Unknown Castle

guide 2 ghosts in an abandoned and obviously haunted castle, looking for secrets, treasure and the castle's history. it's a short game with 31 levels, can be completed in about 2 hours, and after some extensive pre-release patching (based on bug reports and feedback mostly by me, as far as I know), I can now sort of recommend it. more of a thumbs sideways really, but if it's the kind of game you enjoy, it's okay, especially if you have somebody to play with. you control the ghosts with the keyboard, no controller support, nor online multiplayer, but even while playing solo you can decide if you want to move the characters at the same time with wasd and arrows (the preferred method for multiplayer) or switch between them with tab. controls are kind of floaty, might be intentional (they're ghosts, duh!), but it doesn't feel great. no jumping either, which is not always necessary, but would've made things less awkward in some places instead of the 'fall off stairs at an angle or try again' situations. since there's no jumping, I can't call it a platformer, but you move up and down stairs and elevators, press buttons and pull levers to make walls appear/disapper (red levers are single-use, yellow ones toggle whatever they toggle), and sadly there are parts that require timing as arrows fly by, and contrary to popular belief, they don't simply go through ghosts, plus one of the characters attracts bats (they ignore the gray one), and any contact with hazards results in an instant level reset. there are gems to collect on the levels that are used to unlock further levels. luckily, you only need 78 to unlock everything, including the secret room, so not only do you not need to collect all of them, you can straight up skip levels, which I had to do on a couple occasions, didn't feel like dealing with timed parts. and not sure to what end, but every time you complete a level, you get the gems you picked up again, so technically you could play level 1 a few dozen times and go straight to the final level of each room and you're done, but what's the point of that? the game shipped without widescreen support, but it got added much later, in may 2022. windowed mode was made resizable way after release as well. there are no volume sliders but the brightness setting is a complete game-changer and the best feature, more games need brightness controls. so don't be deterred by the trailer and screenshots on the store page, just press 'L' a few times and you'll be set, like so: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1819810662 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1819810613 the puzzles aren't too complicated, it's a more casual experience, save for the frustration caused by dying or the occasional clipping issue. it shouldn't happen with walls or while riding elevators anymore, but carrying boxes is still a delicate process. so if you can look past the basic presentation (very good music though!) and can tolerate some wonkiness, it might be a decent way to spend an evening.