Разработчик: Small Bros
Описание
All clues lead to the mysterious Blackwood mansion: an estate located in a remote area of northern Scotland, which is said to be afflicted by a terrible curse. Guide the professor through the darkness and solve the mystery of the haunted house as you try to find out what happened to your missing friend. Solving puzzles, exploring, collecting items and uncovering a mystery form the basis of the game; but there will be no shortage of deadly weapons and explosions, disgusting enemies popping up everywhere and frenetic action.
The first game from the Small Bros studio and developed by single person, Ghostly Matter is a typical metroidvania where mechanics borrowed from graphic adventures combine for an exciting genre crossover.
- Fully explorable open world map: over 600 rooms with more than 20 evocative, detail-rich settings
- 40+ enemies divided into 3 categories
- 10 bosses
- 14 power-ups that will help you in your adventure, some inspired by the world of ghost hunters
- 6 weapons with different behaviours depending on the class of the enemy
- More than 100 collectible items
- Use the "polterscope" visor to see ghosts and other hidden items
- Fully customisable CRT filter: decide the blur, curved screen, desaturation and glitch effects
- Dozens of references to the pop culture of the 80s
- Platforming and action combine with graphic adventure mechanics
- Lots of puzzles to solve
- Discover the story little by little by finding clues and talking to NPCs
Поддерживаемые языки: english, italian, french
Системные требования
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
- Processor: 1.4GHz processor or faster
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Mac
Linux
Отзывы пользователей
fun game to de-wind after a stressful day tbh
Got head stuck in a wall and cant progress. Playtesting matters. its sad because this game seems fun. Another time maybe i´ll restart the game but it should not be necessary.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3251700609
You're gonna hate it at first, especially due to the key configuration that is not comfortable and, what's worse, cannot be customize. But if you somehow manage to get used to it, you will have a wonderful metroidvania that will keep your attention and curiosity on a high level.
Plus I loved the old style graphic and the countless references to horror classics.
Ghostly Matter has its faults but at the end of the day it's worth more than one try.
I really liked the idea of this game but the awful controls and game breaking bugs are just too much of a deal breaker. The devs advice for getting past bugs (which make the game impossible to progress) doesn't work and apparently they can't fix anything at this point, so it is a waste of time and money. Hard pass on this one.
how can you screw up the keyboard controls so much and not let the player change them ?!
as it is its an awful set up and i cant find a way to correct them
not even got past the prologue and given up ...
Ow man, this could have been great. The world building and the narrative aspect are the best thing I've ever seen in an action platformer game. That's where the compliments stop.
The controls are very difficult, especially on keyboard. The game itself is kinda difficult. literally too difficult in some places.
The "polterscope" effect makes the framerate crawl to a halt, which is unfortunate because it turns one extremely difficult platform jumping session into an almost impossible challenge (the pit of despair). I don't know if this area is necessary to finish the game, partly because of the endless maze of platforms in just the firs level (after the prologue) and that was enough to discourage me from continuing. I can't be arsed to keep looking for that potentially hidden passage that would enable me to continue, which could be anywhere in the thousands of screens that the first level had to offer. I don't feel like endlessly backrtacking through that maze to find the one door that my brass key will open.
The save is arbitrarily locked to save points, which doesn't make sense, and it made me lose a couple important items that I don't feel like going back to collect.
The level/map design is as pointlessmy complex as in old computer games from the 80s.
A real shame because no platformer before had ever managed to hook me with the story.
(follow my curator page GenXPlayers for more retro and indie reviews)
This game is like a mixture of Ghost N Goblins and Maniac Mansion. The problem is that the story isn't helpful to the game, it's made with way less puzzle aspects, and there's so many pop out of nowhere monsters. If it was more of an arcade feel, I wouldn't be as rough on it.
Pros
Controller support (It's actually preferred for the game)
It has a story that seems to fit the actual game (I blaze past storyline to play games so it's not often I get invested in a story... and I didn't with this either) This game makes you learn about what's happening; listing notes with passwords written in them and "clues" to piece together what's happening.
