I loved this game - some parts were really hard which was a great challenge. The final game tho, was too random and finished abruptly, as if the game creator had got tired of the game. Would be an excellent game if the final game was given more thought

I've been playing this off & on all week on the hardest mode and enjoying it. I like that it's hard, that there's no instructions and even that the candies are small. Makes me work at it. But now I'm truly stuck. As in the game stops. I'm well into Chapter IV and in "Debasement" you light a candle from a stove. It turns into a puzzle where you make your way through a winding set of stairs. I have to move my hand to shield the candle so it doesn't blow out. No problem. But when I turn the corner on the first set of stairs the game just stops. It doesn't lock up, the puzzle just stops. I can back out of it, go to other rooms in the game, do everything but get through this bleeping puzzle. So I'm well into this game and I can't finish it. I realize these are freebies so I can't bitch about the price, and I have truly enjoyed this game and all its quirks until now. But it's very frustrating to get this far and not be able to finish. I probably won't re-try it until next year around Halloween but the developers need to know there are loads of glitches with this game mentioned online and it doesn't appear they have made any effort to address them. I don't mind the total butchering of the language because it has such an absurdist feel to it and I don't mind the total lack of clear information or story because that just makes me think harder. But I really hate games that don't let me play all the way through. No excuse for that IMO. Any idea how I can get through this puzzle? On the hardest level there is no Skip or Hints. I never use them anyway and I always play on the hardest settings. But it means I can't just bypass it. You can't change difficulty levels mid-game either so I couldn't even do that just to get past the glitch in this puzzle. So unless anyone has a fix for this, I guess I'm done for the year. I'm going to go eat some leftover Halloween candy to see if I can come up with a solution (and also because it's tasty) but if anyone else hit this glitch, I'd love to hear how they got past it. Thanks!

Not sure who this game was written for. My granddaughter wanted to play because of the Halloween theme, but there's way to much reading for a 5- or 6-year-old. I started reading the passages to her but quickly found they would either make no sense, or have too many big words I need to explain. So a paraphrased or skipped. Puzzles too hard for her, finding candy too hard. And much of the story so far seems to be about disobeying, stealing from, and hiding from a parent. Maybe it all works out in the end but I think I'll hide this one from her. For me, I have little interest in helping a small boy do those things, and yes, the candy is too small to see. I wonder how many I have missed? Maybe a 10- or 12-year old would feel more at home. Sorry, just can't get into this one. Thanks for letting me try it out!

I downloaded and installed this game(windows 7 64 bit) with no problems. I have been enjoying the game(it is rather quirky but I love quirky and adore adventure games) However I cannot figure out how to get through the gate to the orphanage...and my hint button stopped working all together...
It is not an easy game and most actions required are simply not obvious even though I consider myself pretty used to difficult adventure games....
thanks GGOTD ...I am sure I will get through and really appreciate getting the games you offer! Thanks Immanitas and/ or two desperados too!

For starters I DID enjoy the game but I also found it hugely frustrating and annoying. Puzzles with virtually no instructions. The candy to be collected throughout the game was miniscule and really difficult to see without having the screen 6" from my face. I also didn't really 'get' the storyline, must have been concentrating on trying to work out how to solve the puzzles. I have no idea what the majority of the symbols next to the lights in the labyrinth were meant to be. Puzzles solved more by trial and error rather than working out the answer. But as I said, I did enjoy it but it could have been so much better.

I like this game. It is longer than other games and more difficult. The mini-games are ok. It is more an adventure game than a HOG, so I wish it had more hidden object games to play, but adventures are ok, too. I like this mixture. The help is a bit slow sometimes and you have to run a lot later in the game. I am not through with it yet :), so I cannot say more.

Having a blast with this one, one day later. Glad I didn't let some of the negative reviews deter me :). Installed and playing fine on Win 8.1. Well into Chapter 3 and enjoying it.

I found this game to play perfectly well on Windows 10.

I haven't gotten too far - only to the outside of the house, but the game is just the kind I like: a little HOG, a little detective, a little seek-and-find. Two thumbs up from me.

Small complaining - sometimes the hint button stops working but when you find your way farther on it starts working again - lazy me found a walkthrough to get help when stuck ;-)

Thanks for your help watcher13

Installed fine on Windows 8.1 (after turning off my AV). I like the look and feel of the game. The does seem to be a lack of logic to the gameplay and I have been using the hint button more regularly than I'd like. Still, I'm enjoying the game enough to stick with it.

