Ghostist

tldr: Casual and very fun game. Also If you like phasmophobia, you will love this Overall really fun to play, has a bunch of ghosts and evidence types to find, lots of maps from small to medium to large as well so decent variety. Concept wise plays similar to phasmophobia, pick a map, get the evidence and pick the ghost correctly to make money. Why I love this game: -Dev has already done multiple updates with features and QoL updates -Lots of different maps to try, various sizes -Lots of different ghost types, lots of different evidence types -The spiritbox is pretty creepy which adds to the atmosphere and fun to use -Only experienced one minor bug which was patched immediately -The way you pick the evidence and it tells you which ghost it is without you having to do everything manually is also a nice touch

Credit to Insym for seeing this game, what a nice change of pace from Phasmo. A great small game for the price. Would love to see more added to this game. Small size maps are more fun then the Large. Would like more to do like objectives, you spend more time just finding the 3 bones then I have to wait till I annoy the ghost to use the exorcism. Could make the game darker so you need room lights and your flashlight. Overall good game and hope they add more to it...

I think I've racked up enough hours to give this a real review now. Ghostist; is a pretty casual, but definitely charming; 2d ghost hunting game. You play alone as you work to identify ghosts across different job sites. And, as you complete jobs & earn money; you can buy extra items to assist in your investigations. There's a good variety in ghosts, & jobsites. And, investigations usually don't take too long to complete. So, it's definitely a game I like to jump into for some quick, play sessions. One thing that really stands out for me is the atmosphere of the game. It might be easy to underestimate being that the game is 2d, but it's done really well in my opinion. I've certainly been caught off guard a time or two, and jumped in my seat a little from the spookiness. Oh, and the game natively supports Linux; which is great! As for negatives. The only real "issue" so far; is the game is currently pretty easy. Which may disappoint some people expecting a steeper level of difficulty, or a bit more content. I'd be eager to see, if possible; some updates or dlc that address this a bit more in the future. Overall though, I'd definitely recommend the game!

Fun game!! If you like phasmophobia or ghost hunting type stuff you'll like this game! Would be awesome to get a character sprite update or even character customization at some point, but base game is super good! Many ghost types to find, the ghost voices and spirit box add tension and fear and overall it's fun to play, I can't wait to see where this game goes update wise, and can't wait to keep hunting ghosties!

[h1] Not The Best It Could Be [/h1] Would you rather watch some fairly raw gameplay instead of read? Me too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J3PaR-bxwo [b] [Thoughts and First Impressions] [/b] I got notified about this game quite a long while ago when Phasmophobia took off and have been excited for a release so that I could check it out. I have some 300+ hours in Phasmo so this game was right up my alley. A horror pixel game where you get to track down ghosts? Sign me up. Let's talk about where it starts strong: The Spirit Box (or spook-N-spell if you want) is REALLY cool. I think it trounces Phasmo's use of it. They have many different voices and sounds that come through and it works to really create a spooky atmosphere and setup. That is unfortunately where the strong sides of this game end. Let me just hit the reasons why I think this game really fails. 1) You can identify and purge a ghost in less than a minute. That's not exaggeration. Exploration consists of walking around an area and waiting for your EMF to go off. It'll be quick. Once you have the room, often all of the evidence IMMEDIATELY presents itself. You may walk into a room and your light starts flickering, you see a shadow and it's already freezing. That is often enough to already know the type of ghost! You can go ahead and mark the evidence in your journal and leave. You're done! 2) There really isn't much of a threat. I did 13 missions and died 1 time. It was because I was standing perfectly still trying to figure out what happens if you stand perfectly still. You will eventually die. The ghosts are slow and you can just run away. I never had issues living after that. 3) You can purge ghosts! What a neat idea. You can actually KILL the ghosts. The issue is that you just collect the 3 bones that are sitting on the floor in the map and then just right click a bunch of times rapid fire when you're near a ghost to setup the ritual and have it done. Oh yea, you have to identify the ghost first. You don't have to do anything active other than stand in the ritual area after you have clicked 4 or 5 times to set it all up. It does the rest. One time though I had to just arbitrarily wait around 30 seconds because it said I "Hadn't annoyed the ghost enough yet to exorcise it". That's really... really silly. 4) There is really nothing to work towards. No progression. Within 30 minutes of playing I had already bought the two things that are "expensive" and I had nothing else to buy. There aren't levels in the game, just unlocks that you can get after getting a bunch of money. What are those unlocks? I don't know because the game isn't interesting enough to keep my playing to find out. You can get the same amount of money when you do smaller stages as you do the larger ones and because you can do them so much faster there is little reason to go anywhere else. Is it scary? A few times yea it felt a little spooky but even the scare factor really isn't there. The honest truth is that this game feels like what happens if someone were to read about Phasmophobia the game in a book and never actually play it to see what makes it fun. Then they made a game. That game is Ghostist. tl;dr - It really just isn't very fun after 10 minutes. Join the Curator group for more reviews and "unboxing" of unknown games! https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34634494/

Obviously there are comparison points to Phasmophobia, but this carves out juuuuust enough of a niche especially for the price. This basically plays like a 2D, top-down, single-player version of Phasmophobia in very very short bursts. In the time it may take to go through a mission in phasmo, you can go through 4-6 of them in Ghostist! The missions themselves currently feel a tad easy; without giving too much away, there are some ghosts you have to worry waaay less about than other ghosts. Even for the more dangerous ones, it's fairly easy to pick up multiple pieces of evidence upon encountering the ghost, and then looking around for/deducing the last piece of the puzzle (this also makes the fact that some ghosts require a lotta evidence to correctly identify them less important). As you go through each mission, you get the sense that the tools you buy with in-game money are luxuries that feel nice to use but don't feel all the helpful for these already-easy hunts. ...And yet once you get a rhythm going it's hard to stop playing mission after mission. That satisfying little beep you hear when you narrow down the ghost, the quickness of these hunts, the variety of maps and mostly-spooky noises in the game all make the game best enjoyed when you do a quick succession of runs, then go on and do something else. You know those weird unboxing videos that kids like a lot? This can feel for players like what I reckon this feels for those kids as you wonder what the next ghost will be, then quickly find out. I wouldn't pay more than the asking price for this, but if you need a spooky-themed coffee break game, this might be a good (and your only???) choice. It's working on a decent formula, so more assets, tool types, character customization, etc. in early access would make it even better.

Thanks for so many hours between guessing and goosebumps. A game for in between, but unfortunately the in between often gets longer than expected... :-D It is nice to experience how the game and it's content are growing! Maybe there will be a mobile version for more "in between" on the road?

Cool proof of concept, it doesn't go beyond that but can't complain too much for 5 bucks. Lots of potential that is in need of more content. DLC model would work well here. I'd pay 15 bucks for a lot more content like new ghosts, many more kinds of ghost mechanics, new challenges, don't care much for more maps unless they allow for new mechanics.

This game is super fun! It has similar mechanics/objectives to other ghost hunting games, but the 2D design and lack of jump scares makes it very easy to play alone. I also enjoy how every mission is different in terms of ghost type, ghost behavior, and evidence to find. So the game has great replayability! Looking forward to future updates!

Thank you Insym for bringing this game to a wider audience and thank you dev for such a fresh entry in the ghost hunting genre. The fast missions make this a perfect "play for a few minutes before bed" game, which is huge for me while trying to balance work and classes. Can't wait to see what the updates might bring.