HallowTown is having a tough time of it. The Halloween Spirit has gone missing and the town’s inhabitants are destitute, their businesses broken on the unflinching knee of big business. They are also NPC’s starring in a Halloween-themed video game that has been released in May, so that must be really discombobulating for them.
With the town in peril, it’s up to Scary, a little ghost dude who is also the world leader in manufacturing Halloween candles (yes, really), to save the day and make everything OK for his fellow citizens. To do this, Scary must face hordes of enemies in a 2D rogue-lite hack n’ slash adventure.
On each run, Scary will gather resources that will help to do up the homes and businesses of the residents of HallowTown. In return, the HallowTownians will provide Scary with new gear for his adventure. There is more of a plot to it but the dodgy English translation makes things hard to follow. There are a lot of gags and puns to be ‘enjoyed’, including levels themed around Faceboo!, Deviltube, and Riptock – Plus an evil boss to defeat named Clark Fackerberg – but none of these jokes come remotely close to tickling a funny bone. They just lead to my complete bafflement as the bizarre narrative unfolded.
Death or Treat stands with its gorgeous hand-drawn animation evoking Tim Burton with a lashing of Cuphead for good measure. Gameplay, however, is far less successful. Controls are smooth and responsive, but the enemies are boring to fight. Herds of them wander across the drearily-designed levels to get repeatedly hit until they finally give up the ghost. There’s no real sense of contact when Scary attacks, instead he just whales away ineffectually at an enemy. Maybe it’s because Scary is a ghost, but jumping is also far too floaty, with the spooky avatar all too often overshooting the easiest of leaps. All the more frustrating when the fall results in unforeseen instant death.
Unlike most roguelites, there is little sense of exploring a world and discovering secrets. Levels are little more than wandering left to right through the same handful of backgrounds. There are some moderately interesting bosses to fight but Death or Treat does so little to engage the player that there’s absolutely no compulsion to go back and have another run.