For the GHOSTs Asks Players To Befriend Characters Who Know They Are Fiction
The premise gives the player a friend rather than a puzzle to solve, and the characters' awareness that they are inside a program means every conversation carries the question of what a real attachment to fiction is worth.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
The visual novel For the GHOSTs, released on Steam in January 2024 by the circle Gen-San-Koku, is built around becoming friends with fictional characters who know they exist inside a game. Players visit three channels and talk with Nezumi, Sakana, Saito and Acryl. Play time runs about 3 to 5 hours, and 98% of 323 Steam reviews are positive, for a Very Positive rating.
The four girls are not introduced all at once. TrunkRoom holds Nezumi, Aquarium holds the bodiless Sakana, and Consolation holds Saito and Acryl, and the player meets them by returning to each channel.
What they share is small talk: drinks, flowers, scenery, other friends. Saito struggles to speak and instead prepares an elaborate drink on every visit, a gesture the game lets stand in for the words she cannot manage. Conversations drift toward the other characters, and affection and misunderstanding arrive together. Liking someone and understanding them are separate things here.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.