Developed by Pillow Fight Games, makers of the visual novel We Know The Devil, Ghosts of Miami sends players back in time to 1986 and places them in the role of Chelo Martinez, a fledgling private eye determined to help those who can’t count on the police to come to their aid. As Chelo, you’ll explore Miami and Dade County, getting info and clues from new locations and persons of interest. The game includes five cases, as well as an end-game bonus case. Along the way, Chelo’s investigation can get waylaid by red herrings and distractions, so you’ve got to make the most of your time.
True to its setting, Ghosts of Miami features a cast of characters from varied backgrounds, whose families hail from Iran, Columbia, Haiti, Korea and more. As the daughter of a migrant, Chelo’s experiences of being both Cuban and American play a role in her approach to cases throughout the game.
“We like to call it a second-gen immigrant game … everyone on the core art team, and myself, are all second-gen immigrants. So we actually have a lot of diversity on the team, which drove our character designs, what kind of characters we wanted to include. It seemed kind of silly to me to see so many immigrants in the country and not represent their voices,” Jo Fu, producer at Pillow Fight Games, told Player.One. “We wanted to make sure that people can see themselves in games.”
As you progress through various cases, you’ll have the option to pursue five different romances. (And yes, you can woo all of them if you want.) You can pursue romances with male or female characters, or just hustle your admirers for info while keeping things strictly platonic. “A thing that I find uncomfortable about a lot of dating sims is that for variety, they tend to throw out a lot of personalities, but the actual characters themselves don’t seem to matter as much. We wanted every romance option to be related to the mysteries you’re trying to solve,” Fu explained.
I played a demo for Ghosts of Miami at Play NYC this past weekend. (You can download a demo for Windows, Mac and Linux here.) The game’s sorbet-hued art style caught my eye, with endearing anime-inflected character portraits displaying a broad range of moods and expressions. Discovering new people and locations is one of the lures of any mystery game, but it’s even more of a treat when everything’s so sunny, stylish and easy on the eyes.
But Ghosts of Miami isn’t all about looks; polished gameplay mechanics make the game easy to jump into right away. Intuitively designed menus make navigating from place to place, collecting clues and keeping tabs on people you’ve questioned straightforward and simple. The catch is there’s only so many hours in the day. You’ll be presented with a number of ways to spend each day, but there’s not enough time for all of them.
Beneath its candy-colored appearance, Ghosts of Miami also takes on a number of weighty topics relevant to its setting, including racial tensions in the aftermath of Miami’s 1980 riots and the impact of the drug trade. “While the 1986 in Miami was kind of a very grim time, Chelo comes at situations very optimistically, some would say very naively, in terms of the neighborhoods she tries to navigate and the attitude she goes in with,” Fu told Player.One. “As you play and progress through the game, Chelo gets a lot more canny in terms of the anxieties of people in, for instance, Liberty City, which was largely abandoned by the cops.”
If you’re a fan of visual novels or mystery games like Phoenix Wright, Pillow Fight Games’ Ghosts of Miami needs to be on your radar. Be sure to check back with Player.One soon for a full review. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer for the game below. Ghosts of Miami hits Steam, Google Play, iOS and Itch.io on Aug. 22.
