Time Ghosts

About the game

You are a small ghost in a stone dungeon of rooms, doors and pressure plates, and you serve a Machine in the middle of it that needs light bulbs, one at a time. Each round lasts 12 seconds. When the time runs out, everything rewinds to the start, and the Machine keeps the bulb you delivered. But you are not alone in the next round: your previous self is still around, and it does exactly what you did, step by step.

That is the whole puzzle. Doors open only while something stands on a button, and you cannot be in two places at once, so you use your past selves as helpers. One ghost waits on a plate while you walk through the door it opens; the next round you do the same for the ghost that comes after you; a few rounds later there is a crowd of ghosts, each with its own job. Planning how the ghosts' paths fit together is the game. Teleporters and other tricks in the rooms add to the puzzle as you go.

It was made by William Lundstedt (Healthire) in Rust, with its own small engine, for the Ludum Dare 47 compo, whose theme was "Stuck in a loop".

Playing it here

The game runs in the page and needs a keyboard. Click Click to play, and the first round begins; the bar on the right shows how much of the 12 seconds is left. Sound starts with the click. It does not save: the Machine's state is kept for as long as the page is open. The download is about 400 kB.

Controls

Tips

Think in rounds. What you do now is a plan for the ghost that will repeat it, so move slowly and on purpose.

Waiting is a move. If a ghost has to hold a plate for the whole round, a ghost that arrives and presses Space does exactly that.

Use R when your ghosts are in the way. It removes all of them but does not reset the Machine.

Credits and licence

Time Ghosts was made by William Lundstedt (Healthire) for Ludum Dare 47. The author licenses the repository, at your option, under the MIT License, the Apache License 2.0 or CC0 1.0; the texts of all three and of the Rust libraries compiled into the game are linked from this page, together with the source and the build script.

FAQ

The game does not react to the keys. Click on the game once so that the page has the keyboard focus.

What happens when the 12 seconds end? Time rewinds to the start of the round, you keep your progress with the Machine, and a ghost of your last round is added.

Is there a goal screen? The game shows the Machine's progress and a win screen when you finish its parts.