Now, if you’ve wondered why the NES flopped harder in Europe than a fish on a hot pier, look no further. Sure, Mario looked fancy, but who’s shelling out £49.99 for a game when the Spectrum offered gems like this for literal pocket change? If I had a Timex Computer (the Canadian version of the Spectrum) and a stack of cassette tapes, I’d be all in too – especially for the charming brilliance of the Olli & Lissa trilogy.
In Halloween, you play a witch who royally messed up her friends’ haunted castle. A botched spell caused a big explosion (girl, I so relate), and now you’re stuck retrieving 16 objects to restore order. Meanwhile ghosts, nasties, and questionable architecture conspire to make you regret everything. But it’s not all bad, you get a broomstick.
It’s delightfully simple yet pleasantly addictive. You wander the castle, solve puzzles, and keep thinking, “Just one more room,” until you’ve lost three hours and forgotten to eat. The best part? No manual required. All you need is basic motor skills and a vague idea of how doors work.
This game is peak Spectrum – distinctive, weirdly charming, and beautifully janky. When you see a Spectrum game, you immediately know when seeing it. It uses a specific colour palette, often with colour clash, and the sprites tend to have a certain flavour. The background is black. The main character sprite is white, but changes colour depending on where she stands, but let’s call that a feature instead of a bug.
The intro screen has some decent music. When you get to gameplay, the music is gone and its simple sound effects. This doesn’t bother me, the Spectrum only had 48K of memory.
Controls, however, are great. You can play this with a keyboard, but I prefer the Kempston joystick scheme. It’s really simple: up goes up, down goes down, and obviously left and right on your joystick does the same. Occasionally, you use the action button when picking up objects or going through doors. Generally, Halloween is idiot proof in the best possible way.
Silverbird Software developed all Olli & Lissa titles. They were prolific, making and publishing 51 budget titles over the course of three years. Cheap Skate and Rad Warrior are favourites of mine.
Olli & Lissa II: Halloween is a Spectrum classic that deserves your time even now. It’s scrappy, weird, and way more fun than a £1.99 has any right to be. Give it a go, and lose an entire evening fooling around with a broomstick.
