By Andi Nuruljihad for Gamesforum

Spooky Squashers is like a witch’s brew of some of the greatest classic arcade games -- there’s a dash of Arkanoid, a touch of Asteroids, some Bubble Bobble, and a pinch of Pong for good measure. The resulting concoction is a game that’s conceptually quite sound, but monotonous level design, awkward controls, and a lack of visual variety make Spooky Squashers feel like little more than a proof-of-concept. All the ingredients are there to make a great game, it just needs more time in the kitchen.

Simple and Intuitive

In Spooky Squashers, players take control of a haunted jack-o’-lantern trapped in a brick room with a neverending supply of ghosts. Gameplay consists of destroying ghosts by hitting them with your squash ball, which you can direct using your racket. After a certain number of ghosts have been defeated, a Boss Ghost will spawn in the arena. Hit the Boss Ghost five times with the squash ball to defeat it.

Running out of balls will end your run, a mechanic that makes your primary weapon your life as well. If the ball bounces off more than three walls without hitting a ghost, it’s removed from play, and your ball counter will be reduced by one as a new ball spawns in the center of the arena. Touching a purple ghost will also reduce your ball count by half a ball.

What Needs Fixing

Gameplay is uncomplicated and intuitive, which is very important for a casual game like Spooky Squashers. Unfortunately, it isn’t very fun, and that has all to do with the clumsy controls and repetitive stages.

Your actions in Spooky Squashers are controlled by a single virtual joystick. Your jack-o’-lantern automatically swings his racket while you’re moving but will ignore the ball if you stand still. The issue is that purple ghosts will chase you down in bursts, which forces you to always be on the move. Since you always swing when you’re moving, this can (and will) cause unintended redirecting of the ball. There’s little point in planning your next move when an accidental swing can throw things into chaos.

Your character also moves at a fixed rate, which is more frustrating than it sounds. Most games use variable-rate movement, which lets you set your movement speed by adjusting how far you swipe your thumb. In Spooky Squashers, your character only moves at one speed regardless of how far you move your thumb away from the joystick’s center -- i.e. move your thumb a little or a lot, the jack-o’-lantern still runs at full sprint.

There is only one stage in Spooky Squashers. There’s also only one boss and only three ghost types. Stages don’t get progressively more challenging, but after every few stages you’ll begin rounds with fewer balls. The Normal and Hard modes simply increase the ratio of purple-to-white ghosts, but they’re just as easy to kill as in Easy.

Monetisation Model

Spooky Squashers uses a combined model of both forced video ads and rewarded video ads. The forced ads are only displayed between game sessions (after death). They’re quite rare, and the player has the option to skip past them when they do show up. After a session, players are given the option to view a rewarded ad to double their Coin earnings

Coins are the only currency in the game, and they’re used to unlock chests containing new squash rackets. They can only be obtained by playing the game as there are no in-app purchases. Rackets are mechanically identical -- they all have the same range and swing speed -- but they all have unique in-game sprites and sound effects.

A quick side note: the vuvuzela racket plays a sound effect after every swing that will make you want to delete this game from your phone.

There’s a casual gaming gem somewhere in Spooky Squashers, but it’ll probably take more time and effort than solo developer Raviv Elon can give to find it.