Love, Ghostie Review

Love, Ghostie is one of those games that is purely wholesome, and for anyone who’s ever read a fluffy fanfiction? Well, you’re in for a treat. This is by far one of the fluffiest games I’ve ever played.

Developed by Janbeh Games, Love, Ghostie is all about the eponymous Ghostie as they match up each of the characters in the Manor until they’re in relationships. To do this, Ghostie will need to yoink some items off the floor and gift them to each character, claiming it’s from the other party in the relationship you want to progress.

Essentially, you travel from room to room with the arrow or WASD keys. You can then interact with objects by either clicking on them, or by pressing the space button. When you begin a new game, you’ll be given a tutorial which will give you a play-by-play of what to do.

After this, Ghostie is given the chance to choose which four characters will live in the Manor. Of the four characters I started with, I had Wobbly the Penguin, Ami the Hamster, Gerard the Giraffe, and Chamel the Chameleon. Not to be dramatic, but I would die for each of them, especially for Gerard and Chamel, who were the first relationship I became invested in.

I won’t go into detail about all the relationships, but hopefully, my first selection will help explain what I did in Love, Ghostie. First, let’s meet the characters properly: Wobbly is a kind but clumsy penguin. She likes cute things, and she’s used to thinking of other people’s safety. Ami is an adventurous hamster who likes to invent things, which makes for a fun dynamic with Wobbly, who is constantly worrying about Ami’s safety. While these two were paired up, I was also getting very invested in Gerard and Chamel’s growing relationship. Chamel is a chameleon who does cosplay because they’re incredibly anxious, and Gerard is an emo giraffe who had his heart broken and basically speaks in emo band puns. We all know who you were named after Gerard, and I’d like to say that I am 100% okay with a Gerard Way namesake in this game.

Now, I forgot to mention that to grow the relationship, you don’t have to just give them gifts. You can also send them on dates. The dates and gifts both align with traits of things that they like, which you’ll be able to see on a handy chart by checking the “I” button. For example, Chamel is creative, and Gerard loves dark and musical things. However, you’ll also discover on dates whether they’ll like certain things, and thus discover a new trait. A date is classed as a chore, so you can send two of your matches on a date and then witness it in a ghost cinema at the end of each day.

While you might think you can just spam dates and gifts each day, there is a limit to what you can do. When Ghostie first begins their job as a matchmaker, they’ll only have four Action Points to use per day. Every action you do will cost AP, whether you’re stealing an item, gifting one, or assigning a chore. So, to simplify it, you’ll be able to steal one thing, gift it, and assign two chores, that will be all of your AP gone for that day. But don’t worry, there’s no time limit for anything you have to do. There’s no pressure to hurry things up, and you can work at your own pace.

While you might think this would get a little repetitive, it helps that you can earn RelationChips, which can be spent in Ghostina’s shop every three days. RelationChips can be earned by building relationships between the animals in your house and by increasing their happiness. You can increase their happiness not only with gifts but with self-care and house helper jobs. While self-care is better for their own happiness, house helper tasks will help you improve relationships with everyone in the house.

But what can you buy with RelationChips? Well, you can unlock new features. It’s a great way to unlock more AP until you get a maximum of eight to use each day. You can also unlock mini-games, where you can earn money, or get higher results from doing house helper and self-care jobs. There’s also a matchmaking mini-game where you can bring two of your budding matches into the living room, where you’ll need to match a number and at least one of a card class, like spades or clubs, and discard another card at the end of each turn.

The other mini-games are also pretty fun. The first one I unlocked was one where I could access my computer. With the items you find at home, you don’t have to just gift them, you can sell them on the internet as well. But you can also get advice from Deaddit, or compose a scam email to send to other ghosts. Yes, you heard me right, Love, Ghostie has a scamming mini-game. You’ll need to match specific shapes for your email to make sense, but these will depend on your reflexes. Some of the emails end up hilariously, and it’s a great way to also buy more items to be delivered the next day.

The self-care game focuses on clicking a tile and going by the numbers to find yourself in the space of a few turns. It’s an interesting one, as the number could be suggesting any direction, and if you get the wrong one, there’s a chance you’ll reveal a rainy-day tile which won’t give you any hints. While the House Helper one allows you to drop a certain number of hearts into buckets to earn hearts or money, this mini-game became more challenging depending on who you chose the task and if their traits matched those of that specific chore.

When you reach four stars and have had four separate conversations between your paired matches, they’ll get to move out of the Manor. When they move out, you’ll get the final conversation, and it will reveal more about them. So, Gerard notes that Chamel is using cosplay to hide themselves and become someone else, while Gerard wants to join them in making a cosplay of him. It’s very cute. Then, they’ll move out, and you’re left with a plush of each character who’s moved out in the attic. Once you’re done, you can go down to the chalkboard in the kitchen, and you’ll be able to find an epilogue to see where Gerard and Chamel are after they leave. You can also replay the heart-to-heart conversations and keep track of who has matched with who.

You’ll also be able to see which dates were good, awkward, or special. Finding these makes it easier to assign chores depending on what worked for each character. Then, two more housemates will move into the Manor, and the cycle will repeat again. Once you’ve matched everyone, Ghostie will get to move on and you’ll notice that every single character will leave a plush when they’ve left.

Of course, you can also keep the info you’ve learned about each character into New Game+. However, I didn’t like that I couldn’t keep the upgrades I’d already earned with my RelationChips. While I understand why, I also didn’t like how I couldn’t keep the items I found during my final day after everyone moved out either. Sure, you can keep your money, and the RelationChips you’ve earned in the past will remain, but if you’ve spent them, it won’t mean much as you’ll still have to build up everything again.

The good news is that it’s easier to keep track of everyone’s likes and dislikes. So, when you pick your four characters again when they move out, you’ll be left with another randomised cycle. When I did my first playthrough, I couldn’t understand why I would want to send any of the cast on a holiday to move in later, but when I saw that the relationship I would build would just be one I’d already done, I understood. That feature is something I did enjoy, and it could speed up if you change your RelationChips spending strategy to focus on upgrading rooms and minigames, as you can vary the number of hearts you build at a time.

You may be wondering if you can match multiple characters at once, and to that I say, yes. Shipping your roomies isn’t a big deal here, as each of them begins their relationships with friendships first. So, if you don’t want any drama? Then good news, you can avoid that completely with Love, Ghostie.

So, if you’re a fan of wholesome, fluff-filled games, then Love, Ghostie could be a great choice for you. One playthrough will only take around two hours, and after two playthroughs, I’ve amassed around four hours of gameplay. While I haven’t matched all the characters yet, I look forward to playing more and seeing how each character will interact.