Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King: 2005
Developer: Tose Co., Ltd.
Genre: Action
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King Game Manual

Halloween Town is preparing for this year’s Halloween, and Jack Skellington is sure that this one will be the best ever! However, Oogie Boogie has other plans – furious that he has no holiday of his own, he commands Lock, Shock and Barrel to kidnap Jack so that he can take his place as the King of Halloween and claim the holiday for himself. Unfortunately, the trio kidnap Sally by mistake. Angered by their bumbling, Oogie Boogie releases thousands of bugs into Halloween Town, sending the citizens into hiding. It’s up to Jack to save Halloween Town…and his holiday!

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King is an action-adventure game similar to Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. The game is set before the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, before Jack’s encounter with Santa Claus and Oogie Boogie. The game takes place in one gigantic overworld which Jack can explore. As he earns new weapons, such as the Frog Gun and Bat Boomerang, he can unlock new areas and access more of the overworld. Early in the game, he’ll also find his ghost dog, Zero, who can help by finding secret areas and navigating through small spaces.

The game also features three mini-games that can be played either against the computer, or versus up to three friends. There’s ‘Bone Breaker’, where you must be the first to smash the skeleton, ‘Whack Hammer’, where you must smash as many rats and bats as possible, and ‘Skulldigger’, you must find the correct box with the Shrunken Head.