Party on Hallow Grove

Extremely shocked to learn this came out last year and not 2015 based on the dialogue lol. So, to start, it’s an easy, simple game that’s more about the story, art and music, so it’s important that you like those in order for the game to be worth it. You do simple tasks, not even puzzles really, you just have to figure out how to complete a list of tasks for a birthday party. Great short experience for Halloween fans! The pixel art and animation is very cute, I love the color choices a lot. Some of the character designs are better than others, but they’re all fine. The house is very fun to look at and walk around, those who made the backgrounds and sprites did a great job. One of the best things was how quick and responsive the gameplay is, almost nothing feels tedious. The pixels are nice and crispy. The music is good and exactly what you expect. The most important and noticeable aspect of the game is dialogue, because most of what you do is talking to people (Halloween monsters, I mean). It’s not bad or offensive by any means, but like I mentioned, I was having a flashback to my days on tumblr dot com around 2014-2017. One big thought I had with this game is that it seems like it would be great for kids based on how easy and cutesy it is, but on the other hand, it couldn’t be because it’s full of bad words and sex/alcohol/drug references. Sometimes it felt a little emotionally confusing because the characters would be very sappy and sensitive about each other, but then be really brutally cruel towards other characters in a way that felt kind of jarring. Though I suppose it’s a realistic way for teens/young adults to act. In summary, despite dealing almost exclusively with adult themes, it doesn’t feel very adult-oriented. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, it reminds me of what I would have liked as a teenager. I don’t want to assume the game was inspired by Undertale, but there’s an emotional ending with a theme of trauma, friendship and acceptance. It seemed like something that wasn’t earned due to the short length of the game. Suddenly every character was traumatized or depressed despite none of this being brought up previously (aside from a few characters discussing their troubles), and since they brought up every characters trauma at once, none of it felt meaningful. I brought up Undertale because I feel that it’s a child-friendly game with a more deep and meaningful story under the surface, while Party on Hollow Grove is adult-oriented but has very surface level story that tries to make itself deep at the very end. I think the simple plot was fine, I just think the “emotional” ending wasn’t necessary. In the end, it’s a fun, short experience that was very well-made as a game. I would encourage the developers and artists to keep making games, because they clearly have talent making things that are nice to look at and feel good to play. It would be amazing to see a longer game that tries to tackle the emotional themes that this game was trying to go for, allowing more time for character and plot development.