I can’t thank you enough for your work, more like. But you’re most certainly welcome! I am simply enjoying the game that much!
I’ve been a little busy and have not been able to play the new update until now. I plan on posting feedback and initial reactions tomorrow; I like to sleep on my thoughts when I have many.
For now, here is a short story I wrote upon completion, completely birthed from blind excitement and therefore containing a few assumptions concerning the game’s characters and final act, naturally.
The Devil You Know
A Ghost Simulator fanfic by W. Royce.
Warning: Contains some blood, violence, disturbing imagery, and of course, spoilers for the game. Reader discretion advised.
Violet finally ascends the creaky steps and climbs into the all-too-familiar attic.
“You won’t stop me from getting what’s mine!”
The woman shouts this to thin air and hastily begins searching the room, throwing boxes and kicking objects all around in an attempt to find those fucking bones.
Suddenly, a pain shoots deeply into her ribs.
She glances down with wide eyes at the screwdriver jutting from her ribs. The woman’s hair is then forcefully seized and she is spun around, her head slammed into the wooden wall next to her. Violet wails loudly and attempts to summon absolutely any of her power to fight off the invisible, vengeful force, but Samantha’s poison has weakened her ability to concentrate hard on anything. She is slammed back hard against the wall before being tossed to the floor.
Violet blacks out momentarily, hearing nothing but heavy, clomping footsteps going across the room for a few seconds.
Her eyes shoot open when she can feel blood slowly seeping into them, distorting her vision. The room also begins to spin.
Out of nowhere, a horrifying, devil-like visage gazes down onto her, slowly tilting its head in observation or something else before a slightly muffled growl escapes its rotting, rubbery lips.
“This is for Lily.”
The woman eyes widen again before the visage tears off it’s face, no, mask, and forces it over hers, yanking the screwdriver from her abdomen after. The woman writhes in pain and struggles to take the thing off as she hears the attic door slam shut startlingly hard.
Tears well into her eyes as the footsteps let themselves be heard one more time.
November 1 update: fixes, minor additions to choices and dialogues
@Vexius_Krexius
I’m flattered that you wrote a Ghost Simulator fanfic, really! Loved it. You certainly have a way with words–have you ever thought about writing a text game yourself?
Now to some (heavy) spoilers about what you depicted there…
The moment when the MC faces Lily Edgeworth comprises the climax of the story, and it will be playable in Chapter 5. After that, the game proceeds to the resolution and then to the ending states. I don’t want to go into details, but this scene can end up being bloody. Also, expect other characters to show up at this critical moment as well…
Well… I don’t want to spoiler this part, but we still don’t know who turned the MC into a ghost, do we?
@Bugreporter
Always precise, always helpful . Can’t thank you enough for all the bugs you reported so far!
@OtherGrimm
Found it! It was indeed an old draft that I forgot to change. Now it should be consistent with the car crash throughout.
About the bug in Ollie’s dream and in the exorcist’s question, I found and fixed them as well. Thanks for spotting it!
@ChibiKittens
You are right! I forgot to add a *goto and then the game jumped down to the next coded scene, which was indeed Samantha escaping in a frenzy. It should be fixed now, thanks!
@Red_Eyes
Just wait for the next content updates. They should come soon!
@Gamer4
I think it was because I forgot to set Ollie and Becky’s costumes to either 1 or 2. It should be fixed now!
I love how the ghost gets protective about the artifact and trying to not die a second time. Excellent writing very alluring but the cliffhanger was harsh. I don’t like those. Anyways can’t wait for more
I’m guessing yes, because when describing necromancers, the love interest says that they can ‘raise the dead’ at one point (if I remember correctly). If you saved your love interest, it might be possible.
My apologies for the late response; let’s just say life is a tad chaotic, presently. Even amidst the pandemic.
Your response to my little scene flatters me. I actually do already write, but simply short stories, random scenes spawned from sporadic episodes of creativity or inspiration, and even music, lyrically. Songs. Those I am most proud of and share often, in other places. I have considered a game heavily before, yes. Many times and many types, actually.
