Video Game / The Outbound Ghost

It's not so easy to mend the mistakes of your past life when you don't even remember them.

The Outbound Ghost is an Eastern RPG developed by Conradical Games and published by Digerati, released on September 20, 2022. It was funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which can be viewed here. The game's official Twitter account is here, and the Youtube channel of the developer (which includes various trailers and gameplay previews) is here.

The game follows an amnesiac spirit who has just awoken on the outskirts of a town called Outbound, which is populated by various other ghosts due to a serial killer. Unlike these other ghosts, the protagonist is able to manifest Figments, embodiments of their own emotions with great power. With the help of the locals, primarily a girl named Mary and her brother Michael the amateur detective, this Outbound Ghost must uncover the mysteries behind these deaths in order to help these spirits pass on to a true afterlife.

Following the game's release, legal issues with Digerati caused Conradical Games to disband and then reform as Radhood, whose first project under that name was the thematically similar shoot'em up roguelike Soul Stalker.

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The Outbound Tropes:

• Action Commands: By default, every attack and ability requires timing a button press on a meter in order to successfully use it, with more powerful abilities having the meter's pointer move erratically instead of linearly. Aspects can be crafted and equipped that adjust this meter, such as disabling it entirely at the cost of some power, or doubling the effect of hitting the sweet spot but making anything else count as a miss.
• Alliterative Name: Adrian Ackerman, Linda Lee, and Lee Lee all have one.
• Amnesiac Hero:
  • The protagonist awakens without any memory of their past, including how they died or what regret still binds their spirit to the world. He regains his memories at the end of the first Chapter, after Adrian traps him in a swamp and he has to help out another ghost that reminds him of his own sister.
  • Adrian is also suffering from amnesia, albeit a form that affects his short-term memory as well as long-term. While they take on an antagonistic role at first, he becomes a main protagonist towards the end of the game.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • At the start of Chapter 2, while the initial protagonist is still separated from Mary and Michael, the game switches to Mary's perspective as she suddenly gains the ability to see and control Figments.
  • For Chapter 3, the initial protagonist once again participates in battle, but the character controlled in the field is his sister Linda.
  • For Chapter 4, the game switches to Adrian's perspective as he undergoes Once More, with Clarity.
  • The Post-End Game Content has the player take control of a ghost knight named Quijano on a quest to hunt down the Apex Figments, rather than any of the previous protagonists.
• And Then What?: When Michael eventually apologizes to Mary for not being the best older brother, he admits that he's also been considering what would happen if they actually did catch the Serial Killer, and realized it would be impossibly difficult to enforce any kind of law as a ghost.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Various elements of the game's difficulty can be freely adjusted in the menu without penalty, from how challenging the enemies are to the encounter rate and how much experience is gained from battle. Additionally, nothing in the game is permanently missable; any Aspect books that you didn't choose earlier will be available later on.
• Apocalypse Cult: The Varangians, who have a settlement called Escales to the north of Outbound. In Chapter 4 it's shown that Adrian and Levi ran all the way there while fleeing, and Levi talks about how they knew about ghosts and Figments in life, which led to them committing suicide in order to gain power in death. Their members include the deputy of Ravenside and Levi, which is how Levi's able to cash in a favor and help Adrian avoid the protagonists when they start catching up.
• Back to Front: The entirety of Chapter 4. It's a series of segments from Adrian's perspective as he relives them and overcomes his short-term memory loss. It starts from what he was doing right before the end of Chapter 3, then shows what he was doing right before that segment started, and repeats until the final scene shows what he was doing before the game's opening.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: In Chapter 4, Adrian spots who he thinks is Lee in Escales, and is suddenly pulled into his own mind as he fights a series of battles against his own Figments over whether to confront him.
• Bleak Level: Escales is eerily empty and surrounded by fog, with what sounds like a droning noise playing, and no appiritions. The area before it (which due to the nature of the chapter you actually visit afterwards), Deep Toterwald, is a barren area with abandoned wagons and signs warning travellers not to visit Escales, although there are appiritions here.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: The Soggy Swamp, where the initial progatonist and Shirley fall into after Adrian throws them off a cliff. While the water isn't dangerous to them as ghosts, it poisoned Outbound's living residents, and was what lead to the killings happening in the first place.
