Ghost Master: Mortals, begone!

Take your crew of witches, ghouls and ghosts and show the living who’s really in charge in Sick Puppies’ Ghost Master. The game puts you in charge of the bad guys against opponents ranging from partying college kids to snide mob members. The objective? Scare, manipulate and even possess these mortals with powers beyond life!
 

Released May 2003, the game survives eight years and fills a unique niche among puzzle/adventure games. Unlike contemporary 2D puzzle games such as the Nancy Drew series, Ghost Master is a set in a completely 3D environment and offers multiple levels on a single map. Players can zoom up and observe the horror on their victims’ faces as their ghosts put on their scariest behaviour.

Most levels require the player to perform spook and cause all humans to either flee the map or go insane. This is done by using ghosts, who all have certain abilities along with favourite areas to haunt.

Some ghosts can make noises like footsteps, others have the ability to kill the lights. The abilities play well, but the player must micromanage each ghost to use their full potential. Humans will often run away to hide somewhere upon sight of a ghost, this means the player is often required to do a little tactical planning to make some scares successful.

Ghosts are all restricted by the areas they can haunt. Some ghosts can only haunt electrical appliances, while others may be restricted to the outside, or even those who are restricted to scenes of murder.

Players begin the game with only a few ghastly servants but can liberate up to three additional friendlies in each level. This gives the game a little replayability in case the player didn’t unlock all the ghosts the first time around, but beyond that, there is little point to repeat levels.

The ghosts’ powers are activated by something called “plasm.” Each time a human is scared by a ghost, the player collects more plasm. Inversely, whenever a ghost uses an ability, plasm is used. However, the ghosts never seem to run out of plasm for my experience.

Developers used cultural references to their advantage, providing quite a few chuckles along the way. There’s an army base level called “Full Mortal Jacket,” a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 production Full Metal Jacket.