Alas, coding is nothing but a frustrating, boring chore to my linguistic brain. If I ever found someone to code for me, it would be my life’s work just to write one. I am an aspiring author of sorts. It would definitely be horror and would focus on characterization and imagery. So, you could say I have one already cooking. It’ll just be there awhile. If I can’t ever make a game, I will undoubtedly turn it into a novel. But thank you nonetheless; a published author admiring my work is the greatest thing to me.
Ahem. Now on to more useful thoughts. I test on mobile, as it is my current and only means of playing, so I apologize for not being able to offer better things than screenshots for some of these.
Amber drops her flashlight here and it states I can use it later, but where can I pick it up? If it’s not actually an horror and more like something I failed to see, this should be more clear and reworked, in my opinion. I do indeed have Poltergeist, here. Note: I was not playing with the cheat, so it is not an issue with that.
Joseph’s dialogue about my powers here fails to flow and is very broken up. Note: Also not playing with the cheat, here.
That is all I had for legitimate bug reporting during my most recent playthrough.
Now onto story-based feedback:
The scene with our death did not fail to meet expectations. The entire scene was tense, pulsating, and well-paced throughout, with a proper mystery at the end as to what our partner was saying to us and why Violet was at the window. The freedom to choose how we died and what we did in our final moments was broad and every choice had some level of appeal to me and made me think the deepest yet about what kind of person my ghost was. I am very pleased here with every choice you gave us. The selection is definitely broad enough, and, after going through each way to die, I personally feel none leave much to be desired, in a good way, of course. I couldn’t think of something that could be missing. Each option made sense and definitely covered the main things someone would want to do in that situation.
Violet has very successfully been set up here as a fantastic receiver of vengeance in this tale. But in my opinion, it is important you don’t force the revenge tale and lose agency for those players who may want to learn more about her story, which might in turn change their goal and want to simply pass on peacefully afterwards, or not wish to protect the family for whatever reason. This is especially important to properly fulfill the revenge side any which way, as it is most satisfying and rewarding when it is a choice. Ghost Simulator isn’t a revenge tale so far, as well. That should simply be an option with its own consequences, just like passing on peacefully or even becoming a spirit of indicrimate death in the end.
My message here is purely to ensure that all paths are supported equally, not just the revenge path. I also want to just protect the family, and to even stay with them. I’ve grown heavily attached to Ollie and Samantha.
My ghost actually, in my mind, sees the boy as a younger version of himself struggling with teenage emotions and vices, and the woman as one who deserves to be happy and supported for her dream, as she is literally suffering for it. Maybe when presented with a harsh fate with Violet, I might simply opt to do what’s best for them instead, if it’s different. All paths should be equally fleshed out, and you’ve shown nothing but love for each so far, I just wanted to give a reminder as we head into the first draft of the final chapter. We believe in you.
Well, that was a mouthful. Yet, there’s how deeply I think and feel for your writing, friend. What a ride it has been thus far. Here’s to the dramatic conclusion.
I’ll leave with something I found. I’ve seen I’m not alone on wanting to go the “ghost slasher” route, on the Discord. Well, someone sent me how they imagined the devil mask from both our stories, and now I’m just going to push harder for an option to wear it while chasing our lovely little flower down some dark corridors.
I got a small question, but would it be possible to include eye-colour customisation or hair customisation to the character creation, near the beginning of this game? I love this game, it certainly is spooky!
If you don’t mind me tacking onto this, when I’m replaying the game, I often find it odd how the family is surprised by our name even if they’ve already discovered it before. There’s a lot of chances they find out who we are before chapter four, so to have them be surprised during this scene always puts me off. I know the game is still in the works though, and maybe you’re already planning on fixing this, but I’m gonna mention it just in case ^-^
A really nice game. Interesting how the different Powers work especially if used together. Love the fact that you can be anything from Casper the friendly ghost to an absolute menace.
Cause MC (ghost’s) Lover/Spouse is Lilly and she’s the one got the call 'bout her mother and uncle’s death and she was explaining William in the last flashback?!.
