PARANORMAL BUDDIES: An Attempt to Talk With Ghosts Ends Up Very Wrong in this Horror Game

Paranormal Buddies is an indie visual novel game produced by Christopher Laino and published on October 2 this year for a game jam focused on horror visual novels, this year's Spooktober, on the indie gaming platform itch.io. In Paranormal Buddies you accompany Hana and her friend Takeo on any given day. Hana is interested in paranormal things, and that day she bought a Ouija board and called Takeo to film her first encounter with ghosts. Takeo reluctantly decides to join her in this "just kidding", but the results that can come out of this will be catastrophic.

At first, right away, we see that Paranormal Buddies is a visual novel different from the others produced on the platform. It has a visual style very inspired by PS1 games, which is already quite attention-grabbing, let's face it. Plus, it takes in a lot of the 90's aesthetic and vibe, complete with VHS filters and all. And, like any self-respecting visual novel, there's not much to be done here in terms of gameplay: you just follow Hana's text and emotional expressions, and while using Tabua Ouija, you click on the lyrics and decisions (Yes and No) of the same, generating different answers and consequently leading to different endings (according to the developer, there are four at the moment, although he expressed his interest in elaborating more, but that he couldn't due to the Game Jam deadline).

In fact, Paranormal Buddies presented a visual novel style different from others produced on itch.io, with an excellent retro look, which brings a certain interest to those who like indie games with this style. Check out the gameplays of the game (with its endings), clicking on the links below, and if you are interested, you can download the game on the itch.io page, which is also below:

GAMEPLAY (ENDING 1): https://youtu.be/UCeGJcu8hQM

GAMEPLAY (ENDING 2): https://youtu.be/vcjAJXEEYu8

GAMEPLAY (ENDINGS 3 & 4): https://youtu.be/rW7wrdIcyKM

DOWNLOAD THE GAME HERE: https://christopher-laino-games.itch.io/paranormal-buddies