Toast The Ghost

Full disclaimer: I am a friend of the developer, have helped playtest various iterations of the game somewhat and did get the game for free. But it's a steal at the price anyway. This game is a real labour of love and it's been great to see it take shape! Toast the Ghost is a simple enough game, everyone's played a score-based platformer before, but this one replicates the actual challenge of a retro game. The game has only 20 levels, each when played correctly taking around 3 minutes or less, but you aren't going to be beating the game in only a couple hours by any means. Unlocking the next level requires getting a gold-medal score in the last one, so you can't simply power through the game until you've learned how to beat it properly. The score system is built around mastering each level, perfecting your route of collecting each of eight friendly ghosts hidden throughout then bringing them all back to the toaster for bonus points with each additional ghost in the chain - then making it to the exit elsewhere ASAP. But the obstacles in your way make that pretty tough! Each level has its own mix of enemy ghosts, traps or other hazards and there's no directly laid out path to take that saves the most time and brings in the most points. Your movement is fast but there is no double-jump, instead wall jumping is a major part of the level design and controlling it is quite forgiving. Your only defence against the enemy ghosts is shooting your infinite supply of toast at them, but to do so you have to be both grounded and not moving, so positioning is pretty important! The basic smiley fat ghost is no problem, but other enemies such as the fast and stealthy shark ghost are often best ran away from rather than fought head on. Enemies aren't the main issue though, it's the level itself filled with traps that rival the Prince of Persia's labyrinth of spikes. There is very little margin for error in the timing to get past spike-traps or the button-activated spiked doors. Speaking of margin for error, you will lose track of your chain of friendly ghosts the moment you're hit by anything. You can usually collect them all again during the invulnerability period, but if any were floating through a floor or wall when you were hit they will disappear back to their original position, usually surrounded by traps. For masochists there are additionally challenging modes "black label" and "red label" which require playing several levels in a row, with "red label" not refreshing your health between each level and including all 20. I'll admit, I won't ever beat either of those! I did get a fair share of achievements at least, those are generally not impossible. A big tip is that while the time bonus is a major factor in scoring you'll want to actually avoid toasting any enemy ghosts until after you've unlocked the exit (unless you really just can't avoid them). Once you've toasted all the friendly ghosts, each enemy ghost will drop a gem worth a whole lot of points when defeated. Meaning that in order to get a score up on the scoreboard you not only need a route to all the nice ghosts, then to the toaster, and then to the exit - you will ALSO need to avoid enemy ghosts the whole way, THEN figure out which ones you can go back to defeat for bonus points while still saving time to get to the exit. That whole routemaking loop is always changing of course as there are a ton of secrets spread throughout each level, either treasure chests with bonus gems to collect, turkey dinners to restore health or even shortcuts between areas or to secret rooms. Finding all the secrets in a level is no easy feat and is a game in itself. So while the game does have only 20 levels there is a lot to figuring out each one if you want to top the scoreboard. The music and visuals are impressive for a one-man developer and the entire motif is charming. Each enemy ghost even has its own unique name. Enjoy your halloween toasting some ghosts everybody.