Devlog

v2026.10.6: Ectoplasm matters, skill previews and a clearer HUD

October 2026

Everything costs ectoplasm

• Every ghostly action now uses ectoplasm: scaring (4), sprinting (3 per second), each extra jump in mid-air (2) and throwing objects (2), on top of invisibility, possession and flight. Your first jump off the ground is still free.
• If you can't afford something it simply doesn't happen, and the ectoplasm bar flashes red. Sprinting drops back to walking when you run dry.
• Ectoplasm now refills on its own, a little at a time, once you stop using it for a moment.
• Efficiency now makes every action cheaper (15% per level), not just invisibility.

New skill: Replenish

• The ectoplasm branch's answer to Recovery. Ectoplasm refills faster and starts refilling sooner after you use it. Two levels, unlocked after Reservoir II.

Skill previews

• Hover over any skill in the skill tree to see a little looping demo of it in action, along with its cost and what it needs.
• On touch screens, tap a skill once to preview it and tap it again to buy it.

HUD

• Health and ectoplasm bars now show your exact amount, for example 31 / 40.
• The EXP bar now shows progress to your next level. XP you're carrying shows as a pale shadow ahead of the bar, and the bar fills up when you claim it back at the hub.

Senses

• Spectral Sense now shows each villager's line of sight as a fading cone instead of a thin line. It still turns red when they spot you.
• Press V (or the new V button on touch screens) to show or hide the vision cones. Your choice is saved.
• Sixth Sense now actually shows your scare range: a faint ring that gently fades in and out around you. It's hidden in the hub.
• Spook now grows your scare range by 25% per level.

Fixes

• Sixth Sense's ring never appeared before. It does now.
• The EXP bar no longer empties and refills every time you enter an area.
• Fixed an error whenever an Executioner appeared.

v2026.10.5: Banishment, carried XP and a story to begin with

October 2026

XP is carried home

• XP you earn while haunting is now carried with you, shown on the HUD as (+8). It only counts once you return to the Ethereal Plane through a portal, where it's claimed, you level up and your game is saved.
• Being banished doesn't take it away. You rise again still carrying it.
• Quitting in the middle of an area loses anything you haven't brought home yet.

Banishment screen

• When your Death bar runs out you now see your ghost fade away, followed by a Banished screen showing how much XP you're still carrying.
• Choose Rise Again to try the area again, or Return to the Ethereal Plane to head home and claim your XP.

Story and title screen

• New Game now opens with the story of how your spirit came to be, followed by a short guide to haunting. You can skip it at any time.
• New About and Credits buttons on the title screen.

Scares

• Torment now makes every kind of villager flee from your scare, including hostile ones and the ones who usually ignore you, and any of them can be chased home.
• Curse no longer slows villagers down. Cursed villagers now race straight to the nearest house, still unable to see or hurt you.

Levelling

• The level cap is now 26, with 2 skill points every level.
• Evolution now needs level 3 for Ghost, level 10 for Banshee and level 20 for Poltergeist.

Fixes

• Opening the skill tree from the pause menu no longer sends you back to the start of the area.
• A villager scared while standing in a doorway now goes inside.
• Fixed portals that could fail to take you back to the hub on some devices.

v2026.10.4: Evolution, Fly and five new skills (test build)

October 2026

This is a big one, and it is a test build. Everything below works, but a few things are still rough around the edges. Please play it, break it and tell us what you find in the Discord.

Evolution

• You can now evolve beyond Spirit: Ghost, then Banshee, then Poltergeist.
• A new evolution shrine in the hub shows your next form and exactly what it needs.
• Ghost needs level 3 and Spook. Banshee needs level 6 and Haunt. Poltergeist needs level 9 and Fly.
• Each form raises your max health and ectoplasm. Banshee and Poltergeist also extend your scare range, and Poltergeist moves faster.
• Evolving is permanent, so the shrine asks you to press again to confirm. Your form is saved.
• New form art is still to come. For now each form gives your spirit a different glow.

Fly

• The last movement skill. Use up your jumps, then press jump again in mid-air to take off.
• Fly freely in any direction while your ectoplasm drains. Jump again or land to stop.
• Double Jump, Triple Jump, Float and Glide all work as before.

Senses (new branch)

• Sense: villagers are marked by type. Green can be scared, red is hostile, grey ignores you.
• Sixth Sense: see the reach of your scare around you.
• Spectral Sense: see where villagers are looking. Their line of sight turns red when they spot you.

