100 Pumpkins

The game's title is pretty much what you're supposed to do. There are 100 screens connected in a metroidvania kind of way. Each screen has 1 pumpkin, you have to collect all of them to complete the game. There are no upgrades or anything to unlock. You have to remember the shortcuts and generally what you're supposed to do. You get some hints with each screen having text that can be helpful, funny or a trap on rare occasions. I love the way the screens are connected to one another. There are some very good ones with the 'puzzles'. The simplicity works in the game's favour. There are lots of good ideas. Those ideas were not all executed well on the technical side. The biggest issue the game has against it is the weird timing of enemy attacks and jumps. For instance, the snake boss can throw boulders at you constantly with little room to avoid them. You die and the next time the timing will be more lenient. A few times the snake stops attacking completely. With jumps, they often feel extremely slippery, causing you to die on the spot. Reducing the fps to 60 helped somewhat with the snake boss, but there were still plenty of unreliable moments. The biggest sin is having an achievement that requires you to finish the game without dying. If the game is perfect with the controls, timing, fps etc. that would be one thing. But adding it to a game with technical issues that make the gameplay unreliable is another. A game that normally takes 30 minutes to complete after getting familiar with it took me 6.7 hours total to get all the achievements. It goes without saying that I'm unhappy with this one achievement that shows the game's problems clear as light. Things would have been different if it wasn't there. But I still enjoyed my time overall. Others can still enjoy it too if they don't try to get all the achievements. 100 pumpkins is a temporary distraction, hopefully the sequel will be the real deal.