• Price: $19.99 USD (currently on sale for $17.99 until October 8th)
• Developer/Publisher: Janbeh Games
• Release Date: October 1, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by Janbeh Games. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

My love of all things cute has come back to “haunt” me (in a good way) with Love, Ghostie, a matchmaking game where the possibilities are endless! The premise of the game is that your character has died and become a ghost.

You’re welcomed into the afterlife by Ghostina, your “spirited” new mentor. 😉 She explains that ghosts don’t just scare people – they also meddle in their romantic affairs and try their ectoplasmic hands at matchmaking. 🌹

You’re assigned to “the Manor,” where Ghostina placed a sign to attract tenants (“FREE RENT IN THIS DEFINITELY-NOT-HAUNTED-HOUSE”). That doesn’t sound sketchy at all, Ghostina! 😂 The house is unoccupied at the moment, and you get to choose the first 4 characters (out of 12) you want to move in.

Once your new residents are settled in, it’s time to see who you think will be compatible together. You have a limited amount of action points to use every day, and you can use them to place gifts in characters’ rooms to make them think they’re from another resident.

Items appear around the house every day for you to either gift to residents OR to sell on the ghost e-commerce website. You can also purchase items from the website; unfortunately, there are only 3 options available every day. Grabbing items from around the house costs an action point, but buying or selling does not.

There are tags for different categories of items, and each resident likes certain tags more than others. You’ll find out if they like a category when you give them an item with that tag. Thankfully the items characters like tend to be pretty obvious; I never had anyone have an unenthusiastic response to a gift. I love the excited look on residents’ adorable faces as they walk towards their gifts!

Residents don’t seem to dislike any of the gift options, which is good from a cozy game standpoint. There’s also something called the “chore board,” which is where you assign characters to dates, self-care, and house helper tasks using your action points.

Even if characters aren’t the biggest fan of their assignment for the day, their happiness and relationship points always increase at least a little bit. I did wish we could refresh/re-roll the chore board if we didn’t like the options for the day, though.

The format for the dating scenes is really silly and fun; when you schedule a date for a pair, you and a bunch of ghosts gather in a theater room and watch them together. Depending on their preferred tags, they’ll either enjoy a romantic date or have an awkward time together. The music that plays during the awkward dates is on point.

I was somewhat disappointed to realize that there is repeated dialogue for dates. For example, Noir says the exact same things to both Gerard and BEEP0 on a shopping date, and I remember carnival dates that used the same dialogue as well. I still enjoyed the date scenes – I just wish they were more unique to each couple.

The “relationship talks,” however, are unique to each couple. This is where you really see the Fire Emblem inspiration; relationship talks are similar to support conversations in that there are 4 per couple and you make progress towards the next level by having them interact more. Place gifts, send pairs on dates, and assign a character to house helper tasks to deepen romantic relationships in the household.

At first I planned on pairing Gerard the emo giraffe with Noir the goth sheep, but I made sure to consider their options before making any final decisions. And I’m glad I did; you may also go into this intending to pair certain characters together and then changing your mind after viewing their conversations with other characters.

I ended up pairing Gerard with Sky the polar bear in the end due to their shared interest. You just never know which characters you’ll like best together! I enjoyed getting to know each character as they talk to the other residents, and I actually liked how the conversations weren’t always full of positivity.

This may be a cozy game, but some characters do mess up and upset their conversation partners in their storylines. (Ollin the frog prince seems to be one of the main offenders!) If there’s conflict in a pair’s relationship talks, it will be resolved by the end after honest communication takes place.

The game is rated E 10+, meaning that it is kid friendly. So the conflicts aren’t, say, Real Housewives levels of drama and scandal, but players from kids to adults still get the message that someone did something to hurt their partner’s feelings.

I don’t think there was conflict in each storyline, but I did appreciate the way they wrote the resolution of each argument. Once he understands what he did wrong with one character, repeat offender Ollin says:

“I didn’t realize how much I was using you, instead of being there for you. I don’t want to ask any more of you, so I don’t want to ask you for your forgiveness or understanding.” He then continues, “I really want to be the kind of person you deserve…I know winning your trust back isn’t just one heartfelt speech…”

I don’t know about you, but I thought those were some great lines (and amazing character development for Ollin, considering that this took place after a few conversations). I really appreciated how the writing here puts the burden of forgiveness on the offender, and recognizes that an apology isn’t an instant fix.

Many of the conflicts come about due to a misunderstanding of some kind, whether it’s because characters don’t understand their partner’s point of view (yet) or simply because one of them doesn’t communicate their feelings in a direct manner. When both parties express themselves openly, the conflict becomes less of an issue for them.

I liked a lot of the conflicts involving Noir and BEEP0, both because I liked them as characters (and their designs) but also because the scenes made sense for their characters and were often rather amusing. The characters’ faces often change during conversations, and BEEP0’s expressions were some of the best ones, too.

As you continue your matchmaking efforts, you’ll earn “RelationChips” to spend on unlocking additional features. Increase the number of action points you get per day, add more rooms to the house, unlock decorating and appearance customization, access new mini games, and more!

I wish we could have customized Ghostie’s attic space more; the shelves can only display small items, and there aren’t any wallpaper options or anything. But I did appreciate having the ability to decorate at all, and being able to rearrange the items in residents’ rooms. The accessories for Ghostie are really cute, too.

Eventually I ran out of things to unlock, and I made decisions on who to pair together. Once you’ve maxed out the affection levels for a pair you’re given the option to view their final relationship talk, which means that they’ll commit to being a couple and move out together.

I loved the precious little gifts that residents left behind after moving out, as well as their epilogues. It’s also nice that we can view previous relationship talks again using the memory board. There are apparently 66 relationship endings in the game, and you can unlock 6 in each playthrough. (The Steam page says you need to play this at least 11 times to view all of the game’s content.)

They actually gave us a New Game+ mode, although I wish it was implemented differently. You only get to carry over your RelationChips and coins from your last playthrough; the features you’d unlocked must be purchased from the shop again, which I didn’t love. Sadly we don’t get to keep the gifts residents leave behind upon moving out, which would have been nice to display from the beginning of subsequent playthroughs.

While there were a couple of things I would change or take a bit further, overall Love, Ghostie is an impressive effort. It has great writing from an emotional standpoint, but it’s also really entertaining. As someone who adores puns, I was “in Heaven” haha afterlife joke with this game.

I loved the designs for the characters, the gifts and environments, and the backgrounds for the date scenes. There are great details such as Ghostie imagery in those backgrounds and diary entries you can read after characters experience major events.

There are just so many fun ideas in this incredibly creative game, and it’s great that it’s family friendly. And with the number of possible relationships, the game has a great deal of replayability, providing you with more bang “BOO” for your buck. 😉