Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light

Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light (known in Japan as パムとジャムのパンプキンライト, romanized as "Pamu to Jamu no Panpukin Raito") is a game released by Kevstersoft (ケブスターソフト) for the Family Computer in 1990, near the end of the console's lifespan. Featuring revolutionary advances in color palette and sound chip technology, the developers at Kevstersoft sought to create an endless game about avoiding creatures in a maze, which drew comparisons to earlier Famicom games like PAC-MAN and Devil World both in the East and the West and led to the game's underperformance in sales. The following is a faithful emulation of Kevstersoft's efforts, which could not be normally achieved using standard emulators because of Kevstersoft's proprietary chips which have become lost to time; slight modifications have been made to the ROM to increase compatibility with modern hardware, and the emulator automatically recognizes connected gamepads. Fortunately, the original game offered support for the Family BASIC keyboard, making keyboard integration in-line and easy to adapt.

Pumpkin Light was the first in a series of poorly received Famicom games starring the titular ghosts, Pam and Jam, including Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light 2, Pam & Jam's Ghostly Adventure, and more. A team of video game preservationists have been making efforts to restore playability of Kevstersoft games on modern hardware.

The gameplay of Pumpkin Light centers around one ghost (Pam) or two ghosts (Pam and Jam) working to collaboratively or competitively place magical flames into pumpkins while avoiding monsters, which the story explains as having been sent by Death (Japanese: 死神 , "Grim Reaper"), the ruler of "Ghost-Land" (Japanese: 死神の国), "Death's Land"), to stop Pam and Jam from spreading cheer. While Death's status in Ghost-Land is never made clear in the official US and PAL releases, he is suggested to be the king of Ghost-Land in the Japanese release, as the kanji used in "Death's Land" literally mean that the "country" or "kingdom" belongs to him. While the game was advertised as being an "infinite game" (無限ゲーム) in Japan and overseas, modern preservation efforts have revealed that the game becomes unplayable after the 127th level, much like PAC-MAN's famous "kill screen" starting at stage 256 due to integer overflow.

As with many video games at the time, its developers remained anonymous. Preservationists request the original developers of Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light to make themselves known, if they are able. While it was not a very popular game, many of our childhoods were shaped by its simple yet increasingly frantic gameplay, and served as a unique alternative to other arcade games like PAC-MAN and Donkey Kong.

The following download of Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light includes the original printed manual bundled with copies of the game (obtained through the 2023 Kevstersoft "kiloleak" and converted to a modern PDF format for easier reading) and rips of all of the game's BGM, including specially-rendered "pause variants" of the songs altered at runtime within the game.

Real Life Information: Pam & Jam's Pumpkin Light was developed over the course of roughly one month by The Kevster, including concept, programming, spritework, music, and sound effects. Reading the included manual is highly recommended to explain the controls and enemy behaviors.

Controller Information: 

• Keyboard:
  • A button: Z key
  • B button: X key
  • Directional pad: Arrow keys
  • Start button: Enter key
  • Pause button: Escape or enter key
• Controller:
  • A button: A (Xbox), Cross (Dualshock)
  • B button: B (Xbox), Circle (Dualshock)
  • Directional pad: Left stick or D-pad
  • Start button: Menu button (Xbox), Options button (Dualshock)

To Play With Controller: To use the controller as Player 1, press the A button before touching anything on the keyboard.