Thoughts and Suggestions

[Sir_BluGoo]

I want to open with this; you've done a fantastic job with the game so far. While many features of the game have yet to be implemented, I can still tell that this game is being remade with genuine care. I have played this game nearly two decades coming back every few years to get deeper into the mechanics. It brings me great joy to see the resurrection of one of my favorite games of all time. If I had one piece of advice to give going forward, I'd say reach out to the community, but more importantly the Ghost Master: Complete Edition(GMCE) team. The GMCE people have a love and understanding of the game and how it works that goes so much farther than I thought was possible. Every single fix and update they have provided has been fully in tune with the game. New content feels like it belongs, and has the same vibes as the original content did. IF they are open to talking, I can't imagine a better resource exists to getting this revival to FEEL correct. Maybe find and read the patch notes and updates each GMCE version had. They fixed the bulk of the jank in ways only people who truly get the game would.

I can't over state how much jank the people who love this game will put up with, as long as the game FEELS right. Ghost Master has never ran well, mortals are somehow too well informed and idiotic, and ghosts need micromanaged to hell and back just to make one mortal insane. None of that bugged us because the game felt good to play. The thing that did drive at lest me insane was inconsistency. Powers not affecting who you needed it to, mortals walking into a room to leave the second a power goes off, or even mortals getting stuck on stairs ending record runs. The game never needed to run well or look good, but it absolutely had to be predictable to be fun.

I have played up to 'Facepacks & Broomsticks'. I wanted to get through the whole game before I submitted this, but I won't be able to play much in the coming week and felt giving what I had was better than waiting. I play to amend this post once I have completed the game. What follows is my first pass notes on what I found split into rough categories. None of what I noted is meant to be in poor spirit, and is just my personal experiences. There are also some speculations as to why certain issues occur, these are likely entirely wrong, but I would be extremely interested in learning how they are wrong.

[Sir_BluGoo]

Categories:

1. Ghost Mechanics and Powers
   
2. User Interface and Controls
   
3. Level Design and Gameplay Flow
   
4. Bugs and Glitches
   
5. Visual and Audio Effects
   
6. AI Behavior and Pathfinding
   
7. Game Balance
   
8. Ghoul Room and Ghost Management
   
9. Game Feel and Player Experience

---

1. Ghost Mechanics and Powers

• Item 1: Ghosts should be able to have their power band set even when they aren’t placed in the level.
  
  
• Item 2: A Ghost's power band should never be able to be set above the current Plasm limit as this allows free uses of powers that cost more than the level allows for in the moment.
  
  
  • Item 2a: This does not mean a ghost can’t be placed with a band that is set too high, but that should only be possible if it was placed in the map at a certain band, is then removed from the map, then the plasm newly available is taken by other ghosts, then the first ghost is placed back in the map with its band level having never been touched.
    
  
  
• Item 3: If I am trying to bind a ghost, placing it on the fetter should trump clicking on anything else. E.g., trying to bind Cogjammer to the radio to free Weather Witch being interrupted because I clicked 'through' Weather Witch to Cogjammer. In that case, I shouldn’t be taken into the Weather Witch voice line; instead, Cogjammer should check to see if the thing I'm clicking on is an appropriate fetter and is currently not taken by another ghost. If either of those checks fail, then the game should play the 'not allowed' noise, then carry on letting me try to place the boy.
  
  
  • Item 3a: I.e., if a ghost is currently trying to be bound, then that should remain true until one of two things happens:
    
    
    • Item 3ai: The Ghost Master cancels the action.
      
    • Item 3aii: The ghost successfully binds to a fetter.
      
  
  
• Item 9: A ghost's power band should always persist. Wherever it was set last should be what it stays at until the Ghost Master changes it. So rebinding it shouldn’t set it back to the zero band.
  
  
• Item 13: Speculation, but I think you have the game display the outlines and names of the fetters available to the ghost the Ghost Master is currently trying to bind, but as it currently functions, if an object has more than one fetter, it displays all of them and not just the one the ghost can use.
  
  
  • Item 13a: E.g., attempting to bind Weather Witch will make the outdoor sidewalks display both the 'Thoroughfare' and 'Outside' fetter labels, when only the 'Thoroughfare' fetter currently matters.
    
  
  
• Item 16: The 'Fool’s Errand' and 'Wild Geese' powers should function two ways:
  
  
  • Item 16a: Mortals should hunt around currently occupied fetters.
    
    
  • Item 16b: Mortals with specific locations they need to be for ghosts to be freed should go to those spots.
    
    
    • Item 16bi: E.g., the chef on Deadfellas should always try to go to Fingers.
      
    
    
  • Item 16c: The number of times I’ve lost a perfect run on a level due to the character I need to go to a specific spot going absolutely everywhere else is far too high. The jank of this game never bugged me, but relying on random chance and waiting for the one fetter hunt power I have available to recharge, only to have the mortal go anywhere but where I need them, is frustrating.
    
  
  
• Item 17: If 'Luck' is applied to a mortal and a ghost needs a lucky mortal to free them (e.g., Lucky, Knuckles), then the mortal should try and head to that ghost. Same reasoning as the 'Fool’s Errand' power.
  
