Loonyland: Halloween Hill Review

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            Loonyland: Halloween Hill

Review by TogerJune 2004

Ever wonder what villains were like as children? Would Dr. Evil try to extort “one meellion dollars” for the use of his sandbox? Did Malificent cast sleeping spells on pretty playmates wanting to share her toys? As a child, Dr. Lunatic—megalomaniacal, Elvis-impersonating, psychotic, brain-transferring mad scientist—was a goody two-shoes and saved Halloween Hill from an infestation of werewolves, zombies and other assorted things-that-go-bump-in-the-night.  Who’s Dr. Lunatic? Read on …

Loonyland: Halloween Hill is a top-down, third-person, action/adventure title from independent developer Hamumu Software.  It’s actually the first of a trilogy featuring Dr. Lunatic; the other two games have you trying to keep Loony, as he’s known to his friends, from realizing his maniacal plans.

It’s 1811, and deep in the heart of Bulgaria, Halloween Hill has been overrun with all manner of strange, creepy creatures.  Loony has been tasked to figure out what’s gone wrong and put it right. Of course, that’s only the main quest; among other jobs, Loony is also tapped to rescue a kitten from the haunted forest, clean out the zombies from Zombiton’s cemetery and find potion ingredients for the local witch. In exchange, residents will reward Loony with either gems—coin of the realm—or useful items such as a torch.

Gameplay is keyboard (or joystick) controlled, although there are only a couple of keys to memorize: arrow keys for movement and one key each to fire Loony’s slingshot or whatever special weapon you’re currently carrying. Special weapons include wacky things like a potted cactus that throws pointy needles in all directions, a whoopee cushion that emits poisonous gas (what other kind of gas is there?) and a boomerang.

As you progress through Loonyland, you’ll encounter all sorts of bizarre creatures: werewolves, zombies, one-eyed creepy-crawlers, ghosts, gas-emitting evil trees and fire-breathing toads. My favorites were the zombies with their itty-bitty Rastafarian dreadlocks sticking out of the tops of their nasty grey heads. The locals are just as odd: one farmer goes a tad overboard with the fertilizer and creates killer pumpkins, another runs away from home to live life as a werewolf in order to escape his nagging wife.

Loonyland’s puzzles mainly consist of navigating maze-like structures picking off critters, flipping switches and locating the various keys and power-ups littered throughout the area. One of the more clever puzzles was pushing pieces of broken logs into place in order to get flammable gas to ignite and light the area.  Actually finding the pieces, in the dark, and pushing them into the correct place to complete the circuit was cause for celebration in my house!

One of the best features of Loonyland is its secrets and bonuses that the player unlocks as a reward for completing the game or laying the smackdown on a baddie quickly. Not only will new game mods open up, you’ll also receive merit badges, which act as “cheats.” Some of the badges are downright silly—one, called “Mad Skeelz,” turns the bowling balls in the bowling mod into kittens. Others include such abilities as being able to save anywhere or playing through the game as a toad, werewolf or witch.

Speaking of saving anywhere, unless you’ve gotten the appropriate merit badge you’ll have to be content with seeking out the numerous save points to save your progress. I should also mention that once you’ve rid a specific area of creatures, they will respawn if you should travel that way again. Not only that, it seems as if they’re all laying in wait for you as you reappear from a tunnel or cave. The respawn isn’t a bad thing as it’s a good way to replenish your gems, should that be necessary, or collect specific items like the monster dolls.

Visually, Loonyland is bright and colorful. Backgrounds have a prerendered cartoonish style, while character models have a slight 3D look to them. The majority of the human characters look so much alike, it was sometimes difficult to remember who to go back to once I’d completed a quest. Loony, on the other hand, looks so much like an early Tony Tough, I’m thinking he’s an evil twin or, at the very least, a distant cousin.

Loonyland’s sound is … different. Some of the sounds are what you’d expect to hear: doors creaking as they open, mud sucking at your boots as Loony shleps through the swamp. What took me by surprise is a lot of the sounds appeared to have been organically created—by mouth. As a kid, I’m sure you made that weird “p-qu” sound when firing an imaginary gun or laser? Well, that’s the sound I heard when Loony fired on the gravestones in the cemetery! Clever.

Voice work is limited to one or two words at the start of a conversation followed by written text. Some of the characters actually had quite a bit to say, even while Loony is getting thrashed by some critter.

Music for Loonyland is very well done. The opening theme sets the tone of the game with a rhythm and blues version of what passed for Caribbean music in the 40s—an organ backed by drums, terrific bass track and what sounded like, to me, a skeletal xylophone.

This is a cute game! The only thing I thought the game lacked was a way to reread the quest information. I could call up the various quests that I’d collected by pressing the Esc key, but I couldn’t get the details regarding the quest. At one point, I’d received at least four quests and couldn’t remember where I was supposed to go for any of them, so I ended up just wandering around the map, where I collected another couple of quests and still didn’t know where to go for the others.

If you’re thinking that this is just a standard hack ‘n’ slash or kill-or-be-killed game, you couldn’t be further from the truth.  Remember some of the wacky shareware games of days gone by? Loonyland evokes that feeling of silliness and just plain fun from the early days of gaming. You won’t spend your time banging your head on the desk because the game’s specs are “pie in the sky,” but you will spend a lot of time laughing and enjoying a fun-filled game. As Hamumu’s opening screen declares, “it just doesn’t get any dumber than this.” The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Hamumu Publisher: Hamumu Release Date: March 2001; ver 2.0 released May 2004

Available for: Windows

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

Not specified

Where to Find It

Hamumu 19.95 (download; add $5 for CD version)

Prices/links current as of 06/08/04Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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