while [b]halloween trouble 2[/b] is the second game in the series, based on my quick research, it has nothing to do with the first one, except of course both being halloween-themed match-3 games. the other one isn't on steam and neither is mentioned on the developer's website. maybe they're not proud of them, and [b]looking at this mess, I'm not surprised[/b].
you're helping granny decorate her house for halloween , but you gotta repair it first because an evil witch destroyed it. oh yeah, granny's a witch too, and apparently this forest they keep calling a jungle ain't big enough for both of them. it's not great even by match-3 story standards.
[b]101 levels[/b] are on offer, unlocked one by one, but [b]about every 5th is a skippable mini-game[/b] (jigsaw, gridlock, memory, pipes), which is a bit excessive. there's a 3-spider rating and points based on something, but they don't matter because [b]levels can't be replayed[/b], so everything will be a 'new high score'. gold is used to upgrade/decorate the house. the difference between [b]casual and expert[/b] isn't explained, but [b]the second layer of difficulty[/b] offers limited moves, limited time, or unlimited everything. you can change these anytime.
besides the usual match-3 shenanigans (remove tiles and break cauldrons, even if their counter is bugged and says you're done) there are [b]a few unique(ish) mechanics[/b], or at least some that aren't seen in every other game. [b]explanation pop-ups keep turning off, whether you actually turn them off, close or don't touch them[/b] (in which case they might disappear faster than you can comprehend a new mechanic). nothing wrong with experimenting, but occasionally I would've liked to know how things worked, so I had to edit my save every few levels to bring them back.
a few examples of the mechanics: invisible tiles only become playable after making a match next to them. chain generators, well, generate chains, locking tiles. weight has to be dropped onto dynamite to trigger it (or a certain amount of matches in other cases). there's a thing that removes one tile type if its counter reaches zero and a manual match is made next to it, and there are [b]timing elements[/b] with blocks switching between destructible and indestructible every few seconds. [b]cascades don't work for clearing most of the special tiles, only manual matches[/b]. keys that have to be brought to the bottom can only be switched vertically, not horizontally. bug or another questionable design decision, who knows?
[b]explosive power-ups[/b] are created by matching 4+ tokens, but also only manually, [b]cascades are useless[/b], and bombs don't clear cauldrons. there's a hammer and shuffle from the get-go, they recharge in real-time in about 10 seconds and a minute, respectively. the shuffle has to be clicked twice to activate, most cumbersome. right click and alt switch between the cursor and the hammer power-up if it's not charged, which is probably another bug and definitely messes with alt+tab.
the presentation is nothing special, though [b]some of the piano music is nice[/b]. separate volume settings, windowed mode with a resizable window, graphics settings, move hint toggle, in-game representation of achievements, and language settings are available. sounds good, except the game is in english, yet language says [i]deutsche[/i] and that's the only option. actual windowed mode is glitchy too: if you resize the window, going back to full screen might result in black bars, but switching back and forth again fixes it. and the move hint toggle doubles as a windowed mode toggle because it's bugged too, so much so that it [b]sometimes suggests impossible moves[/b], e.g. chained tiles as if they were free.
while playing, clicking the 'back' button brings up the pause menu. misleading until you realize it's not gonna abandon the level immediately. [b]no 'no more moves' notification or auto-shuffle[/b], oh, and the level complete screen counts your money and meaningless score really slowly, the continue button doesn't always work, and even when it does, there's a brief black screen before the game loads the next screen. did I mention the game is a mess?
besides these, [b]what also annoyed me was score display.[/b] the game hands out a ridiculous amount, but instead of showing 1,753,454, it just says 1753454. if we're talking thousands, tens of thousands, fine, but how is this acceptable? not that points matter or do anything, and if this was the only issue, it'd be dandy.
the game says it's from 2020, so it has to be one of the company's more recent titles, yet [b]it feels like somebody's first attempt from 10+ years ago[/b]. it has some cool mechanics, but also some questionable ones, and even the first few levels are way more tedious than they should be, plus [b]all the bugs and clunkiness put a damper on things[/b], so I stopped after 40-odd levels.
looks like [b]I was wise to stay away from this developer[/b] until now, and I'll keep avoiding their products in the future. don't even want to know how bad their actual first attempts are.
