Don't let the colorful kiddie-friendly graphics fool you; Pumpkin Jack is a game about literal hell on Earth. It takes place in a world where everything was so happy and peaceful, the devil himself got bored and decided to shake things up a bit by releasing monsters across the world.
Humans didn't like having their peaceful lives interrupted like that, so they hired a wizard to protect them against the invading hordes of demons. In response, the devil summoned an infamous trickster known as Jack to take out the wizard. He granted Jack a jack-o-lantern body and offered to free his soul if Jack did this one task for him.
You play as Jack, roaming the lands and fighting various monsters who prevent you from tracking down the wizard. You recruit a crow, who helps you with ranged fighting while you engage in close-quarters combat.
Some places require you to explore and solve a simple puzzle in a place your body can't reach. In those situations, Jack will detach his head and let it crawl around on vine-like tentacles.
Despite releasing in 2020, this game feels like a classic Xbox 360 game from 20 years ago. From the graphic style to the gameplay, this feels like something you'd find in a bargain bin at the game store. It's entertaining, silly, and filled with mechanics that feel like they were designed for a controller.
Not to mention, each level is essentially a single path through various obstacles and enemies. If you do explore, it's only slightly to one side or another, looking for collectibles. If you find crow skull collectibles, you can exchange them for skins for Jack at a vendor who randomly pops up in each of the levels.
You can also find gramophones. I believe the only purpose of collecting them is to get an achievement, but Jack does a little dance number every time you find one, which is mildly amusing.
The game itself is relatively short. There are 6 main levels, but various checkpoints and stages throughout each one. So it should only take you a few hours to beat the whole game. Plus, there are 20 crow skulls and one gramophone per level, so 120 skulls and 6 gramophones in total. Honestly, that's the most early-2000s game vibe I get from this - searching for pointless hidden collectibles that aren't remotely connected to the story.
It's not a bad game, but as old-fashioned as the gameplay is, I definitely wouldn't pay more than $20 max for it. And hey! It's 88% off on Steam until October 20th, so you can get it for only $3.59 right now. Not a bad Halloween deal.
