Matchmaking ghosts and flaming skeletons
Love, Ghostie and Hunt: Showdown 1896
It’s been a wild week. I’ve manipulated talking animals into dating each other, shotgunned flaming abominations in cowboy-era Colorado, and wrangled Magic: The Gathering’s crossover Assassin’s Creed product into a wildly unbalanced draft format.
Let’s start with Love, Ghostie. Regular readers know I’m partial to cutesy romance, so this new indie game grabbed, twisted, and ultimately dropped my heart.
Look, I didn’t expect it either, but Gerard the Giraffe and Noir the (literal) black Sheep have great chemistry. That karaoke date I forced them on? Delightful. Their “chance” meetings in the living room? Electric. Give me a few more days and some purloined gifts, I’ll have these two ready to move out and start a new life together.
So goes my afterlife as a clandestine matchmaker. New indie game Love, Ghostie distills the in-game relationship mechanics I’ve obsessed over into a breezy few hours. It’s like a bite-sized version of Spiritfarer or Fire Emblem — but without any epic battles or harrowing allegories for grief. While my ardor for it cooled as fast as it started, it’s still an impressive, if derivative, synthesis of G-rated voyeurism and spreadsheet optimization. But before I say more, I must disclose that I first heard of this game from my colleague, NPR engineer Gilly Moon, who also served as the game’s sound designer.
Love, Ghostie isn’t designed to be a mechanical or emotional challenge — instead, it’s got cozy vibes and cute critters in spades. Your job is to lure an anthropomorphic cast — which include the likes of a frog prince, a spacey polar bear and a walking, talking plant — to empty rooms in your house, snoop on their diaries and watch as they (probably) fall in love.
The game often winks at this manipulative premise, even as it cloaks its most sinister social engineering in cheery writing and a simple, Neopets-esque aesthetic. You’ll invisibly zip around, ‘stealing’ whimsical items that materialize in your attic and common rooms, only to regift them to suitable residents under another resident’s name, thereby increasing their happiness meter and relationship levels. […]
I swooned over this loop the first night I tried it, but after 30 in-game days, I ran out of steam. I sent two layabouts on vacations so others could replace them. I shipped off my beloved Ami, a hamster engineer, with BEEP0, the robot she came to care for. I mastered every minigame, and encountered recycled date dialogue a few too many times. Ultimately, the experience felt oddly empty. Almost like I really was a ghost, living vicariously through those trusting enough to move into a free apartment. Maybe there’s some sly satire there — but it still left me wanting.
Mine is not the only NPR opinion about Love, Ghostie, however. Co-worker Nina Fill and I have been corresponding about it all week. “I often play games that have a lot going on or rules I forget about, but Love, Ghostie has been a very welcome simple game in my life,” she told me. “I wish the game didn’t fly by so quickly but otherwise I wouldn’t change anything.”
My final verdict? Love, Ghostie is so streamlined that it’ll leave even its most passionate supporters pining for more. But for less than $20, maybe all it really needs to do is make a great first impression. One day, if a sequel comes out with more complex characters and maybe an overarching drama (like something akin to, say, Boyfriend Dungeon), I could easily be tempted back into its warm embrace.
(Also, I didn’t have time to mention in the piece that Love, Ghostie incidentally boasts the best in-world hint system I’ve ever seen: “Deaditt” — a forum site for tips, speculation, and the occasional conspiracy theory.)
I’m a terrible shot, but that hasn’t stopped me from logging over 600 hours in Hunt: Showdown, a cowpokes vs. zombies vs. cowpokes extravaganza that just got fully revamped — (temporarily) trading Louisiana’s bayous for Colorado’s alpine climes. The new map’s breathtaking, multilayered, and home to a novel, fire-spewing boss.
Unfortunately, the menu UI is much, much worse, and PC gamers, as is their wont, have been review-bombing Hunt’s Steam page. I agree that it’s a baffling backwards-step for anyone not using a controller, but make no mistake: this is otherwise every bit the upgrade we’ve been hoping for. I look forward to prowling the new environs with a posse of friends this weekend.
Finally, Wizards of the Coast sent me a box of their weird Assassin’s Creed set, which came out earlier this summer. I’ve played Black Flag, Valhalla, and Mirage, but I’m no great fan of the video game series — and I especially wasn’t a fan of Wizards’ decision to publish the set in stunted, half-sized booster packs.
Still, my friends and I concocted a way to draft it. Each player started with 2.5 Assasin’s Creed “Beyond Boosters," followed by Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Murders at Markov Manor. We ended up with functional decks loaded with assassins, removal, and strange Historic synergies. One player drafted four copies of Shay Cormac! Another tried to build around the Capitoline Triad! I had a terrible White-Red aggro deck that only succeeded when it stuck Ezio, Brash Novice on turn two!
But all in all, it was good silly fun, and everyone left with interesting cards. Would assassinate again.
Finally, I have to hat-tip Mandalit del Barco, who just published an extremely thorough piece on video game performers and their strike.
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