Needs more candy corn.

Like all those "I wish everyday was Christmas!" specials,
except this spell only seems to affect places that were probably haunted to begin with.

"Forever" is less than an hour long.

Purchased during the Steam Summer Sale, alongside Castle of Illusion, Jet Set Radio, and Transistor, Halloween Forever won me over with it's pitch of piloting a pumpkin protagonist with a peculiar puking power:

It says that, yet the image shows Pumpkin Man is actually spitting out Indian candy corn, which makes sense, since Indian corn is essentially the black jelly bean equivalent of the seasonal treat, and no one would ever vomit actual candy corn. It's too delicious to waste!

Another shining example of effectively utilizing the Gamemaker Studio, Halloween Forever is a brief, but whimsical throwback to "unfair" platformers that required the player to fail repeatedly (usually through leaps of faith) in order to figure out where to move and jump.

Do you trust the spot with the heart?

Collapsible bridge over a spike pit that one can not see until they fall through it.
A classic platforming no-no.

Each area comes with two boss battles, and they are just as predictable as the stages.

...with the exception of this creepy piece of shit whose floaty homing movements are tripled whenever his face secretes a pair of explosive eyeballs.

Most of the major enemies can be safely defeated without much effort due to their dedicated patterns of attack. There shouldn't be any RNG excuses for speedrunners with this one. As a result, one can effectively complete all five stages in roughly half an hour. This isn't to type that the difficulty is gone. There are achievements available for completing this game in 1 HP Mode and for not killing any of the bats, which are littered throughout the stages and act as a projectile attack for the Big Bat boss battle.

Added replay value can also be found with the unlockable characters one must locate, along with the six runes necessary for the secret endings. Once you've discovered their locations, the three hidden characters will be replaced with extra lives. Those are definitely worth grabbing... just in case. Santa Pumpkin is already available, and he pukes presents, rather than Indian corn, while the other three offer up their own variations with butternut bombs, a double shot of bones, and a trio of scampering kitties. They each come with two endings, though there's not much of a difference between many of them.

Oh, of course! ...except all of that is Indian corn. Gross, nasty Indian corn. 

There's gotta be a different ending for Ms Witch, at least. I mean, she's clearly not going to be a severed noggin with a hankerin' for Indian corn... right? Well, I guess you'll just have to watch the Youtube video that shows all play for yourself to find out.

For achievement hunters, this one is worth grabbing, as well. I managed to collect 30 of the 31 available in only three hours. I'd probably try for Hardcore Gourd if I wasn't eager to move on to my next game for this month and post another one of these barbiturate blog posts that you insomniacs love so much.

HF comes with a cute, delightful soundtrack composed by Robert Mostyn that definitely captures the retro sound of the NES era. It is available on his Bandcamp page for three bucks, if you're interested, though I'm going to hold off on spending more of my limited money unless the urge to hear it again manages to creep into my mind a week or so after I've moved on to other games. It's a shame there wasn't a track dedicated to Ms Witch. I'd definitely pay to hear, "She was a two-eyed, no-horned, jumping purple pussy pitcher..." playing on my iPod shuffle.

Much like Grave Chase, Halloween Forever is a fun, affordable experience on Steam. In fact, it's a dollar cheaper! If you're a gamer who loves All Hallows' Eve and simple platformers, there's no reason not to pick this game up.

Ok, so it's only a third as SPOOKY as Grave Chase, but the developer clearly has fine taste in cheesy Horror movies.  

"All the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911." ~ Lewis Black