It has a interesting atmophere; switching to "Polterscope" view can help you find enemies/things you couldn't normally see.
Lots of varying areas and enemies
Achievements
Cons
You find too much food in comparison to finding clues or objects of interest
There's many places that have absolutely nothing worth exploring besides getting attacked to (I'm guessing) pad time/get you lost... and on top of that, there's places you can't reach when you first go there, making it seem like you'll have to go back to those places, but I've found 3 of those places so far that I just haven't been able to get to... so why are they there?
The "puzzles" are you clicking on everything in rooms until you get items that tell you a password or give you a(n) item/way to open the passage (there's literally no rhyme or reason to these objects existing except to add that layer of having to find them first)... and if that's not easy enough, you can turn help on and the polterscope shows you where everything is located in rooms.
The story force progresses you once you've gotten the clues to the next area... What I mean is you don't really have to learn anything to progress.
This game is literally just kill enemies that pop out of everything by walking up to objects, waiting for them to pop out, then back up and shoot them from a distance (they all die by the same weapon), click on everything after throughout the rooms you're given access to atm until it unlocks the next place, kill all the enemies as they respawn on the walk all the way back to the beginning of the level so you can start the storyline that you skip to get to the next area... then do it all over again. It's bland, it lacks enticing gameplay/puzzling aspects, and it tries to stuff a story down your throat that if you even found interesting at first, is drown out by the search to find the one thing you need to click on to progress the story to the next part so you can leave, hoping the next place isn't going to let you down like the last one. If you thought this seemed interesting, play Maniac Mansion instead (It's a NES game) and see what it feels like to play a game that has puzzling aspects in this style(ish) of game.
Really love it. Gets fairly difficult later, which only increases the old school feeling
Old school Metroid-vania with a solid story line and substantial power-ups. Had me fully stumped a few times, but banging my head against my desk helped. Only downside is that there is no ability to see the full map at one time, so it can be hard to remember which area is in what direction (like I said, old school.)
But beating the game feels awesome -- especially with no written walkthroughs (at least not posted here) so you do have to puzzle it out for the most part.
tl;dr super fun old-school metroid-vania. would recommend
So it's basically more of a 2D Resident Evil, with infinite and invisible enemies shooting you offscreen, finite resourses and pit falls everywhere.
It could've been a great game, but I'm giving it a thumbs down because it plays like a beta. Huge ammount of bugs, it crashed like 10 times, I couldn't grab last upgrade because a key didn't spawn (10 hours in) and the last boss just straight up froze in place till I killed him. Didn't give a damn, I was so done by this point.
Visuals are great, but game design is just bad. Also no sound options. But it has unskippable credits, so there is that.
Ghostly Matter is a flawed, but pretty good metroidvania game. So what’s the story about.
It’s a dark night as the world renowned psychologist and neuropsychologist professor Emeluis Penderghast is working late in the night with his assistant Amanda both of them working on the EVP Electronic Voice Phenomena.
But as they test the device a strange voice begging for help comes out, a voice that Emeluis knows as his old friend and colleague doctor Walter Melvil, a man he had not seen or talked to in ten years due to a big fight they had.
But despite that Emeluis goes to help his old friend, but he will soon be put face to face with the dead and true evil.
All right what’s to like about the game. Well I like how it’s a metroidvania game meets ghostbusters that was a fun idea and reference/Easter egg. And it’s not the only reference/Easter egg, though out the game there are little references/Easter eggs to other works of horror like the evil dead.
The enemies though out the game where creepy looking my fav being the mad doctors, mostly because of the death animation they have, and the bosses in the game where all so creepy looking and fun/hard to fight.
The weapons and power ups were fun to use and helped with some of the more hard bosses. And lastly the story was good and had some nice moments.
There are all so notes in the game watch is all good to help with the story andd the world.
