Previews

A little help from a big, friendly ghost — Hands-on with Ghost Giant at E3 2018

I stumbled upon a hidden gem tucked away inside a PSVR headset, easy to miss by the show’s plethora of shooters, zombies, and post-apocalyptic titles of this year’s E3. Ghost Giant is an adorable VR story which literally places you in the middle of a cogwork, hand-crafted feeling diorama. This delightful little world is inhabited by a collection of adorable, claymation looking characters, with only one who can see you. While you’re a part of this world, you’re playing the role of the ghost giant, and as a ghost, you’re only able to interact with certain things, in certain ways, and at certain times.

Everything about this setting feels tactile. You want to reach out and press buttons, turn knobs, poke naughty characters, and generally prod at every single thing in this handcrafted, cardboard-meets-clockwork world. The game is played from a seated position, and you’re able to use the trigger buttons on your Move Controllers to grab hold of objects, and even stand up for a different view of the diorama. Part story, part puzzle game, you’re going to have to experiment to find what you can interact with, what happens when you poke different things, what’s locked, and what’s changed since the last time you looked around.

You play a secondary character in Ghost Giant; the main character is Louis, a lonely, cat-eared little boy that you’ve been sent to befriend. There’s just one problem: Louis, the only person who can see you, is initially terrified of you! The E3 demo allowed me to step into Louis’ hometown of Sancourt, meet Louis himself, and earn the little guy’s trust. Zoink Games, the minds behind Fe and Flipping death, describe Ghost Giant as a heartfelt story in VR, and even in this brief demo, I could feel the warmth within this adorable little world. It oozes both style and charm, and makes you feel like you’re stepping into a very tangible, hand-crafted fairy tale.

Written by Sara Bergmark Elfgren, a Swedish children’s book author, Ghost Giant tells a story about how a little help can have a big impact on the lives of others. While it doesn’t have a confirmed release date, Ghost Giant is being developed exclusively for the PSVR. You can learn more by checking out the trailer above, by heading over to the Zoik website, or by following @ZoinkGames on Twitter.

Chaotic wholesome. Dice-maker. DM and TTRPG performer. Shiny Pokémon hunter. Kay works in video games during the day, speaks at conferences during the weekends, and pretends to be an orc, tiefling, android, etc by night.

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