greetings! I'm yuyudev, also known as thatoddhaystack or vita, and my piece for day 19 of the ukagaka advent calendar 2024 is a roundup of all the ghosts submitted to ghost jam 2024. yesterday's piece was done by 安馬, and tomorrow's piece will be done by マグロニウム.
yearly, the english ukagaka community hosts a jam with the purpose of making a ghost within a week! this year's event was held at the end of may. I won’t go over everything about each ghost (such as what bonus challenges they completed) since that’s already covered on the event’s results page. rather, I intend for this to be a (slightly) more detailed overview of the ghosts finished, with some personal thoughts on the ghosts!
I also didn’t cover my own two ghosts that I submitted for the event (long leg bird and lunar leporidae) because I wrote a rather extensive post mortem on my jam work a little bit ago; and also it’s hard for me to review my own work objectively. I am particularly proud of lunar though, so please check him out!!! self promotion aside, lets get into the ghosts.
押し売りとババア
Authors: netai98
loosely translated as “pushy salesman and old woman”. a ghost with a unique format where there’s no random talk, and instead all dialogue is initiated through the menu as you attempt to sell things to the titular old woman. not a format of ghost I’ve considered before but very interesting to think about possibilities for.
Under the Stars
Authors: Galla, YudiDoodles, Zichqec, おもちよいち (OmochiYoichi)
a small atmospheric ghost about a merperson looking up at the stars. notable in that the user is not really present in the ghost, like a lot of other ones that address the user directly. instead, you just sit and listen to the reflections of the merperson; and can prompt reflections on a few specific topics through a menu. the balloon that comes with this ghost is gorgeous, with the online marker one of my favorites (falling stars in the background of the balloon). a nice little peek into a world.
Duck Overload
a minigame ghost staffed by a disenchanted dog. the minigame is a duck shooter (as the name would imply) where you double click on ducks that appear on your screen and earn points that are converted into tickets you can spend on prizes that appear permanently at the booth. the clicking is a little finicky, but overall it’s a fun little game to spend a few free minutes on. plus I really enjoy the dog working the booth; I think the choice to make him Extremely Tired of his job was funny.
Block Builder 2000
Authors: SmokyCinnamonRoll
as the name implies, it’s a bunch of blocks you can build things with on your screen! comes with a huge variety of color palettes to pick from, along with different shapes and two different art styles of block. you can generate up to fifty blocks, so you could build some really expansive structures to put around your other ghosts. definitely recommend using the dressup explorer with this one since it makes it a lot easier to apply color palettes to all the blocks at once.
Celeste
Content warnings: Verbal abuse, fictional political conflict, more in readme
Authors: WhatAPhantasia
a ghost presented as a set of recordings of an idol that reveal a darker side. extremely fun presentation and art style; it felt like I was gradually piecing together parts of a mystery. the ghost is a demo version for the jam, but even so there’s still a lot to chew on in terms of story. I really enjoy the little world that phantasia has set up, which I can’t really say anything about because spoilers!! but just trust me. it’s good.
VKLE
standing for vocaloid kid’s language exchange club, it’s vocaloids oliver and yuki chatting back and forth in their respective languages. they also have links to some songs (which is nice in case you aren’t familiar with their voices) and some language resources. I like them because it forces me to practice japanese, and yuki’s speech is simple enough that I can read it without whipping out my dictionary app. their expressions are also super cute too… good at conveying emotion in a small space.
Stumbling talk
Authors: Salt
salt is the developers behind one of my favorite ukagaka (night owl boy and radio) so I was delighted to see that they participated in this year’s ghost jam!! stumbling talk is a dogboy at a bar that wants to learn english by speaking with you!! he’s a little inarticulate, but he is trying very hard!! and I love him!! his little tail wagging animation is so cute… he’s very nice to have on my second monitor so I glance at what he’s saying every now and then (which is the style of ghost I’ve been leaning towards lately…)
Artoria Caster
Content warnings: more details on the download page
I only have a passing knowledge of fate grand order so some of the lore of artoria goes over my head. sounds interesting though! artoria leans on the fourth wall (for example, she acknowledges she’s in a computer), harkening back to the earlier days of english ukagakas. she also discusses being Dead and her Death which I think is fun as someone who has a handful of dead guys in my original character catalogue. she has three shells which is super impressive for a jam ghost! lots of choices!
Star Reader
Authors: Kipali
download only available in the ukagaka dream team discord server for now!
star reader is a ghost where you are told stories of stars as the titular reader peeks into them. there are a few different color options for the reader, and all of them are very pretty!!! I like the sparkling animation a lot… the stories are also interesting, each providing small slices of different worlds to think about… another ghost that doesn’t particularly pay attention to the user, which I consider unique.
LOBO
Authors: Okuajub, oldmanhorseface
Content warnings: Religion, Surrealism
oh lobo…. lobo is one of my favorites from this jam because it’s just a guy who sits on your desktop and says surreal and strange things. and I love that. it scratches an itch in my brain of wanting to see a ghost that just has word salad for its random talk, and I feel like I’ve never seen the same piece of dialogue twice because of the randomness. the shell’s talking animation is also delightful, and an example of how you can make a shell with stock images that looks good. just a delightful little guy to have on my screen saying weird things.
