"The moon lay pale against the sky,
And Petunia turned as she heard a cry.
'My cat!' she gasped, and with wand held ready,
Petunia kept her nerves rock steady.
'That Jack Rotheart must be to blame,
For taking my cat, and probably this rain!'
And with that, our witch still soundly vexed,
Took on the Jack's pumpkins, each one hexed."
Welcome to a little Halloween gift from Pond! While we wait patiently for the full game to be completed (Ant is surrounded by pumpkins as we speak) we thought we'd offer this All Hallow's tasty treat for you.
Contained within is a simplified version of the Score Attack mode of Petunia Pickle's Pumpkin Peril. Rack up a high score and try to stay upright while zapping pumpkins and keeping your magic from draining for as long as possible.
At its heart Pumpkins is a simple, single screen shooter, based on Attack of the Mutant Cabbages, Ant's RESET 4K 2016 competition entry. The full version will have a little story mode about Petunia's cat, extra baddies, power-ups, and other new things to keep you entertained.
We hope you have fun playing this preview!
Controls
Control Petunia with a joystick in Port 2
Tap and release fire to do a quick magic zap. This has long range and only slightly drains your magic but doesn't do a lot of damage.
Hold fire to wind up your wand and unleash a mega-zap! This has shorter range, drains your magic quickly but does lots of damage. Killing a baddie with mega-zap scores triple points! Also, some enemies get slowed down by a healthy burst of mega-zap magic.
Fwhoosh! Ka-BLAMMO! Fizzle!
Your magic level is indicated by sparkling motes of magic on your wand at the bottom of the screen. It always ticks down and using magic drains it at various rates. When your magic level is drained entirely Petunia turns into a pumpkin and the game is over. The screen pulses as a warning when your magic is low.
You can replenish your magic by picking up yellow pumpkins from your pumpkin patch and placing them in any of the three cauldrons. To pick up a yellow pumpkin, stand over it and hold down fire to start winding up your wand. You'll magically teleport a pumpkin to the top right of the screen as Petunia swipes her wand up. You can release the button so you don't waste magic doing a mega-zap attack. Once you've picked up a pumpkin, touch the right side of any of the cauldrons. If the cauldron isn't full (cauldrons can currently only hold nine pumpkins), then the pumpkin will teleport into the cauldron and a large of Petunia's magic is replenished.
Touching any of the "lane" baddies causes Petunia to whirl about and lose a life. You have three lives. Lose all lives and the game is over.
While all "lane" baddies can knock Petunia over and cause her to lose a life some baddies are also beneficial. Little purple pumpkins will plant themselves in the ground as yellow pumpkins in spaces closest to a cauldron, and flip-top pumpkins will blow up if they reach the cauldron, costing you a little magic but freeing up space in your cauldron for more yellow pumpkins.
Watch out for the persistent, invincible, magic-draining bat swarm!
Credits
Programming, graphics and design by Ant Stiller
Music, sfx and loader picture by Vanja Utne
Beta testers:
Roy Fielding
Craig Derbyshire
Graham Axten
Vanja Utne
Eric Nelson
Rob Caporetto
Stacey Borg