As per above, “For those of you who are getting hits by your anti malware suites, firstly it will be a false positive; the reason you may be getting a hit is because your anti-malware suite is picking up the Themida based protection…”. I have to turn Avira off most of the time before I can install stuff from GAOTD.

As per above, "For those of you who are getting hits by your anti malware suites, firstly it will be a false positive; the reason you may be getting a hit is because your anti-malware suite is picking up the Themida based protection...". I have to turn Avira off most of the time before I can install stuff from GAOTD.

Downloaded with no problems to my Win 10 pc. I've been playing it for approx. 1 hr. now and really enjoying it. No problems in playing it until for some reason my hints button doesn't seem to be responding. I'd been doing fine without it, but now I'm stuck and with no hint button, I'm pretty much dead in the water. I've exhausted everything I think I can do in the house and yard. I think in order to leave, I'm supposed to finish a map, but my pencil is dull. Maybe I'll get some help online.

Anyway, I've been enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Thank you GGAOTD for offering a new bit of free fun each weekend.

This will not install. It extracts, connects to GAOTD, then gives the error message "Key cannot be decrypted." I tried to install it 3 times on Windows 7 machine. This game sounds like a fun game, but its worthless if it cannot be installed.

Tried to download and install this a few hours later, hoping the problem was fixed. No luck. Got the same error message "Key cannot be decrypted."

Ok Win 10 x64 Pro. Did have a short pause when installing. Game plays cleanly. Used Casual Mode and have a whole mess of stuff, sandpaper and such. Stuck on the M and H blocks. Got one of them but guess need both.
Box key but where is lock. Things like that. Fun, well done in its quirky Halloween way. Have to check walk throughs. In casual you can have game complete some puzzles. Thanks GOTD, boo!

Update:

Installed and running fine now. No idea why it wouldn't install/run properly.
I deleted the directories, ran CC Cleaner, rebooted ran install again and it worked. Looks good...and weird!

So 3 initial tentacles up, based on 5 minutes of play.

This will not install. It extracts, connects to GAOTD, then gives the error message "Key cannot be decrypted." I tried to install it 3 times on Windows 7 machine. This game sounds like a fun game, but its worthless if it cannot be installed.

..........................Moderator Comment..............................

I've been having problems installing as well, but mine is slightly different. Have you checked the FAQ's thread?

Supposedly installed Evil Pumpkin ok on w10 64 home...got the "Congrats, you've successfully activated..." screen. But when I launch it, it says you don't have Steam Dll api installed.... I do, with over 120 titles in my Steam library. Going to try a uninstall & re-install and move on if that doesn't work.

I recommend against using Steam whenever possible. Understand, I like a Steam a lot but I like ease of access even more. So I only use Steam for those must haves(for me) that require it.

I'm a huge fan of Hidden Pictures-- going back 50 years :D and discovering them as computer games is a recent joy. Echoes of Sorrow was really good and I was surprised at how adult-themed it is. Vampire Saga is running fine.

Downloaded early in the morning in 5 min, seems to work fine under Win10 - like the graphics and the storyline so far.

Thanks for this one

The game is working fine on my Windows 10 laptop. I'm very glad it is since I really like it.

I went with the casual mode since I like hidden object games. The other levels don't have them. I did notice that already is spelled alredy (just a small thing). The graphics are very intriguing. I am only in the boy's bedroom, but absolutely love the graphics. The pieces of candy are difficult for me to see, but I see it as part of the overall difficulty of the game. In the store, I really can't tell which candy goes with the items I would like to purchase. I like the items for sale. All are fitting for my idea of a haunted backyard. In the game, I found my self clicking several times on areas just to see what was said. I chuckled a few times and found everything to be humorous.

I would like to suggest that it would be nice to see "Shop" on the rollover and "Backyard" on the rollover. I really think this would clear things up, especially in the beginning of the game.

Thanks Immanitas, Two Desperados and GGOTD (You too Stephen) for the eerie Halloween game. Have a good one!

For those not sure about the Immanitas, Two Desperadoes thing, many of the games given away here are listed under distributor, not developer. You can't generalize about this and the Western game from a few weeks ago, they are from developer Two Desperadoes, seemingly based in Eastern Europe, likely Russia. But Immanitas distributes from a number of sources, such as the recent shooters and Aquitania, all from Awem.

