Party on Hallow Grove

This game is an utter labor of love, both for the season and for people at its heart. Gameplay-wise, it's very simple. Classic favor-chaining, explore an area, meet someone, find out what they need, find the necessary item tucked away somewhere or by helping someone else with their issue. Classic style and nothing really tricky to it; just scour every room of the property and find what you need to get the party started. But it doesn't really... *need* to be more complicated than that. You agree to what kind of simple and pleasant adventure gaming you're doing when you look at the game, and it's the excuse to talk to people and visit every room. Visiting every room is a delight, of course, because the visuals are incredibly charming. It's fluidly animated pixel art, not trying to emulate any particular console or overbearing faux-retro style, but content to look more like a very polished Cartoon Network flash game. One of your tasks is to hunt down decorations, and as you do, they get added to the environment, fully aiding the environment's continual increase in pleasant spooky aesthetics. Spooky being a very deliberate choice of term. The core of the game comes down to its writing, and here, sincerity shines through. There are a lot of guests to help around Death's mansion, and as the game and trailer distinctly point out, almost everyone's being an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in one way or another. Otherwise the very charming protagonist, Blacky, wouldn't need to do all this. I'd say that the quantity of people in need of help dilutes how much time you can spend working with any particular one of them. As such a number of characters feel like they don't get the time they'd appreciate, and a small number of characters who are very much intended to *just* be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (rather than people you have an emotional connection with who are being a bit rude for specific reasons) get more time taking them down than might be necessary. Also, less items in the environment have flavor text than you might expect: it's mostly contained to a few patches stuffed with item descriptions. However, everything perfectly conveys that the creator had a lot of *fun* writing this, putting themselves out there for comedy beats, opinions, and above all, a real sense of caring. I can easily believe that these characters have more exploration and stronger dynamics elsewhere because vaaasm shows genuine love for them, and largely through them an empathy towards people. A lot of this especially shows itself in the final act, which while maybe not completely earned, is very heartwarming in the passion and good intent surging through it. I'm very happy to have bought and played this game, because it's a very pleasant experience and speaks to some of the reasons behind my own passion for the Halloween season. But also because it means I get to support the artist who made it, and I feel like they really deserve that support and attention. Three cheers of particularly boozy punch to Hallow Grove.