Pumpkin Eater is a kinetic visual novel that kicks things off with a kid’s parents returning home in the family car and accidentally running his head over. It wastes no time getting into the thick of it while setting the grim tone you can expect throughout. There is no artwork to showcase this event, but the sensory writing on display here paints a vivid picture in your mind as you read with nothing but a pitch-black background keeping you company. Pumpkin Eater doesn’t have much artwork, yet with the setting being almost entirely in the family home, it isn’t necessary in the grand scheme of things. What you do have is the new reality of sharing a house with a deceased sibling as their Mother goes into extreme denial.
Only the Daughter has a name, which is revealed late into the game. Pumpkin Eater refers to its characters as The Mother, Father, Daughter, and finally, The Son. It occasionally switches from a third-person narrative to the perspective of the character in question. This being a 40-minute visual novel, it doesn’t have much time to flesh out its cast. Regardless, they all have their motives and distinct personalities. Much of the focus will be around The Son. After his Mother slaps a pumpkin onto his head and declares him as good as new, she forces the rest of the family to play along. Try as she may, reality is unbending. The Son’s corpse starts to rot after a few days, and things quickly spiral from there.
It is psychological horror. Pumpkin Eater instills the sense that things can go wrong at any time. The type of horror where you know that any slight noise can cause all hell to let loose, even if things appear calm from an outsider’s perspective. I found it interesting to see how long the Mother’s delusion could last as her Son goes through various stages of decomposition and how the rest of the family deals with it. If you are squeamish and don’t like reading how a child’s body wastes away, I’d advise against playing this title. It holds no punches in its descriptions. In fact, the first thing you hear when booting up the game are flies buzzing around to drive home the central theme. His body changes visually throughout, but the art is not detailed enough to be the driving force behind any revulsion. The strong writing is what brings the scene to life.
As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, the art resembles that of a child’s drawing. It is crude and has plenty of coloring outside the lines. This fits the theme perfectly, giving us a sense of someone too young to understand what is occurring trying to explain it via drawings. One of the scariest things you visually see is the Son in bed. Tucking in a corpse for a nap is no doubt unnerving, but the drawing of it feels innocent in nature. For as much as Pumpkin Eater talks about maggots and rot, it only ever shows it on a conceptual level. On the other hand, the sound design has a more traditional horror influence. Most of the music is haunting, and the sound effects may unintentionally spook you because of how infrequently they happen.
On the store page, Pumpkin Eater refers to itself as 100% medically accurate. I can’t verify that, but the main menu has a glossary of decomposition-related terms and links to sources where they were researched. They took the theme seriously. And it paid off with how vivid and stomach-churning the descriptions in the story are. It becomes even more interesting if you know how decay occurs and what to expect next as the Mother desperately tries to ignore the situation. I’d recommend reading through the Glossary on the main menu to have a basic understanding before you begin the story. However, steer clear of the Timeline section to avoid spoilers. There is an Afterword area with the developer’s thoughts and behind-the-scenes information, which you should also refrain from viewing until the story is complete.
As a kinetic novel, there are no choices to make. This title estimates itself to take around 40 minutes to complete, although this varies based on your reading speed. The additional elements, such as the Glossary, may contribute to a slightly longer playtime. Priced at just $1.48 on Dlsite and $1.99 on Steam, its overall length is not a negative. In fact, the brevity of the story is helpful, preventing it from becoming dull given its limited scope. It is available in Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and English. I noticed no grammatical errors in English and did not experience any technical issues. Pumpkin Eater is short, sweet, and to the point. This is an excellent way to spend a lunch break for horror aficionados and a way to add a suspicion of pumpkin pies to your list of phobias.
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