Game Review: Candy, Please! (PlayStation Mobile)

Candy Please PlayStation Mobile

Halloween… that time of the year when witches, ghosts, ghouls and monsters unleash terror on the world. No, that’s kids all over the globe on their annual door-to-door hunt for candy on their cosplay-fueled expedition. Either way, it’s an exciting time for all but not for one person.

In this latest adventure in the retro-styled Quiet, Please! adventure series from Nostatic Software, our unnamed heroine sets out with her younger brother to visit as many houses in the neighbourhood to collect as much candy as possible, just like all the other kids who are busy knocking at the door, but even though it’s Halloween neither she or her brother have got their costumes yet! You have to guide our desperate adventurer to construct the perfect costume and fill your candy bowl waiting for you at home and have the best Halloween ever…

Straight away if you’ve played any of the previous games from Nostatic Software then you’ll know what to expect from the visual style in the game. It’s a very stylised 8-bit feel with extremely chunky graphics and while this may feel dated for many, as I’ve said when I’ve looked at other games in the series it gives it a certain retro charm and feel and suits the adventure surprisingly well. I will say from the start that if you’re expecting – and feel the need – for high-end graphics in your adventures then this isn’t going to be a game for you.

At the heart of the game it follows the same basic format as the other three games in the Quiet, Please! saga – moving the central character left and right with the d-pad and picking up / interacting with objects using X, O and square and it’s something that you’ll pick up in a matter of minutes if you’ve never played any of the games before so you can concentrate on the game itself. As well as taking place in your house as with the first two in the series, the game is set in the exterior locations in the street in which our protagonist lives – the street itself along with the gardens of several other houses expanding the game’s world that we have become accustomed to once more.

The game starts off in our heroine’s bedroom next to her wardrobe – and this will play a major part in the game as I’ll come onto in a minute. As I said at the start, it’s Halloween but you don’t have a costume so that’s the main thrust of this adventure. You have to explore the house and neighbourhood to find various items to be able to make your own costumes for Halloween. You do this by bringing things back to your wardrobe and then combining them – a brand new game mechanic added to the Quiet, Please! game engine and something that is incredibly easy to use. All manner of objects and items of clothing can be combined and you can create several costumes both for the central character and her brother and you’ll need several to be able to collect as much candy as you can. There are still plenty of other puzzles to solve in and around your house so it’s not just about getting dressed up but this is a great new game element that really helps keep the game fresh from previous entries in the series.

Another welcome addition to the game is pumpkin carving. I kid you not! At the start of the game is a pumpkin located on the kitchen table and on collecting a large knife you can carve it ready for display outside of your house. When you do this, rather than using pre-defined graphics, the game switches to a basic bitmap graphics editor allowing you to customise the look of the pumpkin to whatever you want. It’s nothing overly spectacular but it works incredibly well and really gives that part of the game that little extra feeling of depth.

Onto the story itself and all of the regular characters from previous games make an appearance – our heroine’s parents, younger brother, and neighbour Mr Peabody, and all of the humour and in-jokes that you’ve come to expect from the series are all there as well. I won’t spoil any of it by revealing anything here but the game put a smile on my face on more than a few occasions, certainly when the kid brother tried on one of his new costumes for the first time but I’ll leave that for you to discover for yourself.

The puzzles themselves vary in difficulty from simple and blindingly obvious to ones that will leave you tearing your hair out in frustration (including one red herring that left me screaming out for a solution to a puzzle that wasn’t actually there!) but all the puzzles are logical enough and once you figure them out you’ll wonder why you didn’t work them out quicker. It’s challenging but you’ll have plenty of fun working everything out along the way and with an autosave function there’s no need to worry about memorising everything and having to start from scratch as was the case with the first two in the series.

I absolutely loved playing this and – as with the previous game in the series Vacation Vexation – I found this almost impossible to put down until I had completed it and is full of charm and characters that you’ll warm to if you haven’t already, although it has to be said that once you have played it through from start to finish you’ll find that it’s a game that you won’t return to because there’s no repeat play appeal. Certainly I can see a lot of potential now with the game engine that Nostatic have developed with the ability to combine objects, the image editor and the mini games featured in Vacation Vexation that were playable in the arcade during the game (and after completion) so I hope that these will be used in the next in the series as well to offer more post-completion gameplay to extend its lifespan.

This is another great game from Mike Oliphant and it’s another worthy addition to the Quiet, Please! series and is a fantastic, fun and challenging adventure. It isn’t the best in the series although to be frank Vacation Vexation has set the bar pretty high for Nostatic Software now and I think it will take a lot for any of their future releases to come close to the high standards of that one, especially with the repeat play value that it provides, but Candy, Please! still offers hours of solid adventuring and is a great fun game and should be an essential addition to any gamers collection. A solid adventure and one that I can’t find any fault with at all.

