GUISER

One village. One night. Every costume is a key.

It is All Hallows' Eve in Hallow End, and the Midnight Man woke early. The dead are up out of the churchyard and they will not go back to bed until someone rings the church bell at midnight. You are the village guiser.

You start in a plain coat with a lantern and a stick. Every costume you find changes what you can do, and you can swap between them at any moment, even in the middle of a fight:

• Lantern bearer: a flare of lantern light that stuns everything close.
• Scarecrow: send a crow ahead. It pecks what it meets and lights a cold jack-o'-lantern across a pond. Light every lantern in a field and its gate opens.
• Sheet ghost: vanish for a moment. Nothing touches you, and iron railings let you through.
• Pumpkin head: pumpkin fire burns the cobwebs off the manor's doors, and your lit head shows its dark rooms.
• Hedge witch: a short broom glide over the gaps in a ruined floor.

The fighting is real time, and every blow from a foe on foot is wound up first. A red arc under a skeleton is the reach of the swing that is coming; a dashed line is a charge. Read it, hop out of it, strike back. Bats and harpies give no warning, so watch the sky.

What is in it

• Free demo, right here in your browser: Hallow End Lane and the Pumpkin Patch, the scarecrow's crows and the Night Mare.
• The full game, for Windows: 21 screens through the lane, the pumpkin patch, St. Wenna's Churchyard, Hollowmere Manor and the Crypt of the Bell. Five costumes, four who hold the night, and an ending. Unzip it and run GUISER.exe, no install.
• Trick or treat at the lit porches: every house gives candy once per costume. Spend it at Ma Tibbs' stall.
• Keyboard, gamepad and touch. A lamp post saves the night.

Controls

Move: arrows, WASD, a stick or touch. Strike: J or Space. Hop: K or Shift. Costume power: L. Swap costume: Q, or R to go back. Toffee apple: H. Map: M. Pause: Esc. Sound: N. On a gamepad: A strike, B hop, X power, Y or the right shoulder to swap, the left shoulder to swap back, Start to pause. On a touch screen every action, the apple and the map have a button.

Made with AI

Code, graphics and text were made with AI tools. The art is from our own sprite, effect and tile packs; the sound effects are our own synthesis; the music is our own Halloween album, Spooky Season, written by our own composition code. No generative audio.

More from the same studio

• HOLLOWAY ($7.99): a top-down adventure across a hand-built highland and three dungeons, with a free browser demo.
• BOLTHOLE ($6.99): a twin-stick keep of four sealed wings, with a free browser demo.
• SIDELONG ($6.99): an action RPG with no attack button, with a free browser demo.

Built from our own packs, if you make games too:

• Spooky Season ($12.99): the 44-track Halloween score this game's music comes from.
• Hearthhands Hallowtide ($6.99): every costume the guiser wears and the villagers on their porches, as a sprite pack.
• Verdant 49, Hallowfield: the pumpkin patch tiles.

Core Systems Asset Factory.