Background: Bought for pennies in the steam sale, never heard of it before.

The Good:
* Brilliant premise, locations and characters
* Decent tutorial (does miss out a few useful hints)
* Tons of ghosts to play with with fun interactions
* Varied scenarios are brilliantly Scooby Do fun to explore
* Trial and error hauntings are both good and challenging
* Good balance between creepy and fun
* Fun voice acting on the ghosts, Sims mumbling from the humans
* Most missions are sub 30mins for quick diversions
* 20 hour campaign, some replay value

The Bad:
* Graphics are dated.. looking Sims 2-esque
* NPC Characters get hooked on the scenery, other glitches in pathing
* The ghost/human menu is clunky and could give better feedback
* Golden Plasm too easy to waste while learning the ropes
* Replay and Upgrade-mansion interfaces are more awkward than seems necessary
* Some hints on releasing bonus ghosts very vague
* Cries out for more direct control and visually targeted attacks
* Some scenarios have triggers you have no control over make the game too easy

Impressions: Some games look great but are boring, others the reverse, this is the latter. It reminds me of the Commandos crossed with Hitman and The Sims 2 games.. looks dated but the game play shines. The game lovingly tiptoes around remaking famous setups from horror movies (the Evil Dead one is great) without getting so close they get sued.

Recommended for: Strategy fans who like replay value and Sims fans who like to drown their vassals in ladderless pools.

Conclusion.: 8/10. A game that triumphs in mechanics over visuals.

Where is Ghost Master 2 !!!

Oh, god! I remember this one from my teen years as a hilarious strategy simulation with an innovative concept, especially for its day. I spent days with my retail copy of the game, trying to find ways of releasing those trapped ghosts so I can recruit them! Ghost Master was developed by Sick Puppies Studio in 2003 and enjoyed some critical acclaim due to its intriguing concept. Yet, the game failing on a commercial level, the company closed its doors and Ghost Master remained to be a one shot wonder. Now looking back and enjoying the gameplay yet again, I can positively say that the game lost little in its fun and aged quite nicely anyhow.

Welcome, Ghost Master! You are an incorporeal entity: a commander of the spirits of long deceased, haunting this realm to drive those silly mortals out of their wits! ...and you got summoned by a bunch of teenagers via an Ouija board for kicks. Immediately, you get rid of those pesky mortals by summoning your servants and set HQ in the abandoned school in Gravenville. Your next task: scaring the heck out of all those mortals inhabiting your town, teaching them paranormal lessons for their various misdeeds and recruiting new members for your team while you are at it. Enjoy!

Okay, this all sounds wonderful. You are a big, bad ghost master capable of controlling various ghosts and scaring people... But remember that mortals are not defenseless. You'll face witches, mediums, mad scientists and ghostbreakers - actually ghostbusters, but you know, copyright issues - and try to overcome many challenges in each new mission you are introduced with. Gravenville also comes with its own distinct setting, consisting of countless parodies centering paranormal horror stories like Blair Witch, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Phantom of the Opera etc. Characters have their own stories wrapped in situational comedy.

Talking about gameplay dynamics, in each mission you are to choose a team of 4-8 ghosts in your repertoire and go on for the haunting. As you win missions, you are given gold plasm based on the success of your haunting, calculated according to how much of a havoc you've managed to wreck in the building: how many mortals scared, any of your haunters get banished, how many new recruits you've managed to save etc. At the end of the haunt, you can visit your HQ and use gold plasm to train your ghosts to unlock many new abilities, building up different strategies for different missions.

The game environment and graphics basically seem like The Sims 2 with a couple story buildings, AI people interacting with the environment and each other. Main difference is that you are the intruder. All your ghosts, depending on their types, need different fetters - items or places that they can be bound to, so their area of influence is limited. This is where the strategy part comes in. You collect plasm during the mission by scaring them and use collected plasm to activate their power levels, also arranging orders for when to use certain powers. Most levels come with puzzles to figure out and as you unlock new missions, things get harder and harder. All missions contain various other ghosts that you can newly recruit if you are to figure out how to free them from their mortal entrapments. They all will ask for certain obscure conditions in riddles to be met and figuring those conditions out is the half of your job. Once figured out, you are left with strategy and patience.

Well, I think that would be all. The game isn't that long, but you are welcome to revisit old missions to gather gold plasm, unlocking new abilities and trying new strategies. The Steam and GOG versions of the game contain a new level at the end that wasn't presented in the original version and it is insanely hard. There is some talk that a fan-made Ghost Master 2 is in development at the moment, so fingers crossed!

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this game deserves a remake or remaster it's such a cool concept

We deserve a sequel

Ghost Master, what is it A FUN ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME DOODE

this game deserves a remake/Remaster and a sequel

This game deserves a remaster

Please remake, re-invest.

I hope there's a remastered or remake for this game.. A really unique game