Either of these versions of the dream happened, and wasn’t it Becky’s dream anyway? (And who’s talking in the first place? There’s some confusing dialog in this scene.)
There’s a large batch of fixed bugs planned for the next update, but I haven’t updated the new files to Dashingdon yet. Instead, I will finish editing and revising Chapter 4 and only then launch the next update. Otherwise, the likelihood that you would find broken pathways and incomplete/buggy scenes would be enormous.
@Vexius_Krexius
Thank you again for your–always insightful and helpful–reply! Even though I took quite a while to answer it here, I had already acknowledged it.
I think there are many difficulties intrinsic to game (or interactive fiction, in this case) writing. I find writing the second half of these stories quite challenging because you must not only worry about the narrative itself but also about not leaving any door open. In a game like Ghost Simulator, I frequently have to go back and re-read entire passages (which, with the code, can easily be as long as 20k words) to make sure I’m not missing anything important. Nonetheless, I still make mistakes along the way.
It’s different, and, in my opinion, more demanding than writing non-interactive pieces of fiction. But when I see people enjoying the experience and being touched by the characters and the story, the long hours and frequent frustration fade into the background. It is worth it, for sure.
If I may suggest an article to you, I would recommend @MahatmaDagon’s insights on interactive fiction writing on Gama Sutra. Zaper is a great IF writer who delivered The War for the West in 2019 and with whom I recently submitted The Vampire Regent to Hosted Games.
About your bug feedback:
– On the issue about Amber’s flashlight, I rewrote the choice and added a passage making it explicit that the flashlight lies next to the door. I hope to avoid any further misunderstanding in this scene.
– Gry… oh, well. Fixed!
– The problem with Joseph’s dialogue was probably due to misplaced paragraphs. It should be fixed!
Now, to your story feedback:
– First of all, thank you! I think this game (just like every piece of interactive fiction does, arguably) has some “main scenes” that need to be crafted with extra care. These are the scenes that not only define the story but also set up the mood for the entire experience. To me, the most “attention-demanding” scenes so fare were the ones in which Samantha finds out about the crypt and the whole “flashback sequence” in Chapter 3. In my opinion, if any of these scenes fail, then the entire narrative crumbles.
– About Violet, by all means. You are completely right when you say that Ghost Simulator is not, per se, a tale of vengeance. In Chapter 5, when both plotlines (early 90s + present) intertwine in the climax, the MC will have the freedom to choose sides.
Violet is not a good person, but the MC is not necessarily a good ghost either.
This is one of my top priorities when writing the last part of Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.
Thank you again for your message. Be safe, and I hope that the next (and final) updates meet your expectations!
@zenith8
I don’t think this kind of customization will be added anytime soon. Perhaps in a later update, but I don’t have any plans right now.
The thing is: customizations that are not recurrently checked tend not to work quite well. When this happens, the players tend to feel that their customization was purely aesthetic, without any narrative impact–which is often the case.
So, to add something like this early in the game, I’d need to revisit many, many scenes and make sure that hair/eye color would make a difference. I might do it in the future, but, at the moment, I do not plan to do it, unfortunately.
@ChibiKittens
You are probably right! The variables that define whether the family knows about your presence and your identity have been scattered throughout the game. I intend to revise it thoroughly and just create a “central” variable for it.
For “secondary” characters like Becky and Laura, this is way easier. There is a variable for each (hauntedBecky, for instance) that checks whether this character has had any direct supernatural experience with you. For the main characters (= the Brooks), however, this is is way more complex and might lead to some paradoxes as I still write the game.
Oh, no! You found out about Jamie! It was supposed to be a secret character!
… nah, really. It was just a big mistake of my part; it should have been “Ollie.” I fixed it already–thank you!
About Samantha in the office: that was indeed a continuity error. There are three versions of this scene:
– Samantha is in the office and writing
– Samantha is in the office and sleeping
– Samantha is not in the office.
It should be okay now.
Finally, about Ollie’s dream (and cleaning rooms): this is also a mistake. I will add specific variables to it and change the scene–and dialogues–accordingly.
I love this game, it certainly is spooky!
