GHOST CHANNEL by Tetracold
BEFORE YOU PLAY
The "FIXED" version in the downloads section is a small bug fix released a hour the time limit that allows all the ghosts and the pages to spawn properly. the one embedded on the page here is the fixed one. the original build with no fix is available for download
The post Jam version is on Itch.io.
We also recommend reading the description before you play
STORY
Hey, do you like spooky scary things? if you said yes then you are in luck cos we have a TV program made just for you!
This week on the Ghost Channel we have a heavily requested special! follow Chasey the world renowned TV head ghost hunter as she takes on the famous Big Apple estate located in Staten Island, New York where it's said that ghosts roam free but the aren't the friendly kind.
don't worry tho, the hunting procedure is a simple as it gets! just tune into each ghost's unique frequency with the scroll wheel to see the location of a ghost and hold the light on the ghost until it disappears! you can also stun it.
When killed the ghost drops a colored key on the ground, but be careful to grab it quick because it disappears quickly! if the key disappears you have to find and fight the ghost again.
Your goal is to solve the mystery of the late Big Apple's death by collecting clues scattered all throughout the mansion, just interact with/shake any piece of furniture hat catches your attention until you find them all! Make sure you check everywhere (especially for the rat king sometimes you have to check a lot of furniture till he shows up)!
JAM VERSION ISSUES
-The gameplay is unfinished
-some of the more intricate mechanics such as the ghost frequencies (right now it only plays the ghost specific music) and the ghost behavior have not been implemented fully.
-There isn't a death or win state as of right now. Keep in mind that some of the pages go away pretty quick when you read them.
-The music is slightly desynced on the browser build (this is also an issue with the post jam itch.io version). in the download versions this does ot occur.
CONTROLS
POST JAM FIXES
-Fixed the control scheme and improved physics
-Added a pause menu in game that allows for volume to be lowered
-Added options to lower music and SFX volume individually
-Added an outline around interactable objects for better identification
-Finished the gameplay loop and a few unfinished mechanics
-Added a small bossfight at the end
-Added a speedrun time
-Removed Scott the Woz
CREDITS
Team Flower Sword
Tetracold - Director, Lead Artist, Writer
Ceriole - Lead Programmer, VFX work
Parzival- Programmer
McKrak- Background artist, assisting Programmer
Muse - Assisting artist
CertifiedAbsoluteShlock -SFX Work, Assisting artist
Levc: Musician
| POST JAM BUILD | https://tetracold.itch.io/ghost-channel |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/ghost-channel |
Ratings
| Overall | 427th | 3.567⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 484th | 3.292⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 286th | 3.592⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 564th | 3.442⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 55th | 4.508⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 137th | 3.975⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 162th | 3.625⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 233th | 3.949⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 51🗳️ | 80🗨️ |
Could use an in-game tutorial - it wasn't clear on how to fight off all the ghosts. Pretty hard, overall!
As for the sounds, do you mean the volume is loud or are there too many sounds?
You can lower the audio volume in the options menu if you need to
I still really enjoyed it though, it reminds me of luigi's mansion (for obvious reasons) but cuter and even funkier
I am happy that you noticed the Luigi's Mansion influence, that was my main inspiration, thanks for playing!
Playing in the dark, I got childhood Halloween vibes, sitting in front of the TV watching old horror movies.
The art style is super cute and awesome! Artists—YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!
Thank you so much for the immersion and the vibe! Great job!
Thanks for making infinite health, hahaha.
Actually, despite the beauty of the game, I found the controls a bit unresponsive. I couldn't figure out how to turn on the flashlight to burn the ghosts (I read the hint).
A very strange and long jump, and the same knockback. As soon as I turned on the flashlight, I was thrown back and couldn't turn it on again.
In any case, the game is cool; it reminded me of Sega games. It's very beautiful and the music is really cool.
I love how the screen moves with that effect as if on tube TV, it's a really good touch, makes the game even more atmospheric. Everything is stylish, pretty, colourful and bright! Cool design as well.
I was confused on how to actually play the game, unfortunately. The ghosts kept bullying me so I couldn't move much. I tried getting on 2nd floor but didn't manage to. Left click (stun?) didn't seem to do anything.
Also, in the very beginning with the newspaper and controls screen, I wish it only disappeared when I click a mouse or sth. it was too soon for me so I had to close the game and open it again to read it properly :')
I wish I could actually play it properly, the premise and atmosphere seem so cool!
-Fixed the control scheme and improved physics
-Added a pause menu in game that allows for volume to be lowered
-Added options to lower music and SFX volume individually
-Added an outline around interactable objects for better identification
-Finished the gameplay loop and a few unfinished mechanics
-Added a small bossfight at the end
-Added a speedrun time
We are very thankful for the feedback and that you stopped by to play our game, we hope you also check the Post jam version https://tetracold.itch.io/ghost-channel :)
@toshiy @shanzpro @massivejack @n-o-x @logic-monkey @500 @yodak @drainkid @vlad-len @eseniia-no @faust-mi @indiepanda @oradimi @yarcha @kanity
Thank you!! It got much better, the interactable objects lighting up helped a LOT, and I feel like encounters with the ghosts felt better as well. I managed to understand the game more, explore the mansion, stun some ghosts, get lots of medical kits. Lovely animation on those, by the way!
