Love, Ghostie Preview

Summary Players in Love, Ghostie act as a ghost to nurture relationships through gifts and activities.

Utilize action points for stealing items, chore assignments, improving relationships, and more.

Enjoy a charming, whimsical game with entertaining character interactions and unique gameplay mechanics.

Love, Ghostie is an upcoming supernatural matchmaking title where players assume the role of a ghost that fosters characters' relationships. The debut release from indie developer Janbeh Games, it combines elements of management, social sims, and visual novels in a charming new way. Though the full game currently doesn't have a set release date, a new Steam Next Fest demo has given a good glimpse into what players can expect.

In Love, Ghostie, players will work as the titular spirit to secretly bring the residents of a manor together from the other side. In some ways, these mechanics in the title are reminiscent of other upcoming social sims like Crush House, where players will select a starting group of four animal characters from a roster of 12 to cohabitate together, with each having unique interactions with one another based on their personalities. The 10 in-game days included in the demo flew by easily, and introduced a lot of cute concepts along the way.

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A Day In The Life Of A Matchmaking Ghost

Choose Your Spectral Actions Wisely

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Each day, players will have a set number of action points they can use around the manor for different purposes. The first main action is stealing items; there are always a handful of objects that appear around the house each day that can be stolen, all with certain specific traits like Dark or Messy. Post-theft, these can either be gifted to residents or sold online on eep!Bay, which earns money for purchasing better gifts in the future.

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The second main way players will spend action points is through chore board assignments. The chore board is a fixture of the manor's main hallway, and each day will have three options available: one activity designed for two characters, and two solo ones. Just like in-game items, these have traits as well, like Outdoorsy or Serious, that determine how enjoyable they will be for the participants.

Keeping Residents Happy Takes Center Stage

Helping Love Bloom & Maintaining Morale

The main goal in Love, Ghostie is to develop relationships between residents and allow love to blossom through curated gifts and activities. The aforementioned stolen or purchased items used for gifting aren't framed as being given by Ghostie directly - instead, players will secretly assign another resident as the giver, raising the relationship in conjunction with how much the recipient likes it. A resident's favorite traits are revealed through trial and error, though some can be easily inferred, like a self-proclaimed lazy resident liking the Messy trait.

The mechanics of the group activities assigned on the chore board each day work similarly, but they're presented much more cinematically. When an activity is assigned, a group of ghosts will gather in a theater to watch it play out. This is one of several in-game places where unique, personality-driven interactions occur, and regardless of how each outing went, it was always an amusing segment. The crowd will react in accordance with the characters, cheering for good dates and looking second-hand embarrassed at awkward encounters. As characters grow closer, they'll also have special conversation cutscenes in the manor.

As relationships blossom, Ghostie will improve too.

Making Progress In Love, Ghostie Is Interesting

Skill Trees & Spectral Growth

As relationships blossom, Ghostie will improve too. Every few days, fellow spirit Ghostina will visit to dole out RelationChips based on how much happiness and heart-raising have occurred since her last visit. These can in turn be used for skill tree upgrades, which are split into three sections: Ghostie, Manor, and Matchmaking. For the Steam Next Fest demo the tree was only partially unlockable, but there were already some worthwhile boons available, like adding more action points to each day.

A particularly useful unlock was a new money-earning minigame, where players can go on the computer and send hilarious phishing scam emails to help supplement the income made by stealing and selling objects. Besides economic reasons, players can also use the computer for helpful tips, with browseable Deaddit forums that offer more cleverly-framed in-game advice. The final version of Love, Ghostie will have more minigames, as well as other adorable in-game features like collectible couples art.

Final Thoughts On Our Love, Ghostie Preview

Lots Of Potential For Supernaturally Adorable Fun

Love, Ghostie is a romance shipper's paradise, with a wide variety of characters that are genuinely entertaining to watch grow closer. The demo has resident relationships capped at two hearts, and I was legitimately disappointed when I couldn't continue to follow the storyline I'd set in motion between a goth sheep and a bumbling elephant. There are almost certainly several other pairings that are equally enjoyable to observe and not stumbled upon during my playthrough, and a very high overall number of combinations that can be experimented with.

So many dating simulation games use the framework of the player themselves being the one seeking affection, making it a refreshing change of pace to instead have them pulling the strings behind the scenes. It's a very relaxed, low-stakes title with a great sense of humor, and jumping in and out is made easy with the day-night system. It'll still be awhile before players can get their hands on the full version, but the Steam Next Fest demo of Love, Ghostie is certainly worth a look for cozy simulation fans.