Trick or Croak

What is Trick or Croak?

Trick or Croak is a free HTML5 deduction puzzle set on Gourd Lane at Halloween. Six zombies wear identical purple robes, carry treat bags, and have carved pumpkins for heads. At twenty to seven, Paul accepts a sweet from the zombie with the crooked grin, says thanks, and croaks; his tongue turns green. The grin is visible to everyone, yet the pumpkin comes off at Widow Krall's apple tub, and no zombie can see its own pumpkin. One of the six is naughty, and that one plays tricks.

The game turns that opening into a closed deduction problem. Every child reports only what was at eye level: tall children see pumpkins, small children see hems, and each child knows the treat they received. Widow Krall watches the tub and sees pumpkins but never hems. The answer is a single sentence naming whose hand, whose pumpkin, and the trick. Three nights move from the straightforward Fun case to Spooky and Scary, adding bag tricks and unknown trick types.

How to play

Begin with the Fun night: Paul croaks, and the case contains one trick. Read the night in order, then open the photo of any moment to examine what each witness could have seen. Mark each zombie as cleared or suspect as the record narrows. Finish by filling one sentence: whose hand, whose pumpkin, and the trick. The game tells how many blanks are wrong, never which blanks, so each attempt gives a count rather than a pointer.

Spooky moves a year later and puts Felix at the center, with a pumpkin trick and a bag trick to separate. Scary moves to the third year, Theo, two tricks, and no knowledge of which kind. Each night has exactly one answer, and the reasoning stays inside what is on the page. The Fun case takes about ten minutes; Spooky and Scary take longer. Solving a night reveals what nobody saw.

Controls

Play moves through the night's photo record. Open the photo of any moment to inspect it, then mark zombies as cleared or suspect. The final action is filling one sentence with three parts: whose hand, whose pumpkin, and the trick. A wrong count appears as a number of incorrect blanks, not as a highlighted mistake, so the player decides what to change. Sound begins on by default, with a croak, wind, an owl, and a music box; a switch in the corner turns it off. The game runs in a browser.

Because each night is read in order, the photo record is the main way to test a timeline. The status marks help track six identical robes and six pumpkin heads. The sentence fields keep the final answer narrow, and the corner switch controls audio without leaving the case.

Tips for your first run

Start with Fun rather than jumping to Scary. Paul's case has one trick and takes about ten minutes, enough to learn how eye-level testimony, the apple tub view, and treat knowledge fit together. Treat the wrong-blank count as a constraint, not a hint: it says how many parts of the sentence are off, never which part. Keep a clean cleared/suspect list as the photos accumulate.

• Separate what a child could see from what a child knows. Tall children see pumpkins, small children see hems, and every child knows the treat they received.
• Use Widow Krall as a pumpkin-only witness. She watches from her window and sees pumpkins, never hems.
• Do not let the public crooked grin decide the pumpkin. Everyone saw the grin, but a zombie cannot see its own pumpkin, and pumpkins come off at the apple tub.
• Read the night in order and open photos before committing. The sequence carries the alibi and the trick.
• In Spooky, split the pumpkin trick from the bag trick; in Scary, expect two tricks without knowing their kind.
• When a count changes, revisit the exact sentence parts: hand, pumpkin, trick.

Content and replayability

Trick or Croak contains three nights, not a long campaign. Fun is the shortest, around ten minutes, and centers on Paul, one trick, and the poisoned sweet. Spooky arrives a year later with Felix, a pumpkin trick, and a bag trick. Scary arrives in the third year with Theo, two tricks, and no advance knowledge of their kind. Each night has exactly one answer, and a computer checked every possible night to confirm the reasoning holds. Solving a night shows what nobody saw, which gives the case a definite payoff beyond the blank count. The content is short and tightly scoped: the deduction is the main draw, and the three named nights are the fixed case set. That makes the three-night set feel like a compact puzzle box rather than a sprawling adventure.

Presentation and performance

Every picture in Trick or Croak is drawn by code on a canvas, and every sound is generated in the browser's audio engine. The presentation uses no image generator, no AI audio, no asset packs, and no recordings. The palette of identical purple robes, carved pumpkin heads, and the apple tub comes from Christine's art direction; she approved every zombie and asked for a higher, shorter croak. The audio defaults to on and includes a croak, wind, an owl, and a music box, with a corner switch for silence. Typography uses Grenze Gotisch and Bricolage Grotesque from Google Fonts. The game is HTML5 and runs in a browser. Claude Code wrote the code, the case solver, and the words under the makers' direction and playtesting. The team is also behind The Typing Pool and Pier 7.

Who should play it

Trick or Croak suits players who want a short Halloween deduction case built around reading a night, checking testimony, and filling one sentence. The appeal is in working out who could see pumpkins versus hems and using the wrong-blank count to close in on the answer. Fans of cozy mystery, logic puzzles, and zombie-themed Halloween stories will find the tone in the purple robes, pumpkin heads, and Paul's green-tongued croak. Because each case has exactly one answer and the computer checked every possible night, it rewards careful elimination rather than guessing. The Fun night is about ten minutes, so it works as a single browser session; Spooky and Scary extend the same idea with more tricks. The case set is short, so it fits an evening rather than a long commitment.