‘Weird’ is one of those words I try to avoid because it usually just means “I’m not going to even attempt to understand or unpack the specific thing this is going for”, but supernatural hotel renovator There Are No Ghosts At The Grand really stood out to me this evening for a tone that felt pretty singular in a weekend weighed down by soulslikes and shooters. Broadly, it looks like your Powerwash Sims and House Flippers, but with the added wrinkle that neither of the games feature dapper old gents crooning ska ditties at you. Here’s a trailer.
So, yeah: I’m into more or less everything here. The secrets and puzzles to solve between renovations. The ghostbustery multitool. The We Have The Specials At The Hotel soundtrack. The Wicker Man reference. The spiders stealing fire extinguishers and washing machines. It looks like a game with ideas, basically. And even if some those ideas are distinctly ‘like that other thing’, I dig the way they’ve been implemented. Also, one of those ideas is ‘go for a motorbike ride with a cat’. Information’s a bit scant on this one so far, but it’s due for a release sometime next year.