Petunia Pickle's Pumpkin Peril (2017 demo)

Petunia Pickle's Pumpkin Peril evolved from a Halloween reskin of my 4kb game, Attack of the Mutant Cabbages.

This demo was created in 2017 and originally the plan was to release the full version of the game early in 2018. Approximately 5 years later (at the time of writing this), and unfortunately the final game is still languishing in development limbo, due to many reasons.

This demo has a cut-down version of the planned final gameplay. For the demo, move Petunia around using a joystick in Port 2. Tap fire for a quick zap and hold down fire to wind up for a lightning blast. Holding down fire keeps the lightning blast going but drains your energy quickly.

Holding down fire also acts as a "pick up" action. If you're standing near a yellow pumpkin in your pumpkin patch and hold down fire you will eventually pick up one of your pumpkins (an icon will appear in the top-right of the screen to show you that you're holding a pumpkin).

This demo is really all about energy management: your magical energy is shown as a sparkle moving down your magic wand at the bottom of the screen.

Once you've picked up a pumpkin you can drop it into one of your cauldrons. This gives you a magic energy boost.

Cauldrons can get full and once they are you can't put any more pumpkins in until a baddy collides with a cauldron and removes a stored pumpkin.

Baddies will approach from the right, taking one of the lanes that lead to your cauldrons. Zap them accordingly. Using a lightning blast causes baddies to slow down as well and also gives you more points if you kill them with it.

Colliding with a baddy spins you around, knocks you down, and drains energy.

Little purple rolling pumpkins will replenish your pumpkin patch when they hit the an empty space where a yellow pumpkin has been removed (a purple rolling pumpkin will always fill the space closest to the cauldron first).

The ever-present bat swarm will follow you incessantly, also draining your energy if you touch it.

Once your energy drains completely you turn into a pumpkin. The End.

This demo goes up to level 9 (I think, it's been a while!)).