Some impressions from playing the opening scene:
I'm not sure I buy these folks not having a command of English. If you look under the "Extras" section, an interesting little bonus section with the some of the art used to develop the game, plus videos, the standard trophy room (with some "punny" award names), and some take offs on Halloween verse, Poe's the raven, for example, you can see that much of the dialogue is purposely silly/absurd, as it says in Immanitas's promotional blurb above.
The basic help screen is located in the options section.
I do agree that if you don't know some of this basic game type mechanics, it's could be frustrating. I'm still fumbling around. Took me a little while to understand the shop "prices" and that the candy jars were my caputred inventory so far, for example. Also, this is of the type in the hidden object scenes where you spend a lot of time just mousing over to see if the cursor does anything. I don't know if there's a better way to do it, but this kind of floundering around I found a little less than satisfying. Fine tooth combing, as it were.
Still, it looks like it's content rich. Hope I can keep up the search and not get too frustrated or too easily stumped.

This game isn't my cup of tea, but thanks, Whiterabbit, as usual for your posts. I wanted to warn people about Jenkat. Yesterday I D/Led Cradle of Rome through them to try out. They linked me to iWin for the D/L. By the time I realized it, I decided it was safe to go ahead. After playing Cradle of Rome, though, I decided I didn't like it and uninstalled it today, along with the iWin Games Manager which I had reluctantly agreed to install.

I had asked to install Cradle of Rome in my Games folder as usual, but I didn't realize iWin also installed there. I should have been more careful, but still didn't realize anything was amiss until today. I used Revo Uninstaller as usual, but my entire Games folder was deleted. Now none of my links to the few games I play--even the ones I've purchased--will work. Also all the games installed under the Games folder (which is most of them) are deleted. I'm hoping that my backup to the Games folder will work, so I don't have to try to re-install everything. FYI.

Likely connection issue Martin. You might make sure your browser, and maybe java, if you use it, is up to date. Try other browsers. If your using Internet Explorer, for example, none before IE8 works here anymore. Just FAR too old. Also, occasionally, especially Internet Explorer a glitch or malware will turn on the proxy function, when your not using a proxy. Proxies generally only used in institutional settings. When your at home, your connecting straight to the net, and not through an intermediate (or proxy) computer. Or at least the one your going through is from your ISP, and not really considered a "proxy". You should check the connect to the internet function in IE, even if you don't use IE, because some other browsers use IE's setting for this, since IE grafted right into Windows. ("consarned, framming, frogging, frapping Microsoft! :) ) If the settings have shifted into proxy, and your not in an institutional setting - university, work - some sites won't connect. Also, some of the connection issues are dealt with in that problem link that our moderator, Whiterabbit, always puts in his game day opening posts. Good luck.

I wish I could rent your house! I would decorate it both inside and outside to look like the Tardis. You'd have a giant blue and white police box in the neighborhood! Hook up some mag speakers. EERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHhEERrwWwoooooSHHHh!

It's Bob the Chicken Boy and Erick, Erick, My Name is Erick. They're lazy!

..........................Moderator comment..............................

Sorry for the extremely late moderation folks; been at the other house all day till about 30 minutes ago. we've only got 5 more days before the new tenants move in and still some work to do.
To those that made suggestions to fix my issues, thanks. Not tried much as we had to leave shortly after I'd posted the review this morning. was hoping the other moderator would have moderated today, but no sign of whoever it is.

Still no joy for me with the giveaway version and my Steam version has corrupted graphics. :(

The small size of the collectible candies is hard on the eyes. It is sometimes difficult to see other necissary items.

Stephen, It works fine on my Windows 10 2-in-1 machine.
It is actually a fun game, but then I like hidden object games. Good humor in the dialog. If it is actually 10 hours of play I have an enjoyable weekend.

I really appreciate the time you give so that we may know about these games. Thank you, Stephen! FYI, I was able to install and play without issue (just beginning) on Windows 7.

Installs (i.e. unzips) without problems (though it takes a long time) under Win 7 64-bit. The in-game dialogues and comments contain some errors and it's not always clear what you're supposed to do (the "Hint" button needs to be used early and often in the game). There is hardly any "flow" in the game, so it's hard to immerse yourself in the "climate" of the game. I don't have the time to play it extensively, but I would agree with the 3 out of 5 stars rating. It's not bad, but I've seen better.

works on Win8 - sorry about your problems - hopefully someone will respond about with installation on Win10.