Now let’s talk about the bad of the game. Well to start the map sucked, you see in most metroidvania games you can look at it full size, but in this game you can’t, you can look at it in your inventory but it’s small and you can’t make it big.
Then we have enemy placements what I mean by that is that some enemies are placed where you can’t hit them or dodge them, you have to get hurt and then you can hit them.
There are all so some bugs in the game, like when I was fighting the tentacle boss when I hit one of its tentacles it would not fall it would stay up there, at first I thought it was a part of its attack till the whole well became filled with tentacles and I could not see where I was going.
But after dying the bug did not come back. Then we have the sound effects, there are two that are bad, the fire balls in the temple and that scream from the ghost woman both can be very annoying and some of the platforming can be a pain in the ass.
And finally there is how you save the game, like in the game After Death you have to walk into something to save, at first it was easy, but what makes it a pain in the ass is that you save before fighting the final boss witch can be a pain if you don’t have enough healing items, or when you’re fighting the boss and did not unlock all the achievements.
Anyway Ghostly Matter is a flawed, but pretty good metroidvania game, with the good story, hard bosses and nice references/Easter eggs. So if you’re looking for a good metroidvania game this one is pretty good.
The game suffered from a very very long and drawn out tutorial that had very little of the gameplay seen in the trailers. The jump controls were a bit clunky as well.
As a metroidvania fan, I quite enjoyed Ghostly Matter, made by a single person over three years as an act of love towards old games. And, much like old games, it can be tough and frustrating at times, but it usually (mostly) plays fair. The graphics are simple but nice and expressive, the tunes good, the story simple but well-executed and there are several nice homages to all kinds of horror and fantasy stories, from Ghostbusters to Lovecraft and Twin Peaks.
My only complaints are that playing with the keyboard is cumbersome because of the choice of keys, which can't be remapped (I still managed to finish the game though!), a few bugs, and that the interesting ability to switch between the world of the living and the spirit world is used only in the beginning to solve puzzles, while in the rest of the game is used for platforming challenges a la Guacamelee. In fact only the first half of the game is a mix between adventure, puzzle-solving and action, while the rest is mostly action: but this is not really a problem, I just wanted to point it out.
In the end this is a very nice game for fans of the old school and an example of "retro" done right. Can't wait for the man's next projects!
The central mechanic in this game allows you to shift into the ghost realm by hitting RB, which lets you see hidden enemies and different paths forward, but doing so costs you health and battery power, so you can't keep it on all the time. You have to flick it on and off frequently.
The game says it's about "exploring", but what this amounts to in practical terms is hitting B in front of anything and everything that looks like it stands out from the environment. Or any part of the environment that looks like it belongs there too much. Sometimes things that do nothing when you hit B now will do something when you hit B later, after you've unlocked something else, so you really do have to check everything you walk in front of constantly, and can't rely on checking only what you haven't seen before.
The combination of both of these features results in gameplay that is essentially me hitting B and RB constantly while I walk around the levels, and it's wearing out my fingers. All of the game's good aspects pale in comparison to this. I cannot recommend.
Such a weird game (in a good way!) you expect a metroidvania, but start as an adventure, continue as a metroidvania but then turn slowly in a shooter without leaving the other genres. Story is A+ rich of dialogues and some plot twist, Graphic is for the most part outstanding.
Some flaws: dialogues may be too long, map isn't good as you expect from a metroidvania but serves the scope, it's very hard! both in terms of gaming skills and logic (but for someone can be a plus).
The items item spawning is solved after the patch, so now you don't have the inventory full of unnecessary stuff.
Absolutely recommended
I wish i could buy the SNES cartridge version of this game.
Good feeling, awesome arts and great music!
A great 16-bit time machine.
I was disappointed.
This game somehow manages to take all the right elements, the correct components, and so perversely mutate them that the outcome just isn't fun.
