Trick & Treat

Halloween is a pretty big holiday all over the world lately, mainly because the Internet has spread its spirit amongst those who didn’t celebrate it before. Granted, most regions around the world had some sort of belief about a night when the monsters came out, but Halloween involves candy, so it automatically becomes more important than whatever the local tradition says.

Trick & Treat is a top-down RPG designed in RPG Maker, which aims to combine a few puzzle and horror elements as well. It’s not the most difficult or the most innovative video game out there, but the atmosphere can be quite creepy, especially if you are naive enough to fall for the jump scares that make an appearance every now and again. On top of that, the gameplay is pretty fun as well.

The story starts when two girls decide to go trick or treating, one of whom is a witch. Her name is Charlotte, and her partner is her maid named Amelia. While Charlotte is pretty excited to go trick or treating, Amelia is a bit scared of the atmosphere outside. Things get a lot worse once they decide to visit a haunted mansion, especially after Charlotte disappears and Amelia has to search for her by herself.

Since there’s not a lot of role-playing involved, most of your time is spent exploring the mansion and solving the puzzles that prevent you from entering certain rooms. You can also interact with a few objects and characters along the way, not to mention all the spooky events and jump scares that make the experience more thrilling. On the other hand, the puzzles are very simple and intuitive, so they’re not too much of a challenge.

As for the graphics, they look about as basic as you would expect for RPG Maker, but they are not ugly. The artwork is actually quite nice, especially when it comes to character design and the few assets that have been included in the landscape. However, the actual level design is a bit of a letdown, because there are many empty corridors that feel like nothing but wasted textures.

In the end, Trick & Treat could certainly keep you engaged until the end, especially since it is quite short. However, it won’t shatter your world story-wise, and there’s nothing too memorable about it either.