Day 13 - Costume Quest

     Time for another idea I find fun and attractive when it comes to Halloweeny stuff, the concept that Halloween is a magical time where sometimes the fiction part of the tradition and history can break through on this one night where the veil between worlds is thinner. Applying the fun, faux spookiness of Halloween to actual terror and conflict with ghosts or werewolves or boogiemen or whatever is something I'll always get a kick out of.

     Costume Quest just so happens to be one such example of this idea. It's a charming game by Double Fine Productions where kids have to fit defeating monsters and saving the neighborhood into their trick-or-treating schedule. Throughout the game, you'll meet kids that join your quest and acquire new costumes, each costume having special abilities and unique powers. The space man costume comes with a non-copyright infringing illuminated sword that's required to enter any dark areas, the robot costume has wheels and lets the player skate up ramps and jump over hedges. As I mentioned before, the situation isn't so dire that you don't have time to get candy, the monsters are at least that courteous, the candy serves as your "currency" and lets you buy new abilities. It's all quite cute.

     I don't mind really gory, terrifying horror movies sometimes, but I think I'll always favor ones with a duller edge, ones that feel a bit safer. That's what I like about Halloween in general, it's all play-scary, you know that it's just a normal guy under that mask(most likely) and nothing bad is really going to happen. I'm not overly interested in inducing nightmares. In game terms Costume Quest has a feel that's more like Hocus Pocus(foreshadowing foreshadowing...just kidding, not on the list), the kids find themselves in what would really be awful, frightening situations but you know because it's Halloween and it's a bunch of cute kids that everything will end well.