  
• Item 20: If a power band is lowered while a power is trying to proc but before it's able, the duration of the power should be set to 0, and the recharge should begin immediately.
  
  
• Item 21: Certain abilities that affect a whole room only should affect a radius outside (e.g., 'Tremor', 'Creeping Vines').
  
  
• Item 42: Powers that are constant like 'Rain' or 'Flower Power' usually are allowed to happen with abilities that proc once when they go off; they just can't run at the same time as other continuous powers.
  
  
  • Item 42a: This may have different rules for powers that attract and other continuous powers.
    
  
  
• Item 43: The plant in the piano room of the Hardboiled level house isn't an 'Earth' fetter.
  
  
• Item 44: 'Quake' doesn't proc on the whole map. The max damage is only in a certain range, then just one environment damage for all other objects.
  
  
• Item 45: 'Attract' powers seem to hit everyone.
  
  
• Item 50: Breaking Flash Jordan's urn shouldn't free her spirit; she needs to try and possess someone once the jar is broken.
  
  
• Item 51: Powers like 'Charm' or 'Shattered Nerves' that target mortals should note which mortal they're targeting at the start of the power wind-up, not at the end. Most powers take longer to go off than it takes for a mortal to walk through a room, and it sucks to miss the mortal you were targeting because they left the room by the time the power finishes going off.
  
  
• Item 52: A ghost's resting plasm (when they are set to 0 band) is being added to the power band plasm. If that's how it works, then have the cost of the powers already show that addition. So if it costs 15 plasm to have a ghost in the world and their first power costs 5 plasm, then the displayed cost for the first power should be 20, and the hit to the plasm bar at the top should be 20.
  
  
• Item 60: Weather Witch's 'Thunder Clap' should wake Daydreamer.

---

2. User Interface and Controls

• Item 4: Clicking or pressing space while the 'Scenario Completed' menu is active should skip to the end.
  
  
• Item 6: There shouldn’t be a time limit, and you should be able to navigate between floors and have all the other movement controls unlocked and visible as they are during normal gameplay.
  
  
• Item 8: The opening cinematic shouldn’t have the "Press Space To Skip" flashing constantly. Maybe it could pop up only when the user gives an input and then fades again in case they did it by accident. Maybe it should be "Hold Space For X Seconds To Skip" in that case.
  
  
• Item 10: The Ghoul Room should have a dedicated 'Exit Ghoul Room' button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
  
  
• Item 12: During the map preview phase, the exit button should be located far away from the 'Select Team' button. I’d suggest the exit button goes in the bottom left-hand corner like where the menu button normally sits, or the top left where most back buttons go (since it's functionally a back button). And the 'Team Selection' button can remain in the lower right-hand corner, where most 'Next/Continue' buttons live.
  
  
• Item 14: The 'Floor Up' and 'Floor Down' buttons should swap sides. 'Up' on the left, 'Down' on the right.
  
  
• Item 15: While a mortal is in the process of fleeing, the “X” covering their icon should blink out for a few frames every few seconds to indicate they are currently fleeing but haven't reached the exit.
  
  
• Item 32: Clicking on a restless spirit should open their menu as though you clicked on their icon in the ghost pack.
  
  
• Item 54: The camera pan shouldn’t have momentum. Letting go of WASD should stop the movement immediately.

---

[Sir_BluGoo]

3. Level Design and Gameplay Flow

• Item 7: You should spawn in Haunting 101 facing the other side of the house. It's how the original does, and at least at first, the majority of your players will be veteran players who are looking for any reason to dislike the game. Game feel is important, and if they have to immediately swing the camera 180°, it's just another tick on the list of things that make this version different.
  
  
• Item 11: The locations opening on the map should only happen the first time they appear. The only time this changes is when acts switch and the map resets.
  
  
  • Item 11a: Clicking during their opening should snap them to the end of their animation.
    
  
  
• Item 25: Revisits should have all the restless spirits present.
  
  
• Item 28: The lateral area of Summoners Not Included shouldn’t be visible during your first time at the location. And the tree bridge shouldn't be activatable outside of the later acts.
  
  
• Item 33: In Summoners Not Included, the professor should stay in the basement for the most part so that scaring him and not the others is more feasible.
  
  
• Item 41: In Poultrygeist, the little girl is able to be scared away before Hardboiled is freed, causing Hardboiled's chain to attach to the first place it appeared at the start of the level.
  
  
• Item 55: I think Wendel's protective aura (the one when you bind all four elementals to the witches' circle) is rotated 90 degrees.
  
  
• Item 56: In the original game, the fetches were actually in the mirror, but when the protective circle was protecting the ghosts, the aura appeared in front of the mirror. That makes me think they only showed the reflection of the fetches and that their physical form was in the real map, just invisible. The way you clicked on them was to just click the mirror, so you’d have to disable their interaction when the user clicks the space they occupy and make it so that the mirror now has that property as long as the fetch is bound to it.
  
  
  • Item 56a: Also, when a fetch clones, then the mirror they were in should now be bindable again.
    