Simon Plumbe

At A Glance

  • Title: Candy, Please!
  • Publisher: Nostatic Software
  • System: PlayStation Mobile
  • Format: PSN Download
  • Cross Buy: No
  • Online Multiplayer: No
  • Local Multiplayer: No
  • Memory Card Space Needed: 13Mb

Vita Player Rating - 08

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About Simon Plumbe 1052 Articles
Husband, father and lifelong geek. Originally from the West Midlands, now spending my days in South Wales with my family and a house full of animals. Passionate about video games, especially retro gaming, the Commodore 64 and PlayStation Vita. Love pro wrestling, sci-fi and I'm an animal lover and vegetarian. Enjoyed this and my other articles? Why not buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/simonplumbe

1 Comment

  1. 1:Costumes

    Ghost costume (for brother): Clean white sheet and scissors .

    Witch costume (for girl):Black hat (spraypaint,Santa hat ),black coat, broom.

    Captain Crusader (for brother) :Masquerade Mask ,utility belt, full body whitard, short black cape (Mr. Peabody’s cape, scissors ).

    Pirate(for girl):Red sash, Eye Patch, Toy saber.

    Robot costume (for girl):robot head (small cardboard box, sciccors,then: Box With Holes, heavy duty tinfoil), body-sized shiny box (Cardboard box, heavy duty tinfoil), X-mas lights.

    Bandit(for brother):leather tool belt, red bandana, water pistol, cowboy hat.
    ————————————————————————————————-
    2: Game Q&As

    1:how can I rescue Mr. Pickles and get past debris?
    Get voice recorder from the basement and record Snowball’s meow, then go to the yard where the debris is and play the recording to get the dog’s attention.

    2:how can I get water pistol?
    Get rubber spider and remote control car (both from brother’s room) and go to the backyard. Then , wait for a boy with a scuba diver costume and with water pistol and drive through it. The boy will get scared and drop the water pistol.

    3: What should I do with popcorn ball?
    You can take it and feed it to the crows so that you can enter the house again.

    4: how can I get rid of the Dad?
    Once you have your costume, you go get Fishing Monthly ,and give it to the girl’s father.

    5:where is the last piece of candy?
    It is in the outside, in the tree house ,where you must scare a boy by taking the rubber bat from the hook and then hang it in the tree house. When you press ‘point to rubber bat’ the boy in the tree house would get scared, leave the candy and run away.

    6:how can I get rid of the boy in the treehouse?
    take the rubber bat from the hook of the girl’s house and then hang it in the tree house. When you press ‘point to rubber bat’ the boy in the tree house would get scared, leaving the candy and running away.

    7: how can I beg the mother for candy?
    Take the crow bar to take off the sign, and hang it in the house’s gate.

    8:how can I get the cowboy hat?
    By dropping the hay bale in front of the scarecrow to reach for the hat. The hat is on the scarecrow’s head.

    9:how can I pry the latches in the old storage bin?
    Find Dad’s Toolbox and then open it up, next ,find the screwdriver to pry out the storage bin.
    ————————————————————————————————-
    3: Walkthrough

    1.make the ghost costume and the witch costume then carve the pumpkin by using the Serrated Knife. Take the knife to the costume wardrobe closet. And then take the pumpkin outside on the table in the yard.

    2.trick or treat in the first three different houses. Then go to the last house to go inside. Pick up the crow bar ,then go it to pry it of the gate. Drop the crow bar and hang it in the girl’s gate. Beg her mother for candy and put the candy in the candy bowl.

    3.get the voice recorder to record Snowball’s meow the bring it to the backyard where the debris is and then the dog will pay attention. Then ,take the dog to the first different house. Get toy saber and eye patch from the second different house.

    4.Make cape crusader costume and pirate costume and then do trick or treating again. Pick up popcorn ball and then give it to the crows by dropping it in the third house. Then take the candy to the candy bowl.

    5.Take Fishing Monthly to the girl’s father to get the x-mas lights for the robot costume. Then make the robot costume and the bandit costume. Trick or treat once again in the three different houses and once again take the candy to the candy bowl. Finally, take the rubber bat from the hook off the girl’s house and then hang it in the tree house. When you press ‘point to rubber bat’ the boy in the tree house would get scared, leaving the candy and running away. Take the final piece of candy to the candy bowl, and the game is complete!

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