GamerEscape

When I first saw the trailer for Love, Ghostie, my initial thoughts were that this was one of the more adorable games I’d seen all year. After all, you’re helping a bunch of cute critters find love in a wholesome slice of life, what could be cuter than that? Still, while I was initially enamored with the art style and premise, it takes more than that to make a game. Only one way to find out how the whole thing holds up.

Love, Ghostie was developed by Janbeh Games, and released on PC via Steam on August 14, 2024.

And They Were Roommates

So first things first, you’ve died. After the initial shock wears off, you find that the afterlife is all about matchmaking folks. It’s just what they do for entertainment, and they love it enough they’ve set up an economy around it and regularly get together to watch mortals go on dates.

Right away you’ll notice this is not a very serious game, and indeed the sense of humor is one of the things I absolutely love about Love, Ghostie. All the characters act in an overly dramatic fashion, putting their whole heart into the most mundane interactions, and that’s definitely where a lot of the charm comes from.

Speaking of the characters, beyond the tutorial you kinda take a backseat. You’re here to help these characters after all. There’s twelve in total, and each can improve their relationship with all the others for a total of 66 different pairs, each with their own little narrative. Not all of them start off saccharine and sweet either; for every pair that just hits it off immediately there’s also plenty of characters who start off on the wrong foot, whether through misunderstandings or simply having drastically different priorities. These ones actually wound up being my favorites, watching two people grow from being unable to stand each other, to having the thing they hated turn into some quirk about the other they couldn’t imagine them without.

Does it get a little cheesy at times? Absolutely 100%. In the end that all winds up part of the charm. They’re all a bunch of dorks and I found myself wanting to go for full completion not simply for the sake of it, but to see how everything pans out.

Tag Your OC

So, how does one do matchmaking anyway? Each day you have a few action points that can be used for a few things: picking up some random items around the house, gifting an item to another character (and claiming it’s from someone else), and assigning “chores” to various residents. Gifts will raise the happiness of the recipient and improve the relationship between both, and the chores have three options: a date that raises relationship between two, a self-care task that makes one resident happier, and a household helper chore that improves one resident’s relationship with everyone else.

What makes things a bit more complicated is that each item and chore has a number of tags associated with it, and different residents have different tags they like, which will make them more effective. The items you can pick up around the house and the dates, tasks, and chores available are random each day so you can’t just find a few good options and repeat them forever either.

While you can likely guess quite a few tags by their look and personality (go figure the fashion-conscious sheep that dresses all in black and purple likes the Dark and Fancy tags), to find out all of them you’ll need to do some trial and error. The game helpfully keeps track of all the likes/dislikes you’ve discovered, and you get some effectiveness even on a failure so you’re encouraged to try out unknowns. Plus some of the bad dates are kinda funny, so that’s a reward in its own right.

There’s also a few mini-games you can unlock, either to upgrade some of the existing chores or as extra things you can do with your actions. These serve to add a bit more interactivity to everything once you’ve gotten the basics down, though by and large these minigames are pretty simple and easy to clear.

While that’s all well and good, there are a few downsides. First, past a certain point your actions during the day can start to feel a little routine. I know towards the end I was scarcely thinking about what I was doing. Secondly, while the unlockable minigames are largely upgrades, for the household helper chores it changes it from just a flat increase towards everyone to a pachinko game where who gets the increase depends on where it lands and some characters might just not get any increases due to just being positioned poorly.

Chill Lofi Beats to Haunt to

As mentioned up at the start, the art style is SUPER adorable and was a big part of what drew me in. That said, it has a bit of the same problem visual novels have where there’s a limited selection of poses for each character, and in some cases this leads to a mismatch between how the narrative says someone should look and how they appear on screen. Still, it’s a minor issue in the end.

The music is also quite charming, and manages to somehow fit a ghostly theremin into relaxing and peaceful tracks without managing to sound out of place. It just perfectly encapsulates the vibe in a way I so rarely see games do.

Casual, Cozy, for Completionists

Overall, Love, Ghostie is exactly what it looks like on the tin: An adorable little slice of life full of charming characters you’ll get to know over the course of your adventure. While it doesn’t take long at all to reach the credits, the real fun comes from seeing all the various combinations, which greatly increases the run time.

It’s not especially deep or demanding, but not everything needs to be that way. It’s cozy, and sometimes that’s precisely what one needs.

~ Final Score: 9/10 ~

Review copy provided by Janbeh Games for PC. Screenshots provided by reviewer.