Ghostory, indie studio Rigid Core's first game, recently released on Steam, promising 29 levels of platformer puzzling and a retro, 2D pixel aesthetic. The game gets the core concept right for the most part, with a very well done central gimmick and some clever designs. Overall, though, it's not enough to make it easy to recommend the game, as there are some substantial flaws in pacing and delivery that make it more of a chore than it should be to play.
Premise
Ghostory doesn't take itself seriously, which is a good and bad thing (more about the bad later). It starts with you as a young man, with a considerable helping of 5 o'clock pixel shadow, running desperately through the woods as you try and outrace a pack of wolves. Eventually you get away and take a refreshing drink at a nearby lake, only to find that you've turned transparent upon drinking. Fortunately, there is a witch's home nearby, and she knows the cure. Unfortunately, she just used the last of her ingredients on a traveler who passed by a few minutes before. So, you're tasked with heading into the nearby cave to recover them for her, for without the potion, you'll die soon. (There's no time limit, though, so no worries there). Meanwhile, you can shift between human and ghost form at will, and you head off into the cave to try and save your life.
Gameplay
From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games This page is. 2017: Linux: October 23, 2017: General information. Steam Community Discussions. Recently, I've heard some concern from ExtremeTech readers about the Ghostery privacy extension - specifically regarding the Ghostrank data collection. To help clear things up, I contacted. Ghostory is a good addition for any fans of the puzzle platformer genre. I wouldn't call it a must-have by any stretch, but it's done well enough for me to recommend it to anyone who has a few hours to burn. I will confess that towards the end I did have to slog through it. Ghostery is a powerful privacy extension. Block ads, stop trackers and speed up websites. Block ads Ghostery's built-in ad blocker removes advertisements from a webpage to eliminate clutter so you can focus on the content you want.
The core gameplay in Ghostory revolves around that ability to change form. By pressing Shift, you transform into a transparent form of yourself and can pass through obstacles, scope out a level, or get to a certain platform a lot faster than normal. If that sounds like it would make the game far too easy, it doesn't. You see, you have to make it to the end of each room with your backpack—else you can't pick up the required ingredients for the restorative potion, keys you need to unlock doors and cages, and so on. That's where the challenge comes in. In essence, the game is more about getting your backpack to the end of each room than it is moving the character around.
Switch It Up
The puzzles you encounter in the process are varying takes on a process sequence, where you complete certain actions first in order to proceed to the next step. All take the same basic form: flip switches, move boxes, hop on moving platforms, pick up a key, unlock a cage so you can flip another switch, find another key, open a door, repeat until you get to the end of the room. If it sounds repetitive, that's because it is after a while.
Don't get me wrong. Some of the puzzles are quite challenging, if not as cerebral as I would have liked, and most of them are well designed. It doesn't take long for the puzzles to become more difficult either. When you do get stuck, though, you can select the hints option from the menu, which takes you to an unlisted YouTube video posted by Rigid Core, showing you how to complete the level. However, in most cases, I sincerely wish the solutions had been a bit more involved, rather than 'oh, I just move a bit faster to get to that platform' or 'move this box first before I go to that switch.'
Given the nature of the puzzles, the game is best played in short bursts. But it's not really designed for that. You only encounter save points after clearing every five rooms or so, and it's a bit of a chore to go back through and complete puzzles you've already finished just because you didn't reach the save point before life called. A related problem is the length of some puzzles.
Even early on, there are those that take a good while to complete, requiring multiple steps to get to the end and, depending on the puzzle, going old-school and punishing you by making you start over if you happen to fall at the wrong time. The challenge would be appreciated if it didn't mean going through tedious steps just to get back to where you were and perform more tedious steps. Here is where variety would have helped make the game more enjoyable.
Ghostory
Some of the problems you'll encounter aren't really puzzle related either. For example, there are several timed switches, where you are given only so much time to get to a platform before it stops moving or disappears. The timing is a tad too short on some of these. I suspect that with a proper controller, it wouldn't be a big deal, but playing with the keyboard makes for clunky and imprecise controls, which runs counter to the sort of precision required in jumping and general movement.
What's In My Pocket?
There is one other problem connected to the puzzles themselves: the core concept. When your character is standing there with his hands in his sweatshirt pockets and is wearing jeans to boot, there seems little reason to place such heavy importance on moving a backpack around so you can pick up items. Hoping for logic in video games is an exercise in futility—as it should be—but a glaring flaw in the main mechanic like that is difficult to ignore.