Lost in the sea of stars
Authors: Zdzisiu
a dying god drifts in space, playing chess. I think the concept of a god that has lost their worshipers is very interesting, and sea of stars has a lot of little lore tidbits to entice you into the world. I do feel like the story is building up to something and I’m excited to see where future updates take the ghost!! also just like… I’ve always liked the color palette of yellow and purple so I think the ghost’s design is really charming.
HSR Trash Can - YAYA
Authors: Jerry
a simple ghost based on the trashcan flavor text from honkai star rail. I do enjoy little gimmick ghosts and this one is fun!! I look forward to seeing more added to it! especially because after crawling through the code and being nosy I see a decent amount of dialogue that is inaccessible through the ghost as it stands right now.
Lux
Authors: dransnake
Content warnings: Murder, Death, and Nightmares
lux is a dragon/god ukagaka who has a dreamy way of talking… it’s difficult for me to describe but lux’s dialogue feels like I am peeking into the dreams of something much bigger than me… i love the color palette for him, and with the little tidbits of world building we get in his dialogue I am excited to see more of it!! also you can pet the dragon. very important to note. i could not bring myself to punch him but that’s an option.
Credit where Credit is Due
Authors: KFC
Content warnings: Strong Language / Swearing
credit is a sleepover buddy that has strong opinions on video games. sometimes too strong…. saying persona 3 is overrated is some fighting words, credit. (of course, I’m heavily nostalgia biased towards p3 so I probably shouldn’t be trusted either…). I am impressed with the wide, Wide variety of games that credit talks about and a post-jam update gives some context snippets for the games; which is nice so I can get the gist of the ones I don’t know about. also the shell with the leg kick animation is super cute.
The Hunter
so I have no idea what rainworld is and as such I’m sure there is a lot of context to the ghost that is lost on me. that being said the art is cute!! I think it’s interesting how the user is represented as the kero in the ghost because usually the user is faceless. the animations for the kero are also pretty fun. I like the vibe of traveling together with hunter I get from the dialogue.
Stray Dogs Bar
Authors: Venelona
another fandom I have no context for other than like. seeing some fanart on social media. I do like the vibes I get from dazai as like. casual drinking buddy ghost. I’ve found myself lately more drawn to like. ghosts you just sit with and have idle chitchat about a shared something, and with dazai it’s mostly him talking about his world but there is a similar feeling. there’s lots of info to get through asking him questions, and a lot of dialogue; with a friendship system as well. a very expansive jam ghost!
hazy days
Authors: idk, SmokyCinnamonRoll
Content warnings: Insects, insect bite mentions
there is something funny about relaxing with a ghost complaining about a heat wave while currently in my area we are approaching the first day of winter. they have a really charming way of talking. I can relate to some of their chatter about summer, although I am a person who likes fireworks (just… not when they’re the entire month). they are the type of person I would like to sit on a bench on a porch with and yap with for a while. also some really cute dressups!
Error
Authors: Heartstitched, Robanilla, Haze, Onlyplatonicirl, Vicen_non
I have played undertale but I do not know anything about the various undertale aus so once again I was a bit lost with the context. but the shell is very cool!! I’ve always wanted to make a shell with an idle animation… error himself is kind of a BRAT haha. but I liked the menu dialogue options with him. I will always be a proponent of an option to give a ghost things and have them comment on it. also I like glitch aesthetics so that’s always a plus for me even if I don’t 100% understand the character’s context
Zana's Laws
Authors: Galla, Zichqec, 月波 清火 (Tsukinami Seika)
Content warnings: Eyes, mentions of death
build a universe (or multiple) with a god! zana has an interesting premise and lovely shell animations!! the sparkles are so cool… I rotated through creating a handful of universes with zana and I don’t think I encountered any duplicate dialogue, so there’s a lot of content to go through. it’s also just like. fun to play at being a god’s assistant. lots of replay value.
Nova
Authors: Amanda
Content warnings: Mentions of medical malpractice, mentions of death
nova is a ghost of an office worker star. as a fellow adult with an office job I find her highly relatable. especially with her dialogue about trying to befriend a stray cat… since that’s also something I’ve been trying to do for a year. i like that you can ask her questions to get a bit of context about the world she lives in, and her scenario feels natural and conducive to learning about her and teaching her about yourself..
Starwarden
Authors: WhatAPhantasia, Ecclysium, TechNekoKit, Autumnwrenvale, BlindedbyCreativity
admittedly I don’t think I fully understand the mechanics of this one…? take care of stars with the star warden and answer some pop quiz questions about space. the stars bounce around your screen which is very cool, but their speed makes them a little hard to click on at times. I did really like that they would follow my mouse at times, which is something I’ve never seen a ghost do… starwarden has two shells, both of which are very pretty, but I did get some crashes when swapping between them. I think it might be related to the movement of the stars but. unsure. just watch out for that. I did like feeding the stars and the general look of them.
Galaxy Butterfly
Authors: Odie
a ghost where an egg slowly grows into a butterfly, with a galaxy theme! it is a pretty small ghost, but I think it’s a cute interpretation of the theme for ghost jam 2024 (celestial). and as with pretty much every other ghost on the list I like seeing snippets into a fantasy world through the lens of ghost dialogue.
overall I am very delighted with the huge variety of ghosts that came out of ghost jam 2024, and I am excited to see what next year’s jam brings us!