Evil Pumpkin: Missing Halloween
Collector’s Edition
Release Date: 2014
Developer: 2 Desperados Games
Love/Hate Relationship***
BASED ON BETA
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
From the beginning, this game had me on edge. Just what was going on? A kid hiding a book from his Dad? Goofy, 2D graphics with surrealist tendencies? An owl who is already getting on my goat? But... But... something about it hooks you immediately.
SIGHTS & SOUNDS
The graphics are of a type you either love or hate, that strangely colourful but not bright and light, clear but not even vaguely realistic, and all-out-of-perspective look. I know not what to call it. I quite like it as a change. The technical quality is not brilliant, but more than adequate. There are curious aspects to it. For instance, a purple octopus as a handling cursor. The odd use of light. But many of the items in the HOPs and the collectible candies are way too small. At the least, a magnifier is needed to make this game enjoyable.
Likewise, the sound track is distinctive. I can’t make up my mind about the boy’s voice, but it’s different. The owl is a ...hoot... (sorry, had to, as you’ll see if you play this game). The music is original and sounds very mysterious, which is good, because a mystery is what we have. It also reminds me of a carnival fun house, which is appropriate too.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
It is not made really clear what is going on, but it seems the boy we are playing with is curious about this legend called Halloween, celebrated on 31st October. That’s the one day his father always spends away from him, doing his ‘secret things’. Like any self-respecting boy, he must uncover the truth! So he steals his father’s “Halloween” book. After narrowly avoiding getting caught by his father, he opens the book on a table. Next thing, he’s having a conversation with an owl! The book is enchanted!
Reading the book on the origins of Halloween, he is horrified to learn that it was a day of great evil and cruelty. Why would his dad want to celebrate this? The owl says he must look harder, he must see the hidden signs of the author’s magic. Much snooping later, he decides to go to town to talk to the bartender at the tavern, the only person who may have information on this event.
GAMEPLAY
Hard. As in very difficult to follow. I constantly had to get hints about what to do next. The leaps in logic are too great for me. But individually, each step make sense. One thing that I find both fascinating and infuriating is the high blown (almost Shakespearean in scope) language, and the rhyming and riddling. On the one hand it is amusingly farcical, but it also makes some of the hints, well, clueless. Much of the gameplay involves riddles, so brush up on your verbal skills!
The HOPs are interactive lists, and tricky to solve even if size doesn’t bother you. They are visited twice. There are also interactive silhouettes. Other puzzles are very few and very simple. This game plays like an adventure game, with quite a lot of chat between the boy and the owl, and lots of clues to decipher. It also feels a little ‘old’, in the style of earlier HOPA games. As well as the owl, we acquire a pet guinea pig for a while, and he helps out.
There is a directional hint, but no map in the demo, although you get an interactive jump map just at the end. Both hint and skip are quite slow, The journal keeps more than just history and ‘quests’. It gives additional, important details and is interactive. Sometimes, you must complete a mini-puzzle in it to proceed. There are, similarly, inventory items that need additional pieces or actions. Inventory bar can be locked. There are 2 levels of difficulty, and a custom. There are misclick penalties as one of the options.
Another feature is the gizbelt. The gizbelt is where you keep those tools that you are going to reuse. Like your scissors when you get them. But that is not all. The giztruments are graded into different levels, and the more they are used the greater their level. Gains in level give them new abilities, and you can only find out what by trial and error.
CE BLING!
The collectible candies buy things in the store that you can use on your Backyard Enhancement Project. This involves lots of pumpkins, skeletons and ravens. There are also collectible bats, but they seem very hard to find. They give you additional hints, so you don’t have to wait for it to refill. Nice if you are as confused as me. But you gotta find ‘em! There are achievements too, of the performance kind, displayed as a big pumpkin tree. The various buttons for all this stuff are too close together – I didn’t think there was an achievements section, because I always ended up in the backyard!
COMBINED IMPACT
I remain of two minds about this game, even after playing the beta twice. Personally, I’m not wrapped in the graphics, but many have reacted favourably to them, so I have to take that into account.
Worst of all, twice now I have been unable to finish the demo. And in different points. This has never happened before. I couldn’t go forward in the second attempt, despite realising my mistake in the first attempt. So I had to take this knowledge with me back to my original profile and finally got to finish the game!
Tough game, and a tough call.
I recommend this game!
Try It Here! 
Now you just have to submit that idea to the developer!
, maybe I can get his attention with the story 
Pitiful, right? LOL.
It wasn't until the beta ended that I even had a clue as to what was going on. Did you like it?
good one
