Ghost in the Machine

In a nutshell Ghost in the Machine is a fun and simple 8 bit platformer with great music. https://youtu.be/xrKAYZWNMYY The gameplay works as you would expect from an old school platformer and there isn't really anything else to say about that. Levels themselves are quite short on the most part, but all most all of them have a little quirk to them, that you must figure out in order to get through them. There are also secrets in the levels which are themselves tough to get at times. The art style works well with the game's setting which is a abandoned factory that blew up. strange though how everything still works in the factory, but oh well. The music also brings a lot of nostalgic feels from the times of the NES, SNES, Megadrive era of games. There's also an level editor which I didn't really try, but if you like making custom levels then that's a nice bonus. All and all a fun little game. If you are interested in some gameplay then take a look at my video on it here: https://youtu.be/xrKAYZWNMYY

This game is awesome. It's easy to pick up, and yet nearly impossible to master. The controls and mechanics are unforgiving, but as you overcome them, you feel like you can defeat anything. This is a game that doesn't baby you, or hold your hand. It challenges you to get better every step of the way. On top of that, the graphics and sound serve to create an experience that make it my favorite game.

The music is bona-fide incredible and I genuinely considered giving it a "Yes" based on that alone. The controls are crisp and the movement "feels" right. However, the unforgiving hitboxes, inability to judge foreground/background details, and completely unnecessary darkness torpedo this one. I REALLY don't get why the devs added the darkness - it's not something that a retro game would do (or even be capable of), and only serves as a source of artificial frustration. Still, the soundtrack is incredible.

It's extremely difficult to tell the foreground from the background, so the primary challenge of the game is fighting against the horrible visuals as they attempt to mislead you and give you a seizure. It's a mediocre platformer where everything is very hard to see. I'd recommend you just find one of the many free mediocre platformers, and play that instead.

Difficult but fun. Be prepared for old school frustration goodness.

3.5/10 Clearly only friends of developer reviewed the game. I love platformers, but this doesn’t have much to offer. No story. Every level looks the same with black background and different color poor pixelated platforms and spikes. That would be ok if the platforming were actually decent. For some reason you can’t see the map and only a tiny cone around you, making jumps usually into areas you can’t see, forcing luck and trial and error. When you can see you have to jump over and between spikes. Unfortunately the hitboxes are terrible. You are this giant guy who spreads his long legs open when jumping and need to land in this tiny too small gap between spikes. Since you don’t know where exactly to land you’ll land in the middle and your leg will hit, or something will be off. I died dozens of times just because how terrible done this was. Many times when I did land right one of my legs would be sticking into a spike but it didn't count it. Then if you are between spikes and press forward + jump to jump forward out of between them, you will instantly die. You have to jump then move over, which is another problem. Then, triggered events happen offscreen. I would miss things because I couldn’t see them. No level direction either, I would have timed things to do but since I couldn’t see anything I wouldn’t know if I needed to go down or up or where to go. Same song plays in background, which gets annoying fast. Not really much to like here. If you want to have a good platformer you should do hitboxes and platforming and level design the opposite of how this game does it.

Let's make a retro style platformer. Move and jump. Simple, right? Let's make a list of bad ideas: What if we make it super dark and the walls are almost invisible because they are just mostly textureless black? What if you have to play it with a really restricted view like you're looking through a paper towel tube the whole time? What if half the obstacles are covered up by the foreground and half the jumps are blind and end in spike pits? What if we put really narrow spaces between spikes and then make the main character a huge prancing dude with a huge hitbox? Perfect. Put all those things in the game. Wait, wasn't this a list of bad ideas? Don't care. Print it. 1.5/10 because the prancing amused me for a few minutes.

Made by fellow Tigers, man these cats know game design. Throwback to NES platformers, you can run and jump. RUN AND JUMP! To address the haters in this thread. Yea, the monochrome color scheme is 'iffy' and you might have problems if you are colorblind, but I did not feel like it detrated from the game. I thought the hitboxes were fine; reminiscent of playing Megaman and having to creep your toes over the ledge to the last pixel. The game starts ez enough - and ramps up slowly, increasing the challenge as each level adds new puzzles and obstacles for you to overcome, constantly thinking and adapting as the levels advance. I'm about an hour in, and maybe completed half the levels, but I'm also very bad at these kinds of games. They are difficult, but not impossible - and that's something I really enjoy!

Awesome game with great music highly recomended.

A very nice platformer with accurate controls, fine music and levels which are easy and levels which are hard. A neat level editor provides everything to build your own great creations which can be friendly or insanely difficult.