Ghost's Towns Now Available

I'm still waiting on feedback from testers, but I'm too excited to sit on this any longer: Ghost's Towns is now complete! Consider this an open beta or something. The game is fully, completely playable, though some minor changes or additions may occur later. It's available for free right now on Windows, Mac, and Linux. An Android version will be available at a future date. I'd love to hear any feedback you've got!

It can be downloaded here: http://superwalrusland.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ghost%27s_Towns

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

I had some hamburger problems*, but after that, I finished the game easily.

Major Plot I had a hard time sorting out what was happening in the vignettes -- it took me some time to realize that there were recurring characters, and I never did have a good handle on distinguishing the two male characters. It's not that I didn't notice the facial hair; I just assumed it was the same guy. It might help if one of them had glasses or something. I don't know. As far as conveying the importance of the three recurring characters, consider putting them in color in the vignettes.

Is there any correlation between the method of exit and the character it corresponds to? And what was the deal with Neighsayer?

This was a depressing game -- not for the themes involved in the plot, although that gets pretty heavy -- but because it was effectively a graveyard for your older games.

*Minor Puzzle I think the puzzle would be a little less opaque if the ingredients were allowed to go in any order. Barring that, some mention of where they should go is necessary; it's not like there's a prescribed order in real life.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Thanks for playing bro!!

Plot Spoilers:

I actually kind of like them being a bit confusing to distinguish, since there's all kinds of identity nonsense at play here.

The method of exits: The Man leaves by the top of the Tower since his escape was jumping off a high place, The Woman leaves through the front door since she was walking out on The Man before everything went all nutty, and The Lover was imprisoned in a shack, which is where his exit door is. His sprite's wandering around in there from the beginning, though I tried to make it hard to notice him.

Neighsayer is there to throw some doubt on whether any of these stories are real, of if this is just Dymphna/the town's way of bringing someone in to feed on their misery. If you go back to him at the end, Dr. Filth has taken care of him.


Puzzle Spoiler:

I definitely need to add another hint here, it's the puzzle I've received the most comments on. The order is given by looking closely at the burgerman corpse/mascot outside of the building, but people seem to forget about him by the time the puzzle's going. Maybe I should move him into the storage room?


The Graveyard of Games thing was a big reason I made this. It felt good getting a lot of old or unused ideas/characters out there, and to sort of give Surlaw Armageddon a final sendoff. The Tower was intended to be the final act of that game, if it was ever finished. I'm glad Constiturion got his almost sort of moment to shine.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Now that I read all of this everything makes a lot more sense, although I may have missed some key points had I not.


I really liked the addition of the Neighsayer. My impression was just that he was there to spread doubt and apparently that was the intention.

Honestly, I'm still not entirely clear on everything that was going on. There was a couple and they had issues, but I didn't realize there was a lover until the end when I was walking down the hallway looking at the colored pictures. I guess I didn't realize they were different people. And then he attempted suicide, and I assume the green tentacle man is that man, and he's in limbo or something now.

Is there a shortcut down the tower if you don't have all the tokens at once? It was rather tedious walking up and down the floors repeatedly. I blame the default OHR walkspeed, but still, takes a long time.


Despite analytical stuff, fantastic game, great experience. I've been looking forward to this game from the initial screenshots, I really like the aesthetic of it all. I hope you can get it on Android. I think that would really help get some publicity and get more people to play it (which I think it deserves). Also, thank you for making it not drag out too long. I'm glad I was able to sit down and play it all in one sitting.

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My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife

You can hold R to run while in the town or in the tower, but keeping it held while transitioning into non-run enables areas can make things screwy, so I didn't want to document that until I've got it all working fine. I'm probably going to add an elevator or something to the other floors of the tower.

Edit: I'd love to know what you guys had for play time stats at the end, who got which endings (or all of them), and whether you saved the turtle at the beginning. I should probably make the Bad End more interesting.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

It probably took me around an hour, but I had interruptions, so my save file playtime is inaccurate. I saved the turtle, but I'm curious to know what would happen if I hadn't.

Also, what was up with that shadowy demon-thing?

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

If you don't, he appears at the end to tell you you're a bad person and everything you've gone through is your own fault.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Soundtrack's live: http://glockandmr8bit.bandcamp.com/album/ghosts-towns-soundtrack

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

When Willy was asking for people to playtest Void Crypt, I thought it would be helpful to actually record my playthrough, so I did, and I had fun doing it, and it gave him some ideas for improvement. I could probably do the same thing for Ghost's Towns if you'd like. Might be more helpful to get real-time feedback (well, recorded real-time) than just a few comments.

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That would probably be pretty great, go for it!!

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

The game's been tested thoroughly and a few minor edits have been made, so with this I can say we've got a final version, unless any bugs are discovered.

-Added a warp from the fifth floor of the Tower to the outside for anyone not doing the whole Tower in one run.
-Minor sprite color edits.
-Added an additional sign to the burger puzzle.
-Added some new NPCs.
-Fixed a couple of text boxes.

I also put up a Slime's Salad page so please vote the game up there thanks guys.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Thanks to Pepsi for recording the playthrough, I've fixed a couple of typos, added a Jukebox, and added more Nears. This is now the final final update. I hope!

Let's talk about what all else people think is going on in town and out.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

For reference, here's the link to my official Slime Salad / Youtube review:

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6587

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Android port's up for anyone into that kind of thing. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superwalrusland.ghoststowns

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Just wanted to chime in real quick about next year's Heart of the OHR. As many of you know, we had an entry that did not meet the RPG requirements the contest establishes, but did embody the "spirit of the heart of the OHR," or simply "the spirit of the OHR," so I allowed it, and it did very well. Because the idea of allowing games that embody the spirit of the OHR into a contest that remembers the heart of the OHR makes sense to me, I'd decided that next year's contest would have a secondary allowance that includes "games in the spirit of the old OHR," or nearly anything that models the kind of OHR games we were playing between 1998 and 2001 (or maybe early 2002), which T4R4D1DDL3 did.

I'm mentioning all of this here because Ghost's Towns and games like it are, in my opinion, part of the "spirit of the OHR," in that there's still a quest to be had, though it's told in exploration and in puzzles rather than in battles. That kind of game had its place during the days of the old OHR, and I think it should have its place in the Heart of the OHR. So, for any of you who are interested in games like Ghost's Towns, and want to make a game like it, and still want something that will fit comfortably in the Heart of the OHR, then this is your chance to go for it all.

And if you haven't played Ghost's Towns yet, do. It's great.

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