• The Cameo: Vitas Varnas, a professional voice actor who's had roles in works such as Boyfriend Dungeon, Jitsu Squad, and the Sword Princess Amaltea visual novel, appears as a ghost in Chapter 5 and can be asked to follow Quijano as a non-combatant.
• Cassandra Truth: Near the start of Chapter 2, while on their way to Central Outbound, Mary informs Michael that she saw a vision of the absent protagonist and can now use their Figments; Michael just thinks she's dehydrated and should rest up when they reach their destination.
• Challenge Run: There are various built-in challenge modifiers that can be applied to a new save file, such as one that randomizes the order that new Figments are unlocked rather than the set order they're gained during the story.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • The main protagonist abandoned his family and left town after getting tired of Outbound's xenophobia, occasionally sending letters back home but only deciding to return after learning their lives were in danger.
  • Adrian committed such a huge atrocity in life that his guilt resulted in the Trauma-Induced Amnesia he suffers as a ghost.
  • Levi was a member of the Apocalypse Cult at Escales and, having learned of the power of Figments through it, believes that helping Figment-user Adrian escape from Outbound is the best course of action.
• Decoy Protagonist: The initial ghost you play as, who is featured most prominently in promotional material and is also in the game's logo, is only played as for the first chapter. You play as a different character in each chapter, and the one who comes closest to being the actual protagonist is Adrian.
• Disappeared Dad: When Michael and Mary finally talk things over, Michael admits that he was overcompensating as "man of the house" after their father left, and didn't realize until recently how that burdened both Mary and their mother.
• Door to Before: In Chapter 4, when Adrian finally decides to stop running and go confront Lee, Levi begrudgingly shows him a secret sewer gate in Escales that connects directly to a cave near Central Outbound, so Adrian doesn't need to travel all the way back the long way.
• Double-Meaning Title: In addition to "Outbound" being the name of the central town that the Ghost protagonist wakes up in, various ghost characters end up "going outbound" in some way, such as the initial protagonist being a native that left a long time ago and returned recently, Mary finishing her Unfinished Business with Michael and ascending, and Linda wanting to leave Outbound via train to learn more about Figments.
• Driving Question: What happened to the Outbound Serial Killer?
• Dual Boss: The Final Boss is against Lee and Mary, in the form of a pair of unique "You" Apparitions that Adrian hallucinates the two turning into.
• Exact Eavesdropping: At Ravenside, Michael is hiding behind a stack of boxes just as Mary and Linda arrive, and Mary tells Linda about her family's past and how she hopes Michael will eventually put his hot-headedness aside to understand that she truly cares about him. Michael then throws a rock as a distraction and runs for it rather than talk things out with his sister then and there, but does apologize to her soon after.
• Fighting Your Friend: Chapter 2 starts with Mary fighting an apparition in the form of the original protagonist, and midway has Mary hallucinate that Linda's become a violent Figment. Chapter 3 has the original protagonist hallucinate that all of the random encounters are against Mary and Michael after the latter two ascend, and ends with him forced to fight Adrian in his mind just as Adrian makes amends, and Chapter 4 ends with Adrian hallucinating that Lee and Mary are violent Figments. Notably, in all of these examples, the fight is never against the actual friend and is due to With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
• Foreshadowing: Unlocking the Jealousy Figment has the pop-up text state that you helped Levi overcome his inner demons, even though you actually unlock it in Adrian's Battle in the Center of the Mind. However, since this occurs during the Back to Front portion of the game, the first event does indeed happen in a segment that takes place earlier chronologically.
• Friendly Ghost: The protagonist and the friendly spirits they encounter are all depicted as cute-looking wisps, compared to violent apparitions that take on more nefarious forms like vampires. However, said violent apparitions can be turned into Figments by taking on challenges at gravestones scattered across the world, including the Optional Bosses in the Post-End Game Content.
• Ghostly Animals: In addition to the formerly-human Friendly Ghost cast, there are also animal ghosts such as Cori, a ghost dog that tends to stick close to Mary and Michael.
• Ghost Town: Outbound is a literal example; there used to be humans living there, but tragedy caused by a mysterious Serial Killer means that there's no living souls left.
• Given Name Reveal: After Mary and Michael reunite with the protagonist in the second Chapter, it turns out that the name you gave him is just a pseudonym he gave himself out of embarrassment for their real name, Lee Lee, which he then reveals to his new friends.
