February Assassination #2 (SG Win / PoP Pick)

Pumpkin Jack is an extremely mid game - it does what it does well, which is not much. As a 3D platformer and collectathon, it's pretty decent. There's platforming, exploration, combat and some puzzles, with no area being excellent but all being serviceable.

Platforming sometimes require a level of precision the games does not provide, with Jack's jumps being floaty and slippery. Exploration is mostly okay, you'll be on the lookout for crow skulls but other than that levels are extremely linear and there's nothing else to look for. Combat is basic and hectic with no skill involved, just button mashing, but the game keeps it fresh with enemy variety. Puzzles can be fine or awful, but they never go for long enough to bother you. Levels are mostly uninspired, dialogue is unnecessarily bad, graphics are generally good and the music starts off well and gets worse as the levels go by.

All in all, it would be a decent game to spend one or two afternoons with if you paid no more than $15, which means at least 50% off. That said ….

It gets a thumbs down for how poorly optimized/ported it is. My rig is not an incredible rig, but I can play Elden Ring, The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption without hitches. Pumpkin Jack on minimum with all possible effects disabled barely went over 38 FPS for me, all the while frying my GPU. If you die and the level has to reload, or during cutscene transitions, it changes resolution, which can go from fullscreen to borderless to windowed without you ever asking for it. I play on a BenQ projector and it would cut the video output for 2 or 3 seconds as it did so, only to return with a wonky resolution. I don't expect AAA graphics, I just expect a game to run after being installed without requiring over an hour of tinkering.

And for that reason alone, it gets a thumbs down. As a dev, you cannot release a product in this state and call it a day.