Unfortunately, I still got stuck xD Pretty certain I found a non-coloured key, but the game still wouldn't let me into that room (1st floor I believe) and I tried all the rooms I feel like, went around and clicked everything, but couldn't proceed. Found around 3 pages, I believe?
One more thing - I noticed that when I press the down key, I get to see the profiles of the ghosts. The feature itself is great, but I kept pressing the key after jumping for example, or when going down, just from reflex, since I am used to using it for movement. So I kept calling that screen ^^'
the rat king has a random chance of spawning, sometimes I got unlucky and I had to check a lot of furniture till he showed up, other times I got him instantly
glad you enjoyed it tho! I didn't personally have a problem with accidentally pressing the down key but maybe we will bind it to another key if we do another update
It's on my "Best LD59 Games" list.
What a wonderful idea!
The art is beautiful, the gameplay is fluid (it's a little confusing at first, but you get used to it), the story is good, the music is excellent.
It's a game ready for publication on some platform.
I found the mechanic of changing the music's percussion according to the color wonderful. I have to say that all the percussions are out of sync with the music (out of time), but it's just a silly adjustment. Something that can be fixed in minutes.
I saved the game here because I want to finish it. I reached the final challenge twice and lost. I'll definitely go back to it!
Congratulations to this team and this wonderful work!
As for the gameplay I did find it confusing what I was meant to be doing, and immediately I ran into like 5 ghosts. Some easing into it would be nice to give me some time to understand the controls. And maybe I ran into a bug but there was a green ghost following me and bumping me around all the time, and I was not able to stun him or make him go away by shining the light on him, so that was a bit frustrating. Eventually I figured out I needed to get check the furniture to get pages and find the rat king, I think I found him at one point but he ran upstairs multiple floors and I couldn't quite figure out how to consistently go up/down the stairs.
The post-jam version played a lot better, great job fixing it up. With just that outline fix and having fewer enemies in the start meant that I was able to understand a lot more of what I was meant to be doing (and how to climb up the stairs), it felt great to play. :smile:
Very solid entry!
Plus, this might be a feature or not, but walking backwards while facing forwards seems to be only one image, and not a complete animation, so I'd just recommend to have animations there, as it keeps the fun polished immersion you know!
But all of this is about the jam version. Since i liked the concept, i'm gonna try the post jam version now :D
The music sync issue is something I've been scratching my head about, as it only seems to happen on the HTML5 version. The download versions don't have the issue.
Regardless, We're very happy you enjoyed the game! It was a labor of love, blood, sweat, and tears...
:ghost: :ghost: :tv: :ghost: :ghost:
I almost found myself a little bit swindled by playing the version embedded on the jam page, before realising based on the context of the jam instructions that it's actually your post-jam version. Please make this abundantly clear and don't have the post-jam version as your embedded entry page version! As it should be, my comment is entirely based on the experience of the entry version.
thanks for playing, really appreciate it!
I am slightly confused about the version part tho, the post jam is on itch and the one embedded here on the site is the jam version. we even made sure the post jam version says so in the bottom right corner when you boot it up
(EDIT) OH you mean the fixed thing, we actually uploaded that one about a hour after the the time limit because we realized there was a bug preventing the game from giving you the pages and spawning all the ghosts which is something we had coded before the time limit, it just didn't work. the one made before the time limit is there for download, I will mention that
My thoughts are shared in the VOD. Hope we see you back for LD60. ✌
I especially loved the channel-switching effect and the transitions throughout the game in general, they were really well done and added a lot to the atmosphere. There are a few physics-related things that could probably use some polishing, but honestly, I think the game has real potential as a commercial project if you decide to spend more time developing it.
One idea that came to mind would be to separate the ghosts into different levels instead of having them all together in the same mansion, giving each enemy its own themed stage and mechanics. That said, for a game jam I think the way you handled it was definitely the right choice: it keeps the experience shorter, more focused, and does a great job of showcasing the game’s ideas and possibilities.
The art and music also worked really well together, creating this subtle spooky/mysterious atmosphere that really captured a bit of that classic 90s vibe. Overall, this was a very strong entry with a lot of potential to become something even bigger.
Great job! :tv: :ghost:
The combat I found a little frustrating. It's just holding a light on the enemy until they die, so there's not a lot of action to it. And you can very easily get trapped in a corner and be unable to escape damage. Health packs are rare, too, so that damage is very punishing. I got all the way to the ending gauntlet and just got overwhelmed, which is when I discovered dying makes you do the whole thing again - and it does feel a bit like busywork the second time. When I died again I really didn't feel like doing _another_ whole playthrough, so I never saw the ending of the story, which is a real shame.
Great work! This is a super-polished, whimsical ghost-hunting romp, and I'm really impressed at the scope of it.
(Also, just a side note for the story - it would be nice to be able to re-read collected pages! I missed one my first playthrough and was disappointed I missed some of the story.)
for the gameplay loop that's just kind of the nature of it, there isn't much I can do about that without rethinking how the game works from the ground up, but I do understand how it may feel like doing the same thing over and over