Poor bunny is dead. He's a ghost bunny! Resigned to that fact, he ghost hops up to the pearly
bunny gates, only to find he's not allowed in without three essential Heavenly items:
a halo, a harp and a pair of wings. Disappointed, GB floats back down to Earth to begin
his supernatural shenanigans.
Although our bunny is dead, his only advantage over his fleshy form is that he can
float when he hops. There's none of this "moving through walls and objects" malarkey
here; our courageous cottontail must navigate his way through underground caverns the
old-fashioned way.
Barriers made from a mystical force bar bunny's way and to disable these, he must
collect the requisite number of carrots. As he's a ghost he's no longer hungry, so
without the temptation to scoff them all he can trade them for passage to new areas
where the items he needs are waiting. Should he succeed, he can return to the gates
and claim his place in bunny heaven, where he can spend his fluffy afterlife
frolicking in the clouds with his ghost bunny friends. Awwww.
PM
At first, Ghost Bunny reminded me of ancient budget platformers, but a couple of
minutes' play banished those thoughts. The gameplay is much more fun and less
frustrating than those relics, and helping our friend to bunny heaven is both
challenging and enjoyable.
Graphically, it's lovely and charming, and I really like the music. I thought it was
going to be one tune all the way through but it changes as you progress and it's
all really good.
Although the game has a cool automap feature, it's great for mappers as you need
to remember where things are as you float-hop your way back and forth through the
underground complex. I really like Ghost Bunny and, as it was free on our coverdisk,
there's no excuse for you to miss it.
MA
There's a sense of The Holy Grail's rabbit here - white, looks cute, lulls you into
a false sense of security, and will absolutely bite your f'king face off difficultywise
towards the end. Thus the Metroid-like save stations are very welcome to not start over again upon dying, although
somewhat of a misnomer given you're already dead! The screen and maze design is
clever and steadily gets harder as you progress, combined with strategic use of the
harp, and I really enjoyed ploughing through the game. If you're looking for a
challenging game that doesn't outstay its welcome, check this out.
CS
I was immediately impressed at the level of detail put into the separate user guide
on the disk, which arguably has better music than the game itself.
And as for the game, I found it a grower not a shower. What initially strikes you
as repetitive music and frustrating ways to die (don't you hate it when an enemy
kills you before a new screen has even finishing drawing?!), becomes, "Ooh, one
more carrot and I can open the next gate!" addictive.
The Flappy Bird-esque method for moving upward is fairly unique in a mapformer
(map platformer) and I love that the map fills in as you discover new rooms; I was
never a fan of drawing maps for games and that's not an issue here - maptastic!
If the "Continue" option activated a little sooner, it would keep people coming
back more often, but what more can I say, Ghost Bunny is Most Fun(ny)!
1st September 2021