Two thieves get trapped inside a haunted mansion. The doors are blocked by rubble and ghosts have started to attack. Luckily they left spare batteries and lenses in the rooms along the way.

This is a simple game with a ramp-up in challenge. Your battery is your lifeline so be careful with that light. Make it last. Eventually the next room will open and you can run. You'll get a new battery, a new lens for your flashlight, and a whole new color of ghost to deal with.

SPACE: Turn on and off the flashlight. Run when the time is right.
ARROW KEYS: Aim.
LETTER KEYS: Change lens (once you have them).

There's no proper end, unfortunately, but there are six lenses to make the game harder on you! Good luck and don't get attacked without any battery power.

This was made by one person. It's my first game, and my first gm48! I learned a lot and I'm looking forward to next time. Any feedback is welcome and deeply appreciated!

((And yes, I'm kicking myself that the score doesn't work properly. :) ))

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  • Jupiter Hadley
    Lv. 13

    Nice little game! I included it in my GM48: Colors are Important compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/5oPza5MRAiY

  • Swisspick
    Lv. 9

    The game was quite difficult but overall interesting. The graphics were ok and the music creeped me out a little. I also noticed that there was a player object/sprite in the top middle of the first room somehow.(?)

    The game mechanic was interesting but not quite my cup of tea. Nevertheless a good first entry :)

    Essence
    Submitted

    Essence

  • WinuX
    Lv. 15

    Game was difficult, but enjoyable. It would have been neat if there was some more depth in the gameplay.
    The audio was very unsettling, which made the game really immersive.
    A overall good game for someone who just started.

    Essence
    Submitted

    Essence

  • 89o
    Lv. 18

    Neat-o! I liked it. Quite chaotic. For some reason in the last level you don't have Q,A,D and E?

    C M Y K
    Submitted

    C M Y K

  • Jamblefoot
    Lv. 8

    Simple and effective! I don't have much to add to what others have already said, just wanted to say that you made a really slick first game. Great job!

  • FrogWax
    Lv. 5

    This game gets decievingly difficult and tense, and I love it. Really satisfying controls and feedback, easy to pick up but difficult to master. I love the camera zooming in to decrease visual range. It's a suitable penalty for screwing up. Awesome ambience. Really nice entry, a brilliant first game! !

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Thanks, FrogWax!

      Something I've been thinking about a lot in looking at other entries is how a game provides feedback to other players. I'm glad to hear Ghosties hits the right note for you in that regard. Thank you again for all the positive feedback!

  • Naxos
    Lv. 7

    This is a neat game! Starts out fairly simple and ramps up nicely! The art all fits well together and the music and sounds really add to the spooky mood.

    I liked the way that the battery power was represented and how it affected your ability to see what was around you, though I thought the zoom in could be slightly more forgiving when the power gets really low, but that's a minor thing.

    It was also nice that you laid out the lens colors with the keys labeled and in the right positions. The red of the Q could have matched the ghosts a bit more, but that's also minor.

    Diagonal ghosties are a bit hard to neutralize, but I can't think of any suggestions to help that at the moment.

    This was a fun entry and an excellent first jam game! Look forward to seeing what you do next!

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Hey! Thanks for the feedback! I am really happy to hear that the mood and style all adds together. Thank you for that.

      I can see what you mean about being more forgiving. In some ways that positive feedback loop of "oh you're hurting so now I'm making it so you will likely get hurt more" can feel a bit uncompromising. I actually made it more forgiving at the end than it originally was, but I was worried about giving more space than that in the end. It's good to know I could have gone further with that allowance.

      Good pick up on the color of the red. That was the first of the keys I colored and I should have gone back around to it after establishing the saturation for the other keys. I appreciate you catching that detail. Same with the diagonal ghosts. I'm not sure how I would edit that either. I ran into a learning moment. On my keyboard, I can't press up, left, and space at the same time. My hardware won't recognize it. Some one else gave the idea of mouse aim and I'm betting that would've allowed a lot more freedom there.

      Thank you again for the kind words are detail-oriented feedback. That really helps me see where I can improve. Cheers.

  • Hikikomori
    Lv. 1

    This is an amazing game! Loved the art and gameplay!

    One of my favourite as this point. Really well made. Simple yet extremly effective. Needed to retry a couple of time when obtained all the different color.

    Props for the great game!

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Thank you! I'm so glad it engaged you this way! I was feeling very nervous about the simplicity. I appreciate your feedback.

      Thank you again!

  • Lyra
    Lv. 2

    For something as small as your game, I had a lot of fun playing it! I am surprised myself at how engaged you managed to make me with your small story, spooky and effective sound and the "RUN!" text.

    The gameplay is really solid. A lot of the design choices are made to make the game progressively more difficult, which works wonders with the ghost/scary theme you have going on. Giving you one more color per level, slowly zooming in, having a lot of different buttons for the colors to confuse the player a bit... All of this ended up making me really stressed out as the game went on.

    Congrats on your first game, it was a success in my opinion!

    Colornaut
    Submitted

    Colornaut

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Hi Lyra, thank you for the positive feedback. I'm so happy to hear you found Ghosties engaging! To be honest, I wasn't sure how it would be received.

      For the project one of my goals was to make decisions that served the gameplay in some functional way. It brings me no end of joy to know you found me successful in that, so just, thank you! It really helps to hear an objective take like yours. You made my day.

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67
    • The controls get so confusing at some point. I like the idea but when more keys get added I seriously can't keep up with the colors. Sometimes, I wanna switch color but end up hitting the same key. I think it would have greatly helped to have some kind of "quick" control. For example, a key that just cycles through the colors to make it more simple in some cases. Or maybe a "switch between the previous color and the current one" but yeah, i think the issue is how you can easily feel lost even though there is a reminder on the screen (I wish there was some kind of "intuitive order" to help, although it might be too hard to get) I also wished I could aim with the mouse
    • The sounds and gloomy atmosphere are super great! It really feels like you're in their situation. I also liked the texture of the lamp.
    Dye Hard
    Submitted

    Dye Hard

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Thank you for the feedback! This is great!

      I knew that switching colors would become a hassle and the best I could think to do in the time frame was arrange the keys based on the keyboard layout. I love the idea of a rapid switch though. Say for instance if the aim was controlled by mouse and then you had the mouse wheel to adjust based on hue? That would be a solution for sure. Thanks for the idea!!!

      I originally planned to have it be letter keys and numpad, but some players don't have numpads so I left it on the back burner. I wonder if that would have changed anything to the feel because wow arrow keys are a pain.

      Also thank you for the kind words about the audio/immersion. I'd never made audio tracks before so I'm glad that came across well.

      Again, thank you so much for the feedback, this really does give me something to chew on for the future.

  • Yosi
    Lv. 46

    This is a nice simple game - a different take on the common type of game where the player stands and shoots at enemies. It's a little confusing, but the controls, art, and effects work for it.

    Color Jump
    Submitted

    Color Jump

    • Croaks
      Lv. 4
      Croaks Coder of Ghosties

      5yrs ago

      Thank you for the feedback. It's definitely not going to win for immersion but I'm glad you were able to figure it out! Thanks for playing.