Given the sorts of games I enjoy, this should have been a slam-dunk and I should have thoroughly enjoyed Ghostly Matter. Alas, when the core mechanic pulls from two resource pools, when the jumps are NES-BS styled in some points, when enemy placement is, "yep, I'm going to take damage no matter what I do here," when map/level design is this poorly done and when it works against anyone just trying to sit and play a game ... that's just not a fun experience.
I hung in for as long as I could, but I've had enough. Played on two-skull (normal) difficulty for reference. This would have been a great mid-beta-stage game, as it needs tweaks and rewriting badly, and in core concentrations, but as a released game this just doesn't work.
It's Just. Not. Fun. (For me.) :(
I am thoroughly enjoying it. I'm playing it in Italian and I think that the dialogue could be better written, but controls are snappy, game is colorful and it screams "SECRETS" all over it and every screen. I found myself poking at places where I would be sure there'd be something and hm ..... ended up saying "I'LL BE BACK!"
I would like to be able to remap the keyboard controls, but after a little, I was able to adapt. Get it if you're looking for a metroidvania game dealing with spooky content and tropes that will leave you with a smirk.
Let's star with the good.
- Art style is amazing
- Good mixture of old school adventure games with Metroivania
- Music isn't bad and serves its purpose
- 80's references / Horror movie references
- Humor lands and has some funny moments (Skeleton with a leather jacket and Mohawk)
- Some clever enemy designs using the Poltervison
- Polterguiest meets Ghosbusters
- Clever puzzles and a rewarding sense of progression
- A lot of different enemies. Even monsters with the same attack patterns have new sprites. As you progress the monsters feel more vicious and horrifying.
- The movement does feel really good. Even better when you get the double jump. Some pixel perfect jumping, this may be positive for same but negative for others.
Now the bad
- The invisible ghosts that do a third of your life in the early game is really frustrating. There is an item that will help with this but it doesn't come for quite some time. With the item it's a smart design choice and fun - without it's frustrating and unfair.
- Some items give you abilties (extra damage, higher jump, faster speed). Downside there is no UI or idicator of how long this buff will last for. It's a minor issues but considering some puzzles use these mechanics it would be nice to know the length.
- Some poorly placed enemies where it's impossible to to take damage because of a lip or ledge. You also can't jump over them without taking damage.
- The mini map is pretty bad. It's helpful to some extent but you really do have to learn the layout of the castle and surrounding areas
- No fast travel.
- Balancing issues. The beer that gives you an anti-ghost shield is way too strong. It's certainly over 90 seconds of immunity to ghosts.
Can I recommend this game?(15 hours in) Absolutely, it's like Castlevania and Monkey Island had a baby. The story is engaging and interesting. The writing is clever and not too serious. The biggest issue I have with this game are some seriously odd design choices. I also think there is a lack of polish in some areas, where others its outstanding. Is it worth the price? Absolutely. If you're a fan of horror movies, adventure item based games and metroidvania games then this is a must buy. Once you get past the frustrating early game this title really opens up and gives you a challenging and rewarding experience.
I'll also note that I encounted a game breaking bug quite far into the game. The dev was fast to personally contact me and resolve this issue. He really cares about the quality of this title and made me feel like a valuble customer. If you're on the fence, give this game a chance.
Gameplay here:
https://youtu.be/1qvdv2AEQ84
So far this game is great! I love the look and control of the game. It is self described as a "Metroidvania" and my hatred for that term aside, its not the most accurate representation of this game. There are puzzles to solve, items to collect and use in other areas, and more making it feel more like a level based platformer than an open world side scrolling RPG (Like Metroid and Castlevania)
I can't really say anything bad about the game so far! Love the design, love the music, and I plan on finishing this game asap!
If you like 80s pop culture, retro game, pixel art and trash horror, that's your game!!
Very inspirate side scroller game with action and puzzles!
Can't wait to go on trough the story!
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Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Small Bros |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 22.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 59% положительных (22) |