Clown Gremlins

"Let me guess. Coulrophobia?"

- Bierce questioning player's inspiration for the Clown Gremlins.

The Clown Gremlins (referred to as Grem Clowns in-game) are one of the many enemies in Dark Deception. They make their first appearance in Chapter 3, and are the main enemies of the level "Crazy Carnevil", sharing the level with the boss enemies, Goliath Clowns, and the support enemies, the Clown Cars.

Appearance
The Clown Gremlins are small, bald humanoid creatures bearing generic clown features. Similar to the Murder Monkeys, they have large heads compared to their bodies, very small eyes, and sharp teeth. Their heads are entirely white, resembling the color of generic clown faces.

The color of a Clown Gremlins eyes are yellow with black slit-like pupils. They wear red lipstick, have black slashes down their eyes, and wear a black pointy hat with a white stripe. Like generic clowns, they have large red noses. Their eyes appear to coated in black powder or some other unknown pigmentation.

They wear dark tan clothing with faint stripes running down them and two black pom poms on their cloth, similar to buttons. Their arms are in a pattern with black and white stripes, and end with small claws. They have four digits on each hand, seemingly reminiscent of cartoon characters, who are often designed with four fingers.

They appear to wear boots that bear a generic, standard appearance rather than a clown-related footwear style.

In Act II, the Clown Gremlins looked relatively similar to their normal appearance, except they have pale skin with a strange glowing turquoise-tint on their skin and wearing a shade of light pinkish-red clothing, lipstick, and glowing red eyes.

Behavior
Clown Gremlins rely primarily on their large numbers and the environmental mechanics to kill the player. Their methods, however, differ based on the zone they're in. According to Vince, the Clown Gremlins act as a swarm type enemy, making the player heavily rely on Primal Fear. When stunned, the Clown Gremlins will stay still and dizzily spin their heads around.

Act I
In Act 1, the Clown Gremlins rely greatly on Clown Cars. Within zone 1, the Clown Gremlins will only appear when a Clown Car manages to catch up to them. Upon catching up to the player, the Clown Car will deposit several Clown Gremlins in front of it through teleportation, each one waving at the player before giving chase. If the player were to use Primal Fear on the gremlins, each of them will be stunned for a brief period of time before returning to their vehicles. The player must also be cautious of the traps across the level, such as music boxes and swinging hammers.

Due to the two-floor nature of the environment, the player can enter through any portal to evade them, as suggested by a death tip.

Ring Barrier Tent (1)
Upon interacting with the ring altar after competing zone 1, a caption reading "Not yet," will appear. The tent will then rotate, revealing various rooms containing different contents.

Shortly after rotating, a Clown Gremlin will suddenly appear and wave at the player, without pursuing them. The Clown Gremlin will attempt to block of any rooms that appear, including the blocked-off exit, the zone 2 entrance, and a secret. In order to get past, the player must use Primal Fear to stun it and enter the space it is guarding.

Act II
In the Fun House (zone 2) there will be no Clown Cars and the Clown Gremlins will no longer need to rely on them as now there will 5 groups of 5 clown gremlins, the player will have to collect all soul shards in the Fun House maze while avoiding the now frenzied Clown Gremlins. If one Clown Gremlin sees finds the player then all the Clown Gremlins in the Fun House will be alerted. The Clown Gremlins cannot go to the elevated walkway of the Fun House making it the safest place in zone 2. Upon collecting all soul shards the Clown Gremlins will vanish and the player has to avoid Malak and return to the Ring Barrier Tent.

Ring Barrier Tent (2)
The player interacts with the ring altar again, and is able to collect it. However, several Clown Gremlins will spawn within the room, and the player must wait until the room spins to the exit in order to escape, all the while avoiding the Clown Gremlins in the small room.

Boss Battle
In the boss battle with the Goliath Clowns, they will puke out Clown Gremlins from blue orbs in their mouths. The player will be equipped with a mallet which they can use to kill the Clown Gremlins if they deliver a precise hit to one of them, however, the player should not get cocky and cause a rampage or they will be killed from the swarm of Clown Gremlins. The Clowns Gremlins get destroyed if the player uses Primal so it is recommended to use it often when you are chased by a swarm of Clown Gremlins. Each time you destroy a Goliath Clown, the more Clown Gremlins will spawn, so you have to be very careful while killing the Goliath Clowns. Upon killing all 4 Goliath Clowns, the remaining Clown Gremlins chasing you will also vanish, with the player having to avoid Malak and escape to the portal.

Personality
While not much is known about their personality, the Clown Gremlins, much like the rest of the antagonists of the game, carry a very aggressive, and quite murderous nature. Other than that, they are also implied be quite chaotic and insane judging by their namesake and the fact they love taunting the player by waving, attempting to startle and surprise them with each of their deadly traps and their Clown Cars as well as laughing while chasing the player. They also try to quickly overwhelm and kill the player in sheer numbers.

Trivia

 * Like the Gold Watchers and Malak, the Clowns are voiced by Christopher Corey Smith.
 * These enemies definitely represent Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
 * Within the level, Bierce even directly mentions this phobia when questioning the inspiration for the nightmare.
 * One of the developers hinted on their behavior, stating that their move-set is more scary than their appearance, hinting the increased difficulty in the upcoming chapter.
 * Before their design was changed, they used to be one of the first monsters to have pupils in their portal icon. Second is Trigger Teddy.
 * In the earlier model the clown gremlins had much wider eyes
 * Their height was confirmed to be shorter than Agatha, making them to be the smallest enemies in the game so far.
 * On May 10th 2019, the developer on twitter released a 14 second video of some of the animations of a Clown Gremlin (Animations including a Peek-a-boo, wave, running, and stunned).
 * In the video, the clown's eyes are shown to have been shrunken. From what is said, this is the final design for the Clowns, which, in comparison to the original design, appears more ominous and menacing.