• Heel–Face Turn: At the end of Chapter 3, Adrian realizes that his continued running isn't helping anyone, including himself, and decides to make peace with Lee in order to solve the mysteries of why he has amnesia and why they both can use Figments.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: After the first few interactions with Mary and her friends, they ask for the protagonist's name, with the player able to input whatever they'd like. The game averts Canon Name by having the default option be randomly selected from a pool of names submitted by Kickstarter backers. Except that it turns out to be a pseudonym and he does have a Canon Name after all.
• Heroic Mime: The ghost that the player names at the start of the game doesn't have any dialogue boxes while under the player's control. Once the player switches to controlling someone else, he's perfectly capable of speaking, with the Once More, with Clarity segments even showing what he actually was saying while under the player's control.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Everyone in Outbound hates those they perceive as outsiders, such as the main protagonist, even though he's actually from Central Outbound and has just been away for a long while. Additionally, they fully trust any locals, including the guy that turns out to be the serial killer.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: In the difficulty settings, above Easy, Normal, and Hard is "Spectral".
• Inspector Lestrade: Michael is very insistent on solving the Serial Killer case that's cursed Outbound. He does this by accusing anyone he deems suspicious (such as the unfamiliar protagonist at the start of the game), and ignoring when his friends and sister are distressed. He gets over this after Exact Eavesdropping his sister, soon after apologizing for being a burden and resolving to be a better brother.
• Invisible to Normals: Although ghosts that have access to Figments can see the dangerous Apparitions and when other people are using Figments, normal ghosts like Michael and Linda only see the Figment user spacing out for a bit.
• Item Crafting: Aspects, which can be equipped to the personality Figments to affect their abilities, are created at anvils once you have an Aspect Gem and the right raw materials. New recipe books can be found while exploring, but you're always given a choice between two and can only keep one; for example, either recipes that boost your stats at critical health or recipes that can grant any unit a healing or revive skill. Chapters 4 and 5 let you return to the points you picked up those recipes and obtain the other, also allowing the player to obtain both if they missed the pick-up entirely before then.
• Left Hanging: Chapter 3 ends with Lee, Linda, and Adrian deciding to finally work together to understand the secrets behind Figments, only for Chapter 4 to be a Whole Episode Flashback combined with Once More, with Clarity as Adrian figures out the Driving Question. As Chapter 5 is Post-End Game Content, the situation at the end of Chapter 3 is never actually resolved, and the mysteries behind the Figments left unsolved. We also never find out how or why Mary developed the ability to use figments, since she ascends at the end of Chapter 2.
• Lockpicking Minigame: There are various closed gates and doors throughout the game. While some of them require a specific key, most require a generic lockpick that can be found in the environment or earned from battle, which initiates a sliding tile minigame to move away obstacles and make a clear path between the pick and lock.
• Man of Kryptonite: The initial protagonist and Adrian act as this for each other; the first meeting they have results in them both feeling a surge of pain that knocks them both out, and when the protagonist awakens, Adrian's already run away out of fear that it will happen again. Their encounter at the end of Chapter 3 isn't much better, with Lee hallucinating a battle against Adrian, and Adrian forced to relive all of his Core Memories in the form of the Back to Front Chapter 4.
• Mistaken for Romance: After Mary and Michael have an argument in Central Outbound, a nearby ghost approaches Mary and says she shouldn't be afraid of breaking up with him if he's causing her stress, leading Mary to explain that Michael is her brother, not her boyfriend.
• Mercy Kill: The dark truth behind the Outbound serial killings is that the town's water supply had been contaminated by the nearby swamp, with most of the population already deathly ill because of it, and the killer knew the only alternative to a slow and painful poisoning was a quick execution.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The last scene of Chapter 4 before the credits reveals that the killer felt this way after killing everyone, having done so to spare them a slow death from the poisoned water.
• Older Than They Look: All of the ghosts resemble how they looked when they died, which means that a young-looking ghost may have actually died a long time ago, as is the case with Bill, who was friends with the elderly-looking Frank sixty years ago.
• Once More, with Clarity: In Chapter 4, the perspective switches to Adrian, as he relives through his side of the game's events Back to Front and tries to come to grips with the cause of his amnesia. This includes how he met Levi and Bill, how he and Levi were able to escape the party at Ravenside, and his first meeting with Lee at the start of the game, during which Adrian hallucinates him and Mary as Figments, explaining why Adrian panicked and started acting antagonistic towards them.