Intangibility

• The invisibility upgrade. While invisible you pass straight through villagers and cannot be hurt.
• It drains ectoplasm faster than plain invisibility.

Torment and Curse

• Torment: hostile villagers now run from your scare too, and scaring a fleeing villager keeps them running.
• Curse: villagers you terrify are cursed for 12 seconds. They slow down, cannot see you and cannot hurt you, and give bonus XP if they make it home.

Villagers

• Villager behaviour has been rebuilt under the hood so they react the same way every time, no matter what else is happening that frame.
• Hostile villagers now shout while they chase you.
• Fixed a villager type that could get stuck in its startled state forever.

Levelling and balance

• The level cap is now 14 and levelling is much faster early on.
• You now earn 1 skill point per level, so every point is a real choice. Respec is still free.

Known issues

• This is a test build and some things are still buggy. If something feels off, report it in the Discord with your version number from the title screen.
• There are no flight or evolved-form animations yet.

v2026.10.2: Save System, State Management and Gameplay Fixes!

October 2026

Save and Load System

• Fixed the save slot logic so the Load Game option loads existing progress instead of accidentally overwriting it.
• New Game now asks for confirmation before overwriting an existing save, while starting immediately if no save exists.
• The save screen now displays clearer button labels, including "Load Game" and "Overwrite Existing Game?" where appropriate.
• Centralised the save data schema to keep saved values consistent across the game.
• Added type and range validation, with safe defaults for missing or invalid save values.
• Added migration from save format version 2 to version 3, automatically rewriting older saves in the updated format.
• Unreadable or corrupted save files are backed up with a .corrupt extension before a fresh save is created.
• Fixed new games resetting audio volume settings. Music and sound preferences are now preserved when starting a new game.

Pause and Input Management

• Centralised pause handling in GameManager, making it the single authority for the paused state, engine time scale and mouse mode.
• Fixed inconsistent cursor behaviour when moving between the pause menu, skill tree, areas screen and gameplay.
• Removed the areas screen's repeated cursor visibility override, allowing each screen to use the correct mouse state.
• Improved pause-state resetting when the player scene is ready, helping prevent gameplay from remaining paused unexpectedly.

Seasonal Events

• Centralised active seasonal event detection in Global.active_event() so event-dependent behaviour uses a consistent source.
• Fixed Christmas snow appearing outside the Christmas event.
• Fixed Valentine's decorations not appearing due to a mismatch between the event identifier and animation name.
• Added an event override for testing seasonal content outside its normal calendar period.

Transition Audio

• Added optional sound effects for transition fade-outs and fade-ins.
• Transition sounds can be assigned and adjusted through the Godot Inspector.
• Sound slots can be left empty for silent transitions.
• Configured transition audio to remain playable while the scene tree is paused.

Camera Improvements

• Corrected camera smoothing so the camera interpolates from its current position towards the target position.
• Clamped the interpolation factor to prevent overshooting when follow speed is high or frame times fluctuate.
• Improved the consistency of camera following during gameplay.

Save Compatibility and Reliability

• Improved recovery from incomplete, invalid or unreadable save data.
• Kept save defaults, collection and application logic together to make future save system changes easier to maintain.
• Preserved existing progression data, including levels, skills and audio settings, when loading compatible saves.

v2026.10.1: Skill tree update

October 2026

Skill tree

• The skill tree is now fully functional: spend skill points to unlock and upgrade abilities.
• You earn 3 skill points per level (27 in total by level 10), so you cannot unlock everything and have to choose a build.
• Skills have prerequisites, so stronger abilities stay locked until you have invested in the earlier ones.
• Skill nodes show locked, available and maxed states, with hover tooltips for details and costs.
• A free Respec button refunds every point.
• A Skill Points counter appears on the HUD when you have points to spend.
• Back on the skill tree returns you to where you came from, instead of always sending you to the hub.

Movement skills

• Swift: +10% move and sprint speed per level (3 levels).
• Double Jump and Triple Jump: extra mid-air jumps.
• Float: hold jump while falling to drop slowly.
• Glide: hold jump while falling to glide gently.

Ectoplasm skills

• Reservoir: +10 max ectoplasm per level (3 levels).
• Efficiency: −15% invisibility drain per level (2 levels).

Body skills

• Vitality: +10 max HP per level (3 levels).
• Recovery: slowly regenerate health (2 levels).

Scare skills

• Spook: bigger scare radius and longer NPC stun per level (3 levels).
• Haunt: scared NPCs flee longer and give bonus XP.