Story Problems
What the game really needs is something to pull the player forward, providing a reason to look past these faults and push through the puzzles. The story remains pretty much the same as it starts—lighthearted, maybe a bit too flippant. It's not bad, but there isn't enough to give the player a reason to keep going, especially as the only story snippets you get are at the save points, when you communicate with the Witch or others via a rift in space.
The dialogue is competent, though not outstanding, with nothing to separate each character from the other. For example, the Witch, who's supposed to be an old lady, sounds like she just finished her sophomore year in high school (which is 'uhm…like' a bit off-putting). There are Steam achievements, but they seem gratuitous—getting an achievement for improvising a puzzle solution when it was the only one, for instance.
Audio-Visual
In terms of sound and visuals, the game performs much better. The 2D pixel art is lovely to look at, and despite the fact that the backgrounds get a bit old before finally changing as you progress further, the color scheme is deep and rich. There isn't much in the way of sound, though the atmospheric undertones of the music add a nice feel to the game overall.
The Verdict
Ghostory has a very solid concept, and the developers clearly put a good amount of thought into the puzzles themselves. Some players may find the puzzles as reason enough to continue, and it might be just the thing to scratch that puzzler itch. However, the overall piece is bogged down by repetition and no real incentive to keep going. Hopefully, Rigid Core's next outing will provide players with a more well-rounded experience.
| Developer(s) | David Cancel Christopher Tino José María Signanini Serge Zarembsky Patrick Lawler Caleb Richelson |
|---|---|
| Initial release | January 2010; 10 years ago |
| Stable release |
|
| Repository | |
| Operating system | |
| License | MPL 2.0[4] |
| Website | www.ghostery.com |
Ghostery is a free and open-sourceprivacy and security-related browser extension and mobile browser application. Since February 2017, it has been owned by the German company Cliqz International GmbH (formerly owned by Evidon, Inc., which was previously called Ghostery, Inc. and the Better Advertising Project).[5][6] The code was originally developed by David Cancel and associates.
Ghostery enables its users to detect and control JavaScript 'tags' and 'trackers' in order to remove JavaScript bugs and beacons that are embedded in many web pages which allow for the collection of a user's browsing habits via HTTP cookies, as well as participating in more sophisticated forms of tracking such as canvas fingerprinting.
As of 2017, Ghostery is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, iOS, Android, and Firefox for Android.
Additionally, Ghostery's privacy team creates profiles of page elements and companies for educational purposes.[7][8]
Functionality[edit]
As of 2017, Ghostery is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, iOS, Android, and Firefox for Android.
Additionally, Ghostery's privacy team creates profiles of page elements and companies for educational purposes.[7][8]
Functionality[edit]
Blocking[edit]
Ghostery blocks HTTP requests and redirects according to their source address in several ways:
- Blocking third-party tracking scripts that are used by websites to collect data on user behavior for advertising, marketing, site optimization, and security purposes. These scripts, also known as 'tags' or 'trackers', are the underlying technology that places tracking cookies on consumers' browsers.
- Continuously curating a 'script library' that identifies when new tracking scripts are encountered on the Internet and automatically blocking them.[8]
- Creating 'Whitelists' of websites where third-party script blocking is disabled and other advanced functionality for users to configure and personalize their experience.
When a tracker is blocked, any cookie that the tracker has placed is not accessible to anyone but the user and thus cannot be read when called upon.[9][10]
Reporting[edit]
Ghostery reports all tracking packages detected, and whether Ghostery has blocked them or not, in a 'findings window' accessible from clicking on the Ghostery Icon in the browser. When configured, Ghostery also displays the list of trackers present on the page in a temporary purple overlay box.[11]
History and use[edit]
Originally developed by David Cancel, Ghostery was acquired by Evidon[12] (renamed Ghostery, Inc.) in January 2010. Ghostery is among the most popular browser extensions for privacy protection. In 2014, Edward Snowden suggested consumers use Ghostery along with other tools to protect their online privacy.[13]Ghostery, Inc. made their software source code open for review in 2010, but did not release further versions of the source code after that. On February 22, 2016, the company released the EULA for the Ghostery browser extension, as a proprietary closed-source product.
Cliqz GmbH acquired Ghostery from Evidon Inc. in February 2017.[14] Cliqz is a German company majority-owned by Hubert Burda Media. Ghostery no longer shares data of any kind with Evