Windows Phone Xbox Live Review: Ghostscape

Adventure games were in one case a thriving genre, filled with accented classics from LucasArts, Sierra, and others. These days, they exist in much smaller number, but they do keep coming cheers to TellTale games and the occasional indie developer. Ghostscape is a product of the latter. Originating every bit free flash game on Kongregate, Microsoft eventually picked it up as a mobile Xbox Alive championship. The evolution staff doubled from one to two people, and that brings united states to this non-free version of Ghostscape. It retains a potent depression budget indie vibe that volition likely scare off mainstream players, but risk fans volition desire to give the game a await.

A scary setting

Ghostscape takes place entirely in and around a ii-story haunted house. Players take on the role of a paranormal investigator who naturally wants to notice out what'due south up. A few lines of text relay the setup all-too-briefly before disappearing at the outset of a new game, scarcely giving players time to read it. Later on, you'll go a better understanding of the house's history thank you to v diary pages belonging to a former resident, but that's it as far as story goes. The game focuses more than on atmosphere than narrative.

First-person adventuring

The player's offset order of business is entering the house. You'll need to selection up a crowbar that some thoughtless litterbug left lying effectually on the porch, equip information technology, and interruption the boards off the forepart door. From there, the gameplay consists of exploring the various rooms of the firm by tapping on hotspots, picking up whatever items you find along the way, and solving a few puzzles. Oh, and the forepart door locks upon entering, and so finding a way out becomes the overall goal.

While traveling from one dusty room to some other, you may need to do a flake of ghostbusting. Ghostscape takes a cue from the Fatal Frame series, in which a camera is used to defeat ghosts. In this title, y'all'll encounter creepy humanoid specters, chairs that slide around on their ain, and floating orbs of lite. Equipping the camera and tapping these phenomena eliminates them. The spooks can't hurt the player, either; Ghostscape has no failure condition. But 1 ghost must be photographed in gild to win the game, with the rest contributing to various Achievements. Thankfully ane of the handy inventory screens tracks all such collectibles.

Equipment

Equippable items are stored in their own separate screen. On acme of the few I've already mentioned, you'll find a ladder and a bunch of keys. You'll never need to figure out what door a key unlocks, every bit their names ever tell you. User-friendly, but information technology cuts down on the challenge a smidge. The actual equipment selection interface is slow and cumbersome. The developer has expressed interest in revamping information technology - an unusually cool thing for a mobile Xbox Live developer to do (if information technology comes to laissez passer).

Them Puzzles

Rather than relying on the genre'southward frequently obscure logic puzzles, Ghostscape's environmental interaction commonly boils down to using the crowbar in the correct spot. The game fifty-fifty tells you lot where to utilise the ladder – a scrap as well much paw belongings. Several combination locks require a bit more thought from the actor, though y'all tin can ever expect up the solutions in a guide since they don't change.

The Windows Phone version of Ghostscape too features a handful of unique puzzles, some of which take advantage of the mobile hardware. The best is a maze in which players tilt the telephone to role an eye to its destination. Well-nigh the end of the game, y'all'll need to arrange the pieces of three disturbing pictures into their proper places. It works like a sliding puzzle, except thankfully any slice can exist swapped around regardless of location. The third pic would exist rather tough to do without help, simply that's what guides are for.

The but puzzle I really disliked is the lock-picking minigame in the shed. Players have to tilt their phones in social club to rotate an pointer to a specific betoken and so hold it there until the lock opens… iii times. It works a scrap like the cryptographic sequencer minigame in Batman: Arkham Asylum. The problem is you take to hold the telephone fashion too nevertheless in order to go on the needle from moving; I literally had to hold my breath. Reducing the sensitivity by 20% or so would pull the minigame back upwards to fun territory instead of Annoying Land.

Portable scares

Ghostscape's audiovisuals are its best feature. Psionic packed each room of the house with enough of details, and they often feature animations like flickering lights, etc. In real life, you definitely wouldn't want to go into this firm at night! The ghosts themselves appear suitably transparent, though y'all probable won't look at them long earlier eliminating them with the photographic camera. Speaking of which, I wish the pictures taken could be viewed in an album later on.

Sound-wise, Ghostscape plays an eerie tune at the title screen merely doesn't utilise music during gameplay. Instead, creeks and other audio effects create an air of unease.

Creative Writing 101

While adventure games traditionally offer much more fleshed-out stories, I have no issue with Ghostscape'southward simple tale. The bodily writing, though, leaves much to be desired. Every speck of the narrative text is simply riddled with punctuation errors and run-on sentences.

Some might defend the diary'due south punctuation woes past saying that real people make mistakes in their own individual writings. Regardless of whether the diary pages read like an actual person/woman's thoughts (they practise not), the pages shoulder the responsibleness of conveying the story. In a Stephen Male monarch book, a poorly educated grapheme'south thoughts might be relayed in a childish and difficult to read fashion, simply they would only exist a small part in a much larger and more coherent tale. Ghostscape's story resides merely in those diary pages, and their low quality dulls the game'due south message. These mechanical errors even extend to the Ghostscape website, indicating that Psionic Games seriously needs a good proofreader.

Achievements

Ghostscape has numerous collectible based Achievements for finding all of the ghosts, chairs, orbs, diary pages, relics, letters, and paintings. A few of these were a bit glitchy at launch, only Psionic thankfully wasted no time in correcting things with a patch. The just challenging Achievement is for completing the game in nether 20 minutes. Nobody will become it on a beginning playthrough, only information technology'due south easy on a subsequent run since the collectibles are mostly skippable. Using a guide, anyone should be able to get the full 200 GamerScore in less than two hours. Not cheating would probably add an hour of playtime or so.

Overall Impression

Adventure games may not be super common anymore, but that'due south what makes a title like Ghostscape stand up out. It'south a fun piffling game that's calorie-free on challenge and heavy on atmosphere. And because how cheery mobile games tend to be, we could probably employ that night atmosphere. Still, the game's brevity must be considered when deciding on a purchase. I personally don't mind short games as long every bit the price is right. In Ghostscape'due south instance, the super like shooting fish in a barrel Achievements and the promise of costless ringtones in a time to come title update certainly add together some value. If you've been looking for something dissimilar, give information technology a attempt.

Ghostscape costs $2.99 and in that location is a complimentary trial. Option it up here on the Marketplace… if you cartel.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-xbox-live-review-ghostscape

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