I was browsing Itch.io, a store-front for digital media with a focus on indie games, for Halloween-themed visual novels. While scrolling, I came across a piece called Ghost by developer ThePopTartKitty.
It stood out to me for what it lacked. Most game download pages on Itch provide somewhat detailed information about the project. Ghost mostly foregoes such formalities. The novel’s subtitle is “A ghost asks you a question” accompanied by only what appears to be a raster image of a ghost in a purple witch’s hat, but no additional description of what the novel is about. The game page notes that it was published on October 27, 2021, and works cross-platform. Its genre is visual novel and it is tagged with Ghosts, Halloween, and Horror.
There is a single download link (available on the game page). I clicked download and was prompted to download a file named ghost.html. I suppose that is why it is cross-platform; the novel is an html file that can be run in a browser.
After downloading the game, I opened the ghost.html file in Mullvad Browser.
As you can see, we have a blank-faced Pacman-style ghost in a purple witch’s hat and what appears to be a green button with START crudely written in all caps. I already like the art. It is a little bit better than what I can manage in Microsoft Paint or an equivalent program, but not so far beyond my ability that I cannot imagine pulling it off. I decided to click START.
I realized here that the novel’s subtitle – “A ghost asks you a question” – is very much over the target. Here, the ghost is asking a question, specifically: “Do you like ghosts?” I was proud of myself here – I had a feeling the question would be whether I like ghosts.
I would show you the results of both choices but for one issue: The novel ends after you choose “Yes” or “no” – thus, showing the result of the choice would spoil the particulars of the ending. Instead of spoiling, I encourage you to download this visual novel for yourself and give it a spin in your preferred desktop or mobile web browser. Regarding the ending, I will submit that it is probably best for you to like ghosts.
One reason I opted to take screenshots of my browser window instead of the image itself is because of the text under the novel. There we see a URL: http://www.flickgame.org. I followed the link and was taken to a plain-looking page with a Microsoft Paint-style box for drawing along with colors and pen tools and what appears to be 16 panels. We can see that Ghost was created with and exported from Flickgame, which appears to be an engine (loosely defined) for making very simple visual novels. Flickgame is free and open source with the source code available on GitHub. It appears to be somewhat popular with Itch.io returning a healthy selection of Flickgame novels (739 as of the drafting of the instant article).
This concludes what is, to date, the shortest visual novel review published here on The New Leaf Journal. Does Ghost’s script have the same level of impact as that of True Remembrance? Not quite. Is its choice structure as intricate as what we saw in Night of the Forget-Me-Nots? I dare say it is somewhat simpler. Is its central mechanic as memorable as the random trigger in Midsummer Haze? Thankfully – it is not. But not every visual novel needs to be ambitious. Ghost is a simple piece. A ghost asks you a question. You answer the question. Your answer to the question leads to one of two endings. ThePopTartKitty had a simple game-plan and made use of Flickgame to execute it without wasting a single word or scene (Ghost only uses 7 of the 16 panels allotted by the Flickgame engine). If you enjoyed the review, I recommend downloading the game from Itch and giving it a try. It takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-60 seconds to read this visual novel to completion.
