Posted By
Luca
on 2023-11-01
10:13:42
 |  Re: Cauldron II: The Pumpkin Strikes Back!
What can I add? It's another TCFS' miracle, and another lesson about how to present a production balancing compromises, passion, technique, history, art.
At this point, I feel free to speculate on minor silly facts about this great classic. First of all, watching all the author's history up to nowadays, it seems quite clear that he appreciated frustrating and punitive games  Based on this, I'm sure that the next TCFS production will be something like mmm... Shibari Simulation Plus/4?
Otherwise, we could follow another line to hypothesize the next title. Let's see... After The Empire Strikes Back, and this which is subtitled "The Pumpkin Strikes Back"... I suppose: Beach-Head II - The Dictator Strikes Back!. Or Bounty Bob Strikes Back! Or Kong Strikes Back! All in all: somebody could "strike back" for a third release, no?
Another interesting fact is that the pumpkin here has been named "Bouncey" although there are no apparent hints about that in the original manual. In the Zzap!64 review, the star of this game has been named "PumpKing", following the fact that the first chapter's manual reported the poem which included the verse:
"...Tomorrow night
'Tis Halloween
When only one
Shall be Witch-Queen..."
Last but not least: the lovely comeback of the fake cracktros' fashion, which I appreciate sooo much, and that clearly represent a line of style of the author himself as continuity along all those years of Plus/4 passion. And this ESI cracktro redux is a fantastic tribute!
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