  
  
• Item 5: When the scenario preview is going, there shouldn’t be a time limit. Replaying levels to refine your strategy is already common, and resetting levels is easy. Scenario previews are most useful for new players, but the current 60-second limit doesn’t provide enough information for them to benefit significantly. While the mechanic is a good addition, its implementation could better align with how most players approach the game.

---

4. Bugs and Glitches

• Item 22: Particle effects on Terror Eyes regularly twitch or jump. I think his idle animation has the geometry of part of his model snap to another location, then snap back.
  
  
• Item 35: Bonzi is able to be discovered, but they don't show up in the haunter pack afterwards.
  
  
• Item 39: The water patches outside the police station are not visible nor bindable, but their fetter labels are present.
  
  
• Item 40: Blue Murder is able to be bound to the 'Inside' fetter.
  
  
• Item 46: When Creepers is ending and a swarm power is going off, the creeper entities 'run' like the bugs in the swarm. I’d guess the command that makes entities run when a ghost able to use a swarm power uses one is making the ghosts' entities run in general and not just hitting the newly spawned ones.
  
  
• Item 47: Rebinding a ghost to a different room without benching it seems to make the creepers pop up in the original room.
  
  
• Item 49: Laurence Murry doesn't have a description.
  
  
• Item 53: In Deadfellas, the roulette guy is immune to all scare attempts.
  
  
• Item 57: When the bats that circle the completed locations on the map spawn in, they zip from where they spawn to their starting point in the orbit. This means they have a small afterimage stretching off them because of how fast they are going, and I think because of how the lighting engine functions, they are being given some light right before they arrive at their starting location. A possible solution might be making them visible only after they have existed for a moment, so that they have already zoomed from their spawn. Or it has an entirely different cause, and I’m a fool.
  
  
• Item 58: Tricia's mirror stays as the cinematic camera and doesn't return to normal reflecting.

---

5. Visual and Audio Effects

• Item 19: The mortals flashing between skeletons and their normal form while being shocked is vital.
  
  
• Item 27: When looking at Weather Witch in the Ghoul Room, the ceiling should be replaced so the sky isn't visible.
  
  
• Item 29: Zooming all the way out as high as the game allows should transition the soundtrack to a choir (test it in the original to know what I mean).
  
  
• Item 37: Blue Murder's voice lines while she is a restless spirit seem to trigger at random times. Sometimes when I scared the female officer and sometimes when I did things (bound haunters, used powers, and clicked) in the room.
  
  
• Item 38: Turning the lights off makes the rooms too dark, and it's very hard to tell what's what.

---

6. AI Behavior and Pathfinding

• Item 24: If the ghosts that possess people to be freed aren’t present due to being released already, then the first mortal to find that place shouldn’t do the possession animation.
  
  
• Item 36: Fear decays far too quickly.
  
  
• Item 48: 'Go To' goes to a fixed point depending on where the mortal is. It seems like the maps are tiled with large squares (tens of feet), and depending on which one the mortal is in, it snaps to a corner of that square.
  
  
• Item 59: When looking through the POV of a mortal, they shouldn’t be able to see ghosts that are showing themselves.

---

7. Game Balance

• Item 18: 'Recommended' seems to only give a certain number of ghosts regardless of how many are allowed in the level.
  
  
• Item 36: Fear decays far too quickly.

---

8. Ghoul Room and Ghost Management

• Item 10: The Ghoul Room should have a dedicated 'Exit Ghoul Room' button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
  
  
• Item 23: Clatterclaws belongs on the ceiling in the Ghoul Room.
  
  
• Item 26: Weather Witch's other power band upgrades are not visible nor accessible in the Ghoul Room.
  
  
• Item 27: When looking at Weather Witch in the Ghoul Room, the ceiling should be replaced so the sky isn't visible.
  
  
• Item 34: Clatterclaws' web is built when she is bound to a location; it remains stationary and is not part of her model. Even when she roams, it stays where it formed originally.
  
  
• Item 35: Bonzi is able to be discovered, but they don't show up in the haunter pack afterwards.

---

9. Game Feel and Player Experience

• Item 7: You should spawn in Haunting 101 facing the other side of the house. It's how the original does, and at least at first, the majority of your players will be veteran players who are looking for any reason to dislike the game. Game feel is important, and if they have to immediately swing the camera 180°, it's just another tick on the list of things that make this version different.
  
  
• Item 29: Zooming all the way out as high as the game allows should transition the soundtrack to a choir (test it in the original to know what I mean).
  
  
• Item 54: The camera pan shouldn’t have momentum. Letting go of WASD should stop the movement immediately.

---

[Sir_BluGoo]

The odd Item labeling is for my own organization. I left it in because I'm too lazy to remove it.

[MrSardoc1]

I mean, I thought my feedback thread was detailed, but this goes way beyond.

[evgenii.shevelev]

That's a really great feedback! I can't even describe how cool that is, and we want to thank you a lot for your time and passion. A part of your feedback is already included in patch, another part yet in implementation. You really got some points of how and why:)