Game Thoughts: Love, Ghostie
What if, rather than becoming a reaper in the afterlife, you could become a matchmaker?
In Love, Ghostie from Janbeh Games, you take on the role of a newly-deceased ghost gifted an empty manor and tasked with matchmaking its residents as they move in. Your mentor has advertised the manor as being totally not haunted so no one will be suspicious, and it works! Residents move in as you slowly expand the house, interacting with each other through your machinations. In addition to leaving gifts and claiming they come from other residents (which no one questions), singing songs to spook people into fleeing to common rooms together or to inspire more amorous feelings between them, and playing mini-games to encourage their connections, you can also witness their conversations and dates with the other ghosts, who treat each date like a movie (they even bring snacks!).
As characters fall in love, they move out of the manor, making space for new residents. Eventually, everyone moves on, meaning a job well done—and revealing new secrets about your life.
Love, Ghostie gameplay
Love, Ghostie is an energy-based management sim in which you use a small bank of ghostie action points to complete tasks each day. You can “steal” objects left around the manor, gift them to residents, assign dates and self-care or house tasks, or play mini-games. Every few days, your ghost mentor, Ghostina, visits and grants you special coins based on your accomplishments. You can spend these on upgrades that increase your action point bank, the size of the manor, your song catalog, and more. You can even unlock ghost fashions for yourself!
If the objects in the manor aren’t to your liking, you can sell them for money and buy more luxurious items on eep!Bay. You can also learn tips and tricks from the Deaddit forums. As you play, you grow your collection of objects, dates, and more, which appeals to my desire to unlock everything in every game I play even if I know I’ll only use one or two of any given item type.
How you choose to spend your action points each day is entirely up to you, and there’s no “right” way to play. Some days will be longer and others shorter according to your choices, and maxing out each resident’s happiness and/or helping them fall in love can take as long as you’d like. Love, Ghostie is truly a go-at-your-own-pace game.
So Many Possibilities
I’ve played Love, Ghostie twice now and found different match-ups in both games. Each date type has multiple versions to unlock, including “awkward” and “special” versions. Characters connect in surprising ways and their stories are all a little different, though some dialogue repeats in “good” date variations. Normally this would bother me, but in this instance, there was enough variation elsewhere that it didn’t irk me at all.
There are 12 residents in Love, Ghostie: Chamel, Calathea, Apollo, Ami, Noir, Gerard, Sky, Felix, Mina, Ollin, BEEP0, and Wobbles. Calathea is a plant and BEEP0 is a robot, but every other character is an animal. The character aesthetics have Animal Crossing vibes, and seeing them decorate their rooms as their happiness increases is delightful. (You can purchase the ability to decorate the manor from Ghostina, allowing you to rearrange their rooms if they get too chaotic and decorate common rooms, which is a nice touch.)
Every time you send characters on a date, you learn more about them. Even awkward dates will advance their relationships; whenever things feel a little cringey, it’s okay. The characters don’t lose points with each other and no one becomes enemies, allowing experimentation without major consequences. I loved slowly increasing everyone’s relationships in my second playthrough and not committing to couples until much later than in my first playthrough. It’s fun to see how things go when you aren’t hyper-focused on a specific character or pairing, and the combinations truly feel endless.
If you like cozy, escapist management sims with dating or matchmaking elements and collector’s perks, I encourage you to add Love, Ghostie to your wishlist.
Love, Ghostie is available for PC via Steam. In addition to mouse and keyboard, the game also offers controller support. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review.
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