I've been playing this game for a couple of hours now and find it quite enjoyable. It runs great on my old Dell with Win 7. No lag anywhere in the game and the graphics look excellent. I'm playing in Casual mode to access the Hidden Object aspect of the game.
You are playing as a small child, who's taken his dad's book titled "HALLOWEEN." You discover that the book is enchanted and slowly learn what it is and why your father needs it back so desperately.
There are Hidden Object scenes scattered about and various inventory items laying around. Some of the inventory items have a star beside them and can be altered or used in conjunction with another inventory item. You can point at an item in inventory to get a description of it. Hidden scenes come in two flavors; word or object oriented. Anything in gold has to be altered or used with another object to pick it up.
Helpful pop-up screens throughout the game give useful info.
A nice side feature allows you to decorate your yard for the holiday. Pieces of candy are scattered around the scenes. Pick them up(some of them are quite small) and they are added to a separate inventory. You can access a Shop to purchase spooky decorations for the yard with the candy.

Download it, you'll probably like it.
Thanks to Immanitas and Game Giveaway!

I downloaded and ran this one on my recently installed Windows 10 upgrade from Win8.1 and it runs very well. It is somewhat less intuitive than others you've given us, and I've relied pretty heavily on the help function (once I found it) to discover what the programmer wants me to do next. Great graphics, smooth play, but a bit slow downloading and installing. I'll keep working at it until I get the idea of what it wants. I still haven't quite figured out the candy part, when you "buy" something in the store, it doesn't tell you if you have enough of the kind of candy you need to buy it, it just goes away. And once you've bought the items, I guess I'll end up putting them in the back yard.

Just downloaded on Windows 10. Program started okay. I didn't play for long, but it seems to have installed and be working all right for me.

Wow! I am truly impressed! it is not often that I delete a game just ten minutes into playing it! But this one I did!
Thanks!

Doesn't work with Win10? Have you tried running in it compatibility mode for an earlier version of Windows, such as 7?

Where are all the other comments?? I rely on reading them all before deciding to download a game I am not familiar with. Would be nice to know if others are having the same problem opening the downloaded file as Stephen is having. I guess I will wait awhile and come back to see if any comments are posted.

Another small criticism -- where objects to be clicked on are very small (candies have to be collected for use as currency in a shop) it's often challenging to click in just the right place.

I'm still very unclear on what I'm doing and why, although in the game's defence I'm still interested :)

When I run setup.exe (even as administrator), I get the Game-give-away splash screen saying connecting to website, this then disappears and nothing happens. This has been the case for the last few weeks now, so frustrating. Any ideas please?

game downloaded and installed perfectly on windows 10 x64. game runs nicely. i didn't have any of Whiterabbit's graphical glitches. thanks for the giveaway. i will try to play it more when i get home from work and will let you know if the graphical glitches appear.

i have windows 10. It downloaded extracted and ran fine on my computer. Haven't gotten too far into the game yet because it is late and time for bed but it seems to be very interesting.

Downloaded, installed and running just fine on my Windows 10 system. Game looks like spooky fun for Halloween. As always, my thanks to the GGOTD team and especially Whiterabbit for all you do to make this site available.

Okay. I'll tell you the truth. Immanitas Entertainment games are LACKING! That WILD WEST game from a month ago is a PERFECT example of that. It seemed to me that they PACKED everything (EVERYTHING!) they had into the first few scenes as a HOOK! (But with a lightweight line that breaks very easily.) I LOVED LOVED the first few scenes of that COWBOY game, but then.... What the heck HAPPENED? I get to the fourth and fifth scenes and it TANKED TANKED TANKED! My word! It went from "This is COOL!" to "Why am I wasting my time?" asfastasthat! Call it a sixth sense but I never made it to the sixth scene. Deleted that thing off my hard drive justlikethat.

Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Up and running for me on windows 10, with no problems.

ATTENTION: This download is virus infected!!!

Downloaded, unpacked and installed smoothly on my Win10 system. Played fine for the few minutes that I was playing. Nice graphics. Seems like a decent game, look forward to later today when I can devote more time to playing it.

Only want to inform,

Installed on Windows 10, 64bit and works without problems.
Didn't need to change anything like compability or start as admin.

Was afraid same issue would be the same as with 'Echoes of Sorrow' of last september.

Game looks great, but for me the candy's are to small

No trick, thx for the treat. Happy Halloween :-)

Installed without any issues on Windows 10. The install did seem to go a little slower than usual but that may have been just me. The game's intro played through smoothly and I played the game for a couple of minutes. Had to stop to run errands but looking forward to playing again.