Revenge Ghost

Design

Revenge Ghost was the third “Rapid Prototype” I developed in my time at FIEA. I was assigned a team with two artists (Peter Wano and Stone Cleven) and one producer (James Gaiser), and I was the sole programmer. The class-assigned topic for this game was “Story”, and it shows. We wanted to make a game that could be funny and touching, and prioritized that over gameplay. We decided on a pixel art style to encourage silly opportunities without shutting out the possibility of emotional attachment to the characters.

The game was to open on a ghost seething about their murder on the anniversary of their death, and murdering the friends present on the night of the death in vengeance. However, as the plot progressed, we wanted to slowly expose truths about the situation that alluded to an unreliable narrator. This would end exposing that the main character was so tied to their own perspective and negative narrative that they blamed others for their own self-destruction. The player would learn along the way that there was no murder, only an unfortunate demise that could have been avoided with communication. The ultimate irony of the story was to be the reality that the ghost was in many ways haunting themselves, and that would lead to them hurting the ones around them.

While the core concept stood, the entertainment provided by silly and goofy situations won out and we decided to have as much fun with it as possible. We doubled down on the murder scenes and comedic dialogue, and the art assets were skillfully exaggerated to focus on the insanity of it all.

I won’t remember this game because the gameplay is spectacular (it’s not) or because the story made me invested and thoughtful (it didn’t). I’ll remember this game because my team laughed the most during development and because we got to share it with our class, and got them excited about it too! In case anyone was wondering, the “too many bees” segment became a popular meme and has haunted me to this day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.