Mr. Pumpkin Adventure

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Mr. Pumpkin Adventure, released on PC and Wii U in 2016 and ported to Xbox One and PlayStation Vita in 2017, is a touchscreen-olnly Graphic Adventure where players must guide the titular pumpkin-headed man through a world of odd puzzles as he tries to regain his memory.

The presentation here is pretty good, making use of hand-drawn 2D visuals backed by a largely calm instrumental soundtrack. It’s nice but nothing unusual, apart from the inexplicably fruit and vegetable-headed characters throughout the game. Not sure what that’s about.

As for the gameplay, this is a fairly standard Graphic Adventure, though the world it’s set in is odd, and the puzzles players are presented with are somewhat nonsensical. It never gets as bad as the old “Sierra logic” days, but right from the start players will be deciphering odd passwords and notes pieced together from various sources. There seems to be some attempt at explaining these as the game’s main character being paranoid about protecting some sort of important information from an untrustworthy third party, but this doesn’t quite go far enough to explain the oddities of the way this world works.

Players who get stuck can refer to hints they can receive at any time, but to get these hints, they must play a short Auto-Runner level. It’s not very challenging, but it is an annoyance, and even upon receiving the hint, players will sometimes be left scratching their heads. Making things worse, this game does not appear to have any sort of “hot spot” indicator, so players will often find themselves tapping around each screen just to look for what objects they can and cannot interact with.

In the end, Mr. Pumpkin Adventure distinguishes itself with its pleasant presentation, its strange characters, and its odd world, but not much else. As Graphic Adventure games go, it’s okay, but nothing truly remarkable within the genre. If you’re a Graphic Adventure fan you may enjoy this game, but most players should skip it.

tl;dr – Mr. Pumpkin Adventure is a Graphic Adventure where players try to help the titular pumpkin-headed man recover his memory in an odd world filled with puzzles to piece together. Apart from the odd world and nice presentation, there’s nothing to truly distinguish this game within the genre. Not great, not terrible, and certainly not a game anyone but fans of Graphic Adventure games should feel the need to play.

Grade: C

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