• The One Who Made It Out: The initial protagonist turns out to be a Central Outbound native who left town after getting tired of the locals' rampant xenophobia, but decided to return when he heard that a local serial killer might have killed his family, unfortunately crashing his car and dying on his way back.
• Painting the Medium: One character, Dim, has a habit of reading books upside-down; when talked to, his text bubble will also have its text upside-down as he quotes from it.
• Personality Powers: Rather than participate in combat directly, the protagonist is able to create minor spirits called Figments based on traits of their personality that fight in their place; for example, witnessing Mary's kindness creates the Comradery figment, which participates in combat by supporting other figments with healing and stat buffs. Other ghosts can also manifest their own figments while under distress, but it's not a common ability.
• Point of No Return: The game explicitly warns you that "There is no turning back" towards the end, right before examining Adrian's journal, leading to the Final Boss fight against Apparitions based on Lee and Mary and unlocking Adrian's last Core Memory.
• Poor Communication Kills: One of the first things the Amnesiac Hero is asked to do in Outbound is meet with another ghost named Adrian, who's also suffering amnesia. However, the initial meeting goes awry, and rather than sort things out, Adrian panics and spends entire chapters of the game trying to run as far from the protagonists as possible and set up various traps behind him.
• Post-End Game Content: The game's main story ends with Chapter 4, with Chapter 5 just allowing the player to explore the world, finish their collections, and beat five new Optional Bosses.
• Power Copying: The Mimicry skill, useable with the right Aspect or known innately by figments such as Kleptomania, transforms the user into an opponent and can use their skills in battle while retaining their original HP, SP, and Aether charge meters. A tutorial pop-up upon first getting access to Mimicry freely points out that this works on bosses just as well as regular enemies.
• Protagonist Title: You play as the titular Ghost that awakens in Outbound.
• Repetitive Name: The initial protagonist's real name, which he admits once he regains his memory, is Lee Lee.
• The Reveal: The identity of the Outbound Serial Killer is revealed at the very end of the story. It's Adrian, who did it as a Mercy Kill but felt so guilty afterwards that he gained Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
• Serial Killer: In the game's backstory, one of these ran rampant through Outbound and killed most of its population. Trying to uncover their current whereabouts is the game's Driving Question.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Drylands are a large desert area, with dusty wind blowing in some parts of it.
• Sibling Team: Mary and Michael are brother and sister, and doing their best to solve the problems in Outbound. So are Lee Lee and Linda Lee.
• So Proud of You:
  • The game's first chapter ends with such a moment between Craig and Ernest, a cowardly nerd that's finally gained self-confidence after wanting to make his grandfather proud and said grandfather that had secretly still been watching over him, resulting in both of them completing their Unfinished Business and peacefully passing on.
  • The game's second chapter ends with a similar moment between Mary and Michael, which also results in both of them completing their Unfinished Business and passing on.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia:
  • The nameable protagonist first awakens in Outbound next to the wreck of a flaming car, and is an Amnesiac Hero.
  • Adrian is also an amnesiac, and while he can't remember the reason for said amnesia, it's later revealed to have been caused by the guilt of the crime he committed before dying.
• Turn-Based Combat: Enemy encounters are played out in turns, with the fastest-moving characters acting first, and everyone getting another turn after the slowest takes their action. Playable units can also take additional actions in the same turn if they have built up Aether through skills or by spending a turn defending.
• Unfinished Business: It's explicitly stated that every ghost in Outbound has a regret that's preventing them from simply moving on to an afterlife, such as Michael, a failed investigator who's trying to catch the Serial Killer that's responsible for so many ghosts in Outbound.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Chapter 4 is a series of Adrian's flashbacks, starting from his most recent actions and rewinding back through to his first meeting with Lee as he undergoes Once More, with Clarity.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Back to Front segment is explicitly compared by Adrian to a movie he doesn't outright namedrop.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Due to Figments being a form of Personality Powers, moments of high emotional intensity tend to cause vivid hallucinations, such as Mary seeing Linda turn into a Trust Figment and Adrian seeing Lee and Mary turn into "You" Apparitions when first meeting the former.