Poltergeist: A Pixelated Horror

Ghost Master was the ultimate ghost game back in the year 2003 when it was first released. The ability to play as a ghost where you had to scare away people was a fun and unique experience, but somehow the idea hasn’t been used in many other games after that one. The ones that did use it usually failed or were just mildly successful. So will Poltergeist A Pixelated Horror succeed where others have failed ? Let’s take a closer look. Poltergeist A Pixelated Horror (from now on referenced as Poltergeist if necessary) is at its heart a puzzle game and not a ‘real’ ghost simulator. You can’t use your tricks and summons infinitely, there’s a limit to how many times you can perform a certain action. But before I get to this I’ll try to tell you a little bit more about the game itself. After having lived in a mansion his entire life, Henry B. Knight (the main character of the game) eventually dies. Naturally, new people will start living in this mansion, but you can’t and won’t accept this. In fact, you won’t be able to find peace until you’ve scared them all away. So it’s here that your quest to retake the mansion begins. As you can clearly see Henry B. Knight is the star of the game. But you won’t actually see him all that often. He’ll sometimes appear as a ‘special power’ ghost to scare away bosses, but other than that (and for some small cutscenes) you will hardly ever see him. This is weird but also acceptable since the game is played from an isometric perspective, also known as a bird’s-eye view. Each level has a couple of rooms tied together. In each room there’s usually at least one person or animal to be found, as well as some objects like TV’s, beds and chairs. The exit can be located anywhere, it doesn’t really matter, because once a person or animal is spooked he, she or it will automatically find their way towards this exit. The one thing you have to think about it is how to use the tools you’re given to scare everyone away. Some of the levels will be easy and some of the later levels will absolutely challenge your mind. But fortunately you can always restart a level if things don’t entirely go your way. Each inhabitant has a meter that shows how easily one is spooked. A full meter (three circles) seems to be the limit but there’s also the possibility that a meter is black. This means you have to scare the person first before you’re able to see how full their meter actually is. There are quite a few ways to scare people; you have the basic tricks like moving objects and making noise or you can sometimes summon a ghost or a ghost that can take over people and walk around. I’ve mentioned it before already, but since this is a puzzle game your objective is to use all of your available tools (or less, of course) to empty the rooms. Sometimes special characters (like exorcists and ghost hunters) will appear and these people have the ability to block one or more of your powers. In the beginning this is sometimes annoying, because if an action is blocked or stopped this means you usually have to restart the level. Later levels will allow you to finish it without having to use up all of your powers (if you play it strategically) making it a little bit more open and accessible. There’s no hint system so you have to figure things out all by yourself. This is sometimes a little harder than expected; I’ve played early levels that took me more than a few tries while I could finish other, later levels in one go. Poltergeist uses multiple settings like the traditional (1800/1900’s) mansion but there’s also a modern setting and even an office to haunt. In total there are 60 levels; 15 for each setting with the last three levels being boss encounters. I’m not sure why there are even boss encounters; the idea sounds cool, but the execution is very poor. That’s because the boss fight levels are essentially the same as all the other levels, but the deal here is that the boss can only be scared away once all other inhabitants are gone. After that you can summon the ghost of Henry to scare him off. This last part is done with a simple mouseclick and there’s no real interaction. I think this could’ve used a little more thought. But other than that this is good fun. Poltergeist isn’t outstanding in its graphics department. In fact, its style is a bit of a coherent mess. I understand that it’s probably because of financial and/or time constraints, but it uses both 2D sprites and 3D models. The sprites are okay but charmingly animated, but once the 3D models start to appear you get thrown out of the experience because – to me – it just doesn’t look right. Or the other way around, I’m not sure. The textures on the other hand are very well done. The interface is basic but gets the job done. A little more polish, a bit of resizing and maybe some extra color would’ve been nice but it’s good enough to understand what each icon does. The music is perfect with haunting, Exorcist-like tunes. It’s done very well and complements the atmosphere, even though the game isn’t about scary or creepy stuff (the setting, however, is). The frightened people, as well as their screams when they are running away, are realistic and believable. There’s also nothing wrong with the sound effects; they might feel unnecessary at first but they’re essential to let the gamers know that something is actually happening. So every object and summon you use will make a sound. Length wise there’s more than enough gameplay to keep you occupied for at least several hours. Each of the levels takes but a few minutes (if you know exactly what to do) so getting through the 60 levels will take you anywhere between 4-7 hours I think. I can’t complain here, there’s more than enough to do. Poltergeist might not become a classic like Ghost Master but despite that it has become an entertaining puzzle game worthy of my time. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table but anyone looking for another ghost game, or just a good puzzle game in general, will absolutely have fun with this. [quote]If you enjoyed this review please consider following me: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41144728-markdj/]curator page[/url] [/quote]

Fun little game, where you play the ghost and have to haunt the annoying living people out of your house. The game offers scenarios with a range of different persons to haunt and with rising complexity also new ways to scare them away. From time to time you also have "boss" scenarios, where you have to haunt especially mighty people. Graphics and soundwise it´s a very basic game, the gameplay also is easy to learn, but offers at least a bit of variety. If you get it cheap, i would recommend it for a happy haunting breaktime session.

