A single lifetime carries with it a seemingly endless parade of definitions of heartbreak for oneself, and Spookware is one of mine. This was almost a negative, but to say that I didn't get my money's worth of a good time out of it would've been a spiteful lie, and the skeleton boys would've been disappointed in me.

So, to start, the obvious bad: this is quite literally an unfinished game (even says so on the store page... somewhere.) Just in case you were unaware. And by "unfinished," I don't mean "completed but closed, no longer supported by devs, etc." it quite actually leaves you on a cliffhanger, originally intended to be concluded with DLC.

Well, if there's the obvious bad. What's the un-obvious bad, then? The final chapter (and a bit of the preceding chapter, as well.) On contrast to everything that came before episode 2 - which was nearly polished to blinding shine - the length, conceptualization and QA (OMFG THE BUGS) made me wonder if it was typical practice for small studios to replace whole 3-man teams. Nearly everything seemed rushed, especially the last bit which effectively turned what was a relentlessly gimmicky Warelike into the glitchiest, most monotonous shooter experience I'd forced myself to endure since Chex Quest. If I finished this before Beeswax's announcement, the revelation wouldn't have been surprising as the last episode of this game was nothing but evident exhaustion.

Which sucks, because playing a bit of this each Halloween had become kind of a ritual for me, having bought this on launch after being gobsmacked by the first trailer. Now, there's really nothing to go back to. If you love collecting stuff, Spookware is (initially) pretty good about microgame rotation: by my count, theres about 30 wares that I haven't even seen yet, so that's milk money, right there. And I guess I could just play that first episode over and over again, which is a... genuine... treat for fans of Warelikes and goofy, spooky, somewhat a e s t h e t i c times. Yeah I almost said "bonafide" treat, let's just let me move past it.

Funny still that it's like Spookware became trapped by its own nostalgic vibes, as you'll want to go back to the good stuff repeatedly over the depressing and ultimately uncertain end to what could've been a promising franchise. Winding up in Limbo is no way to start an afterlife.