Penderghast vs. the (under)world
Ghostly Matter is a Metroidvania distributed by Milestone and developed by Small Bros, which, despite the name, is actually an one-man studio: an Italian man who took three years to develop the whole game by himself.In the Seventies, professors Penderghast and Melvil were working on a revolutionary invention named the Polterscope, a visor that lets people see through the veil of the mortal world and thus detect ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. However, Penderghast was worried by the possible implications, while Melvil wanted to finish the development at all costs, so the two split and Penderghast never saw his colleague again. Fast forward to 1986: Penderghast, now a world-famous parapsychologist, during one of his experiments hears Melvil's voice on a tape and so, piecing together the clues, he discovers that Melvil's disappearance might have something to do with the Blackwood family, who were said to meddle with dark forces, and whose manor in Scotland is said to be haunted...
Ghostly Matter's central mechanic is the use of the Polterscope, which, similarly to Guacamelee!, switches the action between the physical world and the world of spirits; unlike that game, this ability is used not only for platforming challenges, but also to uncover hidden messages, clues and paths, necessary in order to progress: the game combines elements of platformer, run-n-gun and graphic adventure. All in all, it has a very Retraux sensibility, not only because of the retro-pixel graphics, but also for its somewhat unforgiving difficulty and the fact that you have to take notes by yourself if you want to have a chance to survive the vast, challenging environments without getting lost.
The game was released on
Steam on July 12th 2018.
Ghostly Matter provides examples of:
- Ability Required to Proceed: You can't access the areas of Blackwood Manor that are home to demonic activity until you find the two pieces of the anti-demon kit.
- Anachronism Stew: The Blackwood Manor has been abandoned since the 1930s, but one of the rooms has a TV set with a VCR that are necessary for a sub-quest. The professor, of course, lampshades it.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The only way to hurt the possessed man in the shack is to let him get near the professor, so he'll open his mouth, and then shoot him in it.
- Bedsheet Ghost: The most basic ghostly enemies, they just endlessly float back and forth.
- Big Red Devil: The stereotypical red-skinned devil with horns and a pitchfork is an uncommon enemy that stands in place and attacks by summoning meteors from the sky. Vargh the demon is another example.
- Bland-Name Product: Defeating the first major boss gives you a pair of "Mike" sneakers that lets you double jump.
- Bottomless Pits: A huge one in particular is a major landmark, the Pit of Despair. Falling into it nets you an achievement!
- Combat Tentacles: The thing at the bottom of the well attacks with these. We never get to see what it actually looks like, save for an eyestalk.
- Cool Old Guy: Prof. Penderghast is certainly one, he drives a Cool Car, is a world-renowned scientist and is still tough and agile at his age.
- Early Game Hell: Using the Polterscope drains not only its batteries, but also Penderghast's life bar, so in the beginning you will use it sparingly... however, the Invisible Monsters will make you become paranoid, especially when there are so few save points and the professor suddenly keels over for seemingly no reason. Later on, the upgrades to the visor and weapon make it so that the life draining is much more manageable, and the ghost enemies can be hit even without turning the Polterscope on, plus there will be several more save points. Though the game then becomes harder in its puzzles and platforming challenges...
- The '80s: The game is set in this time period, but, outside the references to outdated technology at the beginning, it doesn't really factor in the story. It's mostly because of Author Appeal judging by the many references to pop culture from that period.
- Expy: With his background in parapsychology, vast knowledge of the occult and weapon resembling a proton pack, Prof. Penderghast is one to the main characters of Ghostbusters.
- Flunky Boss: Several bosses summon other enemies, for example the Grave Digger makes zombies rise from the ground and the Putrid Demon in the swamp lays eggs that hatch into giant maggots.
- Giant Hands of Doom: One late boss is literally a giant teleporting green hand with an eye on its palm that summons enemies and shoots beams.
- The Grim Reaper: As the ferryman of souls. He can take the professor from the forest to the swamp with his boat, but only after he completes a Fetch Quest consisting in bringing him twenty roaming souls.
- Haunted House: The huge Blackwood Manor, the game's main hub, is home to all sorts of apparitions and creatures.
- Invincible Minor Minion: Ghostly brides can't be defeated, no matter what, just dispersed for a while.
- Invisible Monsters: All ghostly enemies are this until you switch the Polterscope on. Also, they can hurt you but you can't hurt them unless you switch to the ghost realm. Later upgrades to the weapon lets you shoot them even when in the mortal realm.
- Justified Tutorial: The prologue in Penderghast's house and the investigation in Melvil's house before the game proper.
- Kaizo Trap: After the very last puzzle, a little before the Final Boss. When the professor solves the pipe puzzle in order to lower the level of water in the chambers below Blackwood Manor, the room where the pipes are located suddenly begins to flood. If the professor isn't fast enough he will drown... hope you found the save point in a little room at the beginning of the corridor.
- The Man Behind the Man: Norman Blackwood started his interest in occultism after reading about the Tungli, a Northern population hated and feared by everyone because of their horrendous rituals and penchant for human sacrifices. The force behind the Tungli was the demon Vargh, who is The Corrupter, however he's not the final enemy... Also, Blackwood is not so evil after all.
- Night of the Living Mooks: The game is all about the thin line between the living and the dead, so several enemies are various forms of undead such as skeletons, zombies and ghouls.
- Porky Pig Pronunciation: The professor can't pronounce Madame Ermolova's name. "Madame Ermalova... Erlomova... Erlamova — Olga."
- Shout-Out: Many of these, especially to horror and fantasy stories.
- The professor has to find a key for Room 237 and, once he gets inside it, he'll find a rotting undead corpse in the bathtub.
- An item is a videotape which, if played on a VCR, summons a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl in an obvious reference to The Ring. Even the video that endlessly plays on the TV looks like the cursed video from the film, despite being made of just a few pixels.
- Evil Dead gets homaged when Penderghast finds a lone shack in the woods and activates a tape which plays some kind of curse: cue boss fight against a possessed man.
- At one point the professor is transported to a Dream Land that looks very similar to the Red Room from Twin Peaks, complete with red curtains, zigzag patterns and a dwarf.
- The demon Vargh is clearly based on Darkness from Legend (1985).
- Norman Blackwood, with his long robe and bizarre hairdo, is probably based on old Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula. That, or Futurama's Mom.
- The tentacled thing in the well is reminiscent of the similarly unseen creature in the garbage compactor from A New Hope; also, the only thing it says is "FEED ME!"
- Two references to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): the most basic demon mooks are little floating mages based on Orko, and the guardian of the temple in Antarctica is an immortal viking that looks just like He-Man himself. Said viking is also named Dolph, referencing the actor who played He-Man in the live-action movie.
- The viking also acts like the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, being an immortal guardian forced to eternally stand in the same place.
- Status Effects: Only one, poison. There are several enemies that cause it.
- Title Drop: During his dialogues with the medium Madame Ermolova, Prof. Penderghast mentions that he's an expert in ghostly matter.
- Retraux: Besides the graphics and chiptune soundtrack, there are all sorts of graphical options to make the game look like it is being played on a CRT monitor, and even to reproduce some graphical glitches.
- Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted, the flamethrower is at least better than the starting weapon and has a better shooting rate (it shoots fireballs instead of a flame burst), but the professor finds better weapons after a while. The flamethrower still has its uses though, for example igniting torches and such in order to solve some puzzles.
