugging tools.
A list of available keys are:

F1 - F5: Teleport keys. These go to certain locations in the story along with the items you would have when they are first encountered. Possible locations are:

Key	Location	Items	Notes
F1	Outside Carnival (version 1)	None	Plays intro cutscene
F2	Outside Carnival (version 2)	Corkscrew, Fish Skeleton #1	None
F3	Outside Carnival (version 3)	Corkscrew, Fish Skeleton #1, Lighter, Theater Key	None
F4	Rail’s End	Corkscrew, Fish Skeleton #1, Lighter, Mutoscope Film	None
F5	Outside Tomb	Lighter	Plays bonus game intro

U: When pressed in the main game, then exiting to the main menu, it will show the "You've completed the main game!" popup, regardless of actual progress throughout the game. After it's been shown once, pressing it again does nothing.
I: Does the exact same thing that pressing U does, but for the Bonus Game.
Tab: Highlights everything on the screen that can be interacted with. Items that can be picked up are highlighted red, and items that need to be found in hidden-object scenes are highlighted in green.

Expanded Debug Options#

This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.
Specifically: Find out how to access the extra options. Messing around in the XML file should help.

While the debugging mode is somewhat bare-bones, the file mod_cheater.xml reveals it has a more robust selection of options, such as a FPS counter, an instant skip button for cutscenes, and even a console! However, the way to access these is currently unknown.

Unused Graphics#

Master Detective Bobblehead#

A rather masculine version of the Master Detective, with the filename picture_bobbblehead_toy.png [sic]. Presumably, it's for the tab to view the bobblehead collection, since bobbleheads in the collection have separate head and body graphics so that the head will bounce when clicked on. In the final game, the bobblehead used for this is Madame Fate's, and the Master Detective's own bobblehead looks entirely different, along with their gender never being directly specified.

Secret Room Background#

MCF_Fate's_Carnival_Secret_Room.jpeg
A background for the Secret Room, misspelled as "secreet room".