Pumpkin Jack

Pumpkin Jack was reviewed on a PS4

You’ll immediately notice Pumpkin Jack’s dedication to its Halloween theme thanks to the delightfully spooky music and menu screen. The intro to the game was extremely polished and made me go and look up the developers. Well turns out, it was a single developer that was responsible for this amusing 3D platformer that exceeded my expectations and left me entertained throughout.

Who is Jack?

The premise of the game is simple; the devil has cast a curse on planet earth and on the meekly humans. Causing pestilence, disease, famine and all manner of bad things, but things are turning awry for the red-horned menace. A human wizard is working on throwing a wrench in the devil’s plan by trying to lift the curse and usurp his power for himself.

This is where Jack steps in. Your job as Jack, who’s actually a real menace unlike Tim Burton’s Jack Skellington, is to get rid of the pesky wizard. Are we the bad guys? As said by your crow sidekick. Well the answer is yes, we definitely are the bad guys in Pumpkin Jack.

The Setting

Pumpkin Jack doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to its whimsically spooky setting. You’ll get to visit all kinds of creepy locations. Abandoned mines, eerie cemeteries and foggy swamps to name a few. All of these locations are cartoonish and beautifully designed, and they’re wonderful to roam through as you can see that a lot of love and care was put in each of them.

Your activities are also varied in these locations as the game tries to inject a unique character in each of them. You’ll climb aboard a ghost ship, chase a carriage while riding on a flying horse à la Sleepy Hollow, or even play classically haunting music on some magic mushrooms. The Alice in Wonderland kind of mushrooms, not Alice Cooper’s, or are they one and the same?

Use Your Head

At a few occasions, Jack can rip off his pumpkin head and throw it down a head-hole. This plot device grants the game a much-needed variety, since it allows you to play a different minigame in each stage.

This is what I absolutely adored about Pumpkin Jack. The fact that each level had a specific theme in mind. The boss fights were catered to it, the minigames were as well, and even a few sections like the Sleepy Hollow one we mentioned earlier.

Though I have to say that the boss fights, despite being visually creative, left a lot to be desired gameplay-wise. I was able to defeat almost all of them from the first try, and they didn’t pose as much of a challenge as I had hoped they would.

Jumping Around

The best thing about the game though would definitely be the platforming. Jumping around as Jack is simple fun thanks to the precise movements and animations. It never felt as if the game was purposefully trying to make you miss that gap. While classic titles like Crash Bandicoot had me pulling my hair at every stage, Pumpkin Jack never frustrated me and good times were had all around.

The same can be said about the combat. Aside from being a platformer, Pumpkin Jack is also a button masher, but a good one at that. Jack’s move set is diverse and pretty to look at. The animations are cartoonish and wonderfully designed. He can dodge, bash, blast and punch his way through his ghostly foes using a variety of weapons.

Spook in Style

Pumpkin Jack offers a couple of things as collectibles for you to collect. The first would be crow skulls that are hidden throughout each level. These skulls can be spent by buying a few different skins for Jack. There’s also a gramophone hidden in the deep nooks and crannies of each level that highlights Jack’s dance moves in a hilariously animated sequence.

The rolling credits feature a few concept arts and early images of the game, but I had wished if they were in game collectibles instead. The game could definitely use the extra playtime, as my playthrough from start to finish clocked in at a meager 3 hours’ time. The short length is truly the only drawback of the game.

The characters you meet alongside your nefarious mission are also entertaining to interact with. The dark humor of the game seeps through these interactions and it made me chuckle quite a few times. It’s a shame though that with the exception of the narrator, there aren’t any voice acting.

Overall,

Pumpkin Jack’s varied locations, masterful platforming and fun combat makes for an entertaining package despite its short length and not being as challenging as its rival titles.

It’s hard to believe that a game as polished and as fun as Pumpkin Jack can be developed by one person. If only the AAA industry was filled with, more talented people like Nicolas Meyssonnier, the developer of Pumpkin Jack, that focuses on making more good games rather than stuff their titles with money-making schemes and micro transactions.

It’s clear from the get go, the amount of passion and dedication that was put into creating Pumpkin Jack. We’re looking forward to seeing what he’s got in store for us next.

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Special thanks go to Headup Games for providing us with a review code.

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You should play Pumpkin Jack if you

• Enjoy classic platforming games
• Enjoy the Halloween themed setting
• Wouldn’t mind the lack of challenge
• Don’t mind the short length

Pumpkin Jack’s Score

8/10