In the early 2000s, we experienced a golden age of browser games. It felt like every site had great flash games, with some websites becoming so ubiquitous that we still feel their effect on pop culture to this day, like Newgrounds and RuneScape. This was also an era where the major children's entertainment brands, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney were trying to drive children to their respective websites to show them exclusive content and to play browser games based on their various TV shows. In 2002, Cartoon Network released one of my all-time favorite browser games, a game that has become something of a cult classic - Trick or Treat Beat.
The game actually had two versions, both Halloween-themed. It originally was a promotional game for the charity UNICEF, featuring iconic Cartoon Network franchises like: Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and Ed, Edd n Eddy. And after that promotion period came to a close, the game was updated to Operation T.R.I.C.K. Or T.R.E.A.T., which featured characters from Codename: Kids Next Door.
Both iterations of Trick Or Treat Beat were simple, straightforward games that realistically could be wrapped up in around an hour. Stylistically, it hearkens back to old top-down NES or SNES-era games. You control a "trick-or-treater" who must navigate maze-like neighborhoods to collect candy, visit homes for even more candy, interact with the various Cartoon Network characters that you come across and solve simple environmental puzzles. A central crux of the gameplay hinges on swapping costumes, via color-coded tokens floating in various spots in the neighborhood, and then using the specific powers inherent to each costume to overcome roadblocks and hazards. There are several costumes, each with a necessary power for collecting all of the candy pieces in a given stage. For instance, the Frankenstein costume can punch through some objects and open up paths, and the Witch costume can turn the few ghost enemies that you encounter into frogs, which can then be easily strolled over. There is also a Creature from the Black Lagoon costume that allows you to tread through water, and a Dracula costume that grants the ability to transform into a bat and fly over trees and cliffs, letting you reach any otherwise inaccessible candy pieces.
I believe there are twenty stages in either version of the game, across five neighborhoods. The stages get progressively more involved with a higher candy count required to clear each level, and slightly more intricate environmental puzzles to maneuver through, though truthfully there's nothing in this game that should stump you.
There's not a whole lot to say about Trick Or Treat Beat, in regards to the gameplay. And while the maps are filled with reused art assets, I do think that
the aesthetic of the game is actually quite pretty. It has aged well, in
a modern era where we have seen a renaissance of pixel art and
retro-styled games. If you're at all nostalgic for the good old days of Cartoon Network, or the charming simplicity of browser games of yore, I definitely recommend checking out this cute, little Halloween game.
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