Preview: Greta Sees Ghosts!

Greta Sees Ghosts! is a new puzzle adventure game from I Knew It! Games. They are a collective of industry veterans who have come together to create a fine-looking and intriguing title where a lighthouse keeper ends up helping the afterlife move on. 

Now, I feel some may have rolled their eyes at that last sentence, and to be honest, that’s a fair reaction. We have seen many games over the last few years tackle this subject – some more successful than others – and it has become a little tiring. But the way in which I Knew It! Games have approached it leads to what seems to be a more innovative approach to helping out spirits move on.

I was happy to accept an offer to play a 20-minute preview of the game before its reveal to the public, and although the demo shows signs of early development with clear work that still needs to be done, it did highlight a more light-hearted approach to this limbo state that lost spirits find themselves in. These ranged from someone who threw themselves off a cliff to show their love to someone and needs to talk to them (who happens to be a clairvoyant!) before they can move on, to a spirit that needs to be taken to a calm and quaint area, as they were so busy in life that they never took a moment to just chill.

Although those examples don’t necessarily bring out the lightheartedness I mentioned, the writing does, and it’s here that one of the best parts of the preview I played is found. There was a playfulness to the script that I appreciated, bringing charm and some funny one-liners that brought a few smiles to my face. Though the characters spoke with a sense of silliness, the writing still managed to hold some semblance of emotion from the spirits themselves, which thankfully brought some humanity to my experience. Without this, Greta Sees Ghosts might not have stood out as much as it does. 

The gameplay also held some originality thanks to its ghost-capturing mechanic. With Greta’s lantern, she can catch and transport the spirit to whichever destination they need to be transported to – but to capture them brings a neat little side game. When you find a spirit, a number of energy points will scatter along the ground. Greta will be given three shapes which she has to cover the energy points with. These shapes are related to the spirit, so, for instance, the first ghost shape was a pair of shorts (there’s a connection, I promise!)

Environmental hazards also come into play in these side games, as I had to consider a pole that was sticking out of the ground. If the shape touches it, it wouldn’t register, so lining each shape was important. Once this is done, Greta will learn of the spirits’ needs and try to help them. 

Aiding these lost souls is all based on visual clues picked up from the conversation between Greta and the spirit. These are handily put into Greta’s notepad for quick reference. I did find these a little obtuse, though, and I spent quite some time just wandering aimlessly hoping to stumble onto the spot I was looking for. I do hope that the developers can flesh out this section to make it more intuitive without making it too easy for the player. 

The included map is also very bare-bones right now and was used in the preview as a fast travel system, which was satisfying to use. I would love to see some more features and details included in the map, though – especially found spirits being pinned – so hopefully this is expanded during development. 

With beautiful Saturday morning visuals that successfully meshed with the eerie nighttime atmosphere, I was constantly admiring the work that had been done so far with the visuals. Greta’s design is superb, bringing out her personality beautifully and immediately giving her some warmth. I also found myself appreciating the work that has already been done to the backgrounds and environment too, not only as it made the game feel more lived-in and alive but also as it seemed to be feeding my curiosity as I explored. 

Greta Sees Ghosts shows much promise so far, from those fabulous visuals to its interesting gameplay hooks to its pleasurable writing. I am one for afterlife games, with Spiritfarer and the recent Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo among my favourites, and hopefully from the potential shown in the preview, this will be high up there with them when the game releases early next year.

Wishlist or download the Greta Sees Ghosts demo on Steam and keep up to date on its development through I Knew It! Games BlueSky