Balance

• Base stats have been lowered, since skills now raise them.
• Starting health and ectoplasm are 40 (up to 70 fully upgraded).
• Base speed is 100 and sprint is 160 (up to 130 and 208 fully upgraded).
• Holding jump while rising still gives you a higher jump, but slowing your fall now needs the Float skill.

Saving and loading

• Skills and audio volumes are now saved and loaded with your game.
• Fixed music volume resetting to full after loading a save.
• Saving no longer wipes the save's created and last-saved dates.
• Fixed ectoplasm not being restored properly on load.
• New Game now correctly resets all skills.
• Existing saves are fully compatible.

v2026.9.1: Stability and fixes

20 September 2026

Audio

• Fixed background music failing to play or resetting volume after scene transitions and loads.
• The music player now starts safely regardless of load order, preventing rare crashes.

Combat

• Fixed enemies sometimes dealing double damage in a single hit.
• Attack cooldown logic is now a single system for consistent, fair timing.

Possession

• Fixed the player floating or sinking unexpectedly after leaving a possessed NPC.
• The player now correctly ignores gravity while possessing.
• Fixed a rare bug where rapidly possessing and unpossessing could desync the player and the NPC.

Pause system

• Fixed inconsistent pause behaviour depending on how the game was paused.
• Mouse capture and time freeze now stay in sync across all pause triggers.

NPC behaviour

• Fixed noise and scare interactions overriding an NPC that was already in a higher-priority state, such as scared.
• Follow-up work is logged for a deeper NPC state-priority overhaul.

v2026.2.7: Lighting and the areas system

15 March 2026

Lighting and atmosphere

• Added moon lighting to the small village area.
• Increased point light range in the player hub.
• Added light occluders to house interiors for better shadows.
• Improved overall lighting across the hub and village scenes.

Areas system

• Introduced a new Area scene used to manage locations.
• The small village now loads through the area system, and the player hub routes through it.
• Added area name and target scene settings, ready for future locations.

Player and gameplay

• Added a player death animation and a proper reset when the player dies.
• Adjusted the timers related to death handling.
• Corrected sprint deceleration and cleaned up sprint speed handling.

NPCs and dialogue

• Fixed NPC state issues.
• Fixed spelling errors in chat message keys.

v2026.2.2: Hub, lighting and skill tree

10 March 2026

Hub and lighting

• Expanded the hub area with additional environment content.
• Added lighting effects for the player character, individual houses and buildings, and the main hub.

World and environment

• New artwork added to the project.
• Updated the title screen layout with improved visuals.
• General layout improvements across menus and UI.

Skill tree

• Skill tree added with an expanded structure.
• Skill tree UI improvements, including background graphics.
• The skill tree is reached from the player hub.

Chat and UI feedback

• Added a message timer so dialogue and notifications scroll at a readable pace.

Gameplay systems

• Camera follow improved with a corrected player reference.
• Camera movement smoothed for better tracking.

v2026.1.2: Skill tree begins

28 February 2026

Save system

• Load and save refactored to store and restore more of your progress.
• Save and load formatting corrected so slots populate properly.
• Fixed pause triggering during save and load screens and on the title screen.

Abilities

• Introduced a structured ability constant for progression.
• Created a very basic skill tree and connected it to the pause menu.

Gameplay and tutorial

• New Game now resets stats and writes them to the save file, not just to memory.
• Tutorial progress is tracked, so once you have completed it you do not need to replay it.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where exporting to EXE prevented user input.
• Removed redundant code across scenes, and improved stability for exports.

v2026.1.1: Saves and pause

22 February 2026

Save system

• Added a dedicated save creation function, with new saves starting from default player stats.
• Timestamps added for created and last-saved dates.
• Save logic moved into its own GameManager.

Abilities

• Introduced ability tiers, giving abilities structured progression paths.
• Laid the foundation for attack, support and movement upgrades.

Game flow and pause

• The pause menu moved into the GameManager and is now created on demand.
• Fixed pause triggering on the title screen and during save and load screens.

Under the hood

• Removed hard-linked nodes from scenes, with core systems now created by the GameManager.

Autumn 2025: Roadmap for the next release

October 2025

Planned for the next update

• Updated assets: new sprites, music, sound effects and tiles.
• More NPCs to bring the world to life.
• Consumable pickup items.
• Expanded action button functions: enter doors and portals, pick up and throw items, and possess NPCs.
• A player hub update with new content.
• A few new test areas to explore.

Testers

• On 27 October the call went out on Discord: anyone who wants to be a game tester can message me and we will sort it out.