This game should not cost more than a dollar. In fact, it should have been one of those free flash games. The lack of polish in the game is extremely aggravating. I mean, when an image is slid into place, from below or from above, you can see it pass under a black box. That's just sloppy work. The gameplay is extremely simple to the point of being boring and the animations are underwhelming. I would recommend either Ghost Master (also available on Steam) or Haunt the House, a free flash game on Kongregate over this game. The creator of this game really needs to work on their skill before selling games on Steam.

An interesting puzzle game, where you play the ghost, that's scaring everyone out of his house! It feels really satisfactory, when you complete a level and everyone is running for their lives out of your house! You have a reasonable arsenal of spells at your disposal, but most of the time the levels are tightly created, so you really need to plan ahead in order to complete the level - most of the time by using every single one of your spells. As you progress trough the game, the inhabitants of the house will try to to "fight" you, by inviting special characters into the house - priests, ghost busters and what not (there is no real interaction, the level just starts with the special characters inside the house). Those special characters will disable/counteract a couple of your spells, so you really need to plan your moves in order to succeed. Planing is vital to this game, as you will find yourself restarting the levels over and over in order to find the perfect interaction to succeed. That is especially true for the boss levels - the last 3 levels of each era involve a Boss and need to be unlocked by completing a number of the other levels. The Boss represents a tough person invited to the house to deal with you once and for all! In order to defeat him you need to scare everyone else outside, and then deal with him 1v1. I would definitely like to see some keyboard controls added into the game at a later stage, but that is more a question of convenience, as there is no time pressure to solve the puzzles and playing only with the mouse and having one hand free has its advantages :p TL:DR ? You can watch the video of my first impressions - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=329712107

Pixels and ghosts is the theme here! You play the role of a Poltergeist as they attempt to spook out the occupants of the house they built and died in. To do this you can use one of your spooky abilities to instil fear into the family members that have taken up residence in your home. However you're limited in the number of times you can use each ability per level, and some levels restrict which abilities are available... and this is where the puzzle element comes into the game. You essentially have a limited number of moods to cause enough fear to get the people to leave. Some abilities cause more fear than other, while some people in the house can counter-act the spooky spells if they see them. For example the Gypsys and 'Good' witches will stop things from flying around if they're in the same room as the spell. The game consists of 60 levels broken into Eras of 15 'puzzles' with 3 boss encounters before you can progress. Each Era has it's own theme, and 'topical' references. Each Era has it's own musical score too, and while that might sound a little grating as it's the only music you'll hear for 15 levels, I've yet to become overly annoyed by the music. In fact I've found it to have it's own strange level of charm, however I can understand it might not be for everyone. Essentially Poltergeist: A Pixelated Horror is a puzzle game that requires a little bit of logic and understand to solve each level. There might be those thinking this is similar to 'The Haunting' on the Mega Drive, sadly however this game doesn't have as much freedom in choices/design when it comes to clearing out the level or spooking the residents. Despite this it's still a fun experience, one I enjoyed playing in small bursts when I had a bit of downtime or was idly watching TV. In short a fun puzzle game to play in short blasts. For a real treat click the Rubix Cube on Level 21 a few times (may cause a bug).

Charm goes a long way in games. Charm is the reason I don’t lose my mind when I get spiked on spikes in Spelunky. Charm is the reason I can put up with the insanity of E.Y.E. It’s enough to forgive concepts that’s aren’t fully fleshed out or gameplay with rough edges, and that’s exactly what it does for this title. Poltergeist will charm your socks off with its blocky furnishings and its hand-drawn cartoon cutscenes, enough that you won’t mind the simplistic puzzles that form its core. You take on the role of Henry B. Knight, vengeful deceased, as he scares the stuffing out of anyone who would call his mansion home. The game plays out in 60 puzzles across four time periods, with looks and themes unique to each era. Puzzles have a number of folks milling around, and provide you a limited number of ghostly powers to terrify them with. The powers range from jiggling loose objects to full-on possessing people, but their mechanical functions are all similar. Your hapless victims are divided across rooms, and the powers do a certain amount of “damage” to the people in one or more rooms. When you do enough damage to a person, they vacate. The actual puzzle, then, is figuring out what combination of powers in what order will get everyone gone. You might need to fling a lamp from one room into another to soften someone up for a shadowman encounter. Or you might have to send a ghost wolf to drive a lone inhabitant into a room full of people so you can explode the TV and mortify them all at once. There are special characters that block certain powers, and each era of puzzles ends with three boss fights against some entertaining characters with their own ways of fouling you up. None of the puzzles are terribly challenging, since they’re just sequence problems, but they’re gratifying enough to overcome. My only hangup here was the fiddly attention-getting power which works based on some unclear proximity rules that made it hard to complete a few puzzles, even when I knew exactly what to do. What really kept me invested here was the presentation. The graphics are a peculiar mix of 2D characters against chunky, voxelly 3D levels. It works better than it sounds because the features of the levels are all physics-enabled, allowing your terrified tenants to bang open doors, knock over vases, and up-end entire tables. The adorable visuals are coupled with some equally adorable sound effects of gasps, screams, and Sims-style nonsense. You also get loads of hand-drawn cutscenes for the eras and bosses, accompanied with some charmingly not-quite-right English subtitles. The goofy endings are also worth your time to see, capping off a perfectly enjoyable package. It isn’t groundbreaking in any way, but scaring the little pixel people half to death with your goofy powers makes it more than worth your time. If you’ve played the classic Ghost Master, Poltergeist feels like a much lighter, more streamlined version of that. There really should be more games about haunting the adorably unwary, but until we get them Poltergeist will definitely scratch that itch for a few hours. Did you enjoy this review? I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope you'll check out more of them at https://goldplatedgames.com/ or on my [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/audish#curation]curation page[/url]!

yeah its a cool idea and i normally love pixelated games, but its very repetitive and is defiantly nothing to do with a horror game (it doesn't even have a creepy atmosphere!) Yes it gives you a few new mechanics but the replay ability is nil. not really as humours as it could have been and the story is . . . not something you invest in. Throwing stuff around gets a bit dull after a while and the puzzles aren't challenging at all. yeah its a bit of fun but i see this as more of an online free game rather than something you pay for. its a shame really.

Poltergeist: A Pixelated Horror is a puzzle game that has set it's aim on scaring people out of their condos in that old Mansion... Or better said, the protagonist of the story is hell-bent on scaring and freaking out, errr, his unwanted "guests". Since Ghost Master, and to an extend Dungeon Keeper, this idea never gets old or bothersome. The game has it's old school charm, but it can't deny it's modern touch [spoiler]ever noticed how the TV sets react when they are possesed[/spoiler]. Too bad, that this game is relatively short and that it's replayablity is next to zero - especially when you can get the "Ghost Master" exceptionally cheap. So, no, the idea is neither original nor new. But it still has it's charm, and some ideas "are" original - at least to a lower extend. Is the game recomendable? For a fan of the specific genre "play evil" it surely is, also it might please some "nostalgia-aficionados" and the story of the protagonist is tragic enough to build up some... well, let's just say feelings of sweet revenge. Off course, it will not please all audiences, especially not those who already have developed the tripple A - syndrome, or, "If it's not from a great company then it can't be good!". I have grown very careful about great software developers like Blizzing or Actifishing - especially since the gread D3 *erherm* Catastrophe... No, I don't care telling you about it, it's even worse than you might guess. I need a bucket for just mentioning Blizz and D3 in one sentence, just in case ... but I feel suddenly very, very sick. It's like Kryptonite. No, this game is not rocking awesome, it's a good mediocre game, a game I might recomend friends with the same tastes and of course with some spare money on their hand. If you liked "Ghost Master", you still might be disappointed by the game, because it's lacking the depth of "Ghost Master". On the other hand, if you like fast little strategy puzzles this game might be exactly what you are searching. It can be played as casual as you wish to play it.

I'm pretty sure that this game was inspired by a relatively old game called Ghost Master. (2003) The shtick is you are a ghost and you want to get rid of all the people (and dogs) in an area in order to reclaim your mansion. (It's a puzzle game.) You have a handful of powers with a limited number of uses based on the level and each has a small number of targets. It seems like this ought to give you more options than the original Ghost Master game but that is misleading. The order of use of powers is less important in Poltergeist: APH. And the objects that are potential targets of your powers only matter as to what room they are in. They are otherwise identical. So... the number of possible solutions to any given puzzle are fewer, thus making the puzzles easier. Mostly. Otherwise... The artwork is retro but not bad. The music is good for about three minutes then you have to turn it off. Overall, I want to give it a "meh." But that's not an official Steam rating. Honestly I don't recommend it. If you are serious about thias sort of puzzle game there was a Friday the 13th one that did better. This one isn't all that bad but I'd get it on sale.

C'est rigolo mais un peu basique. Mais rigolo. Mais la musique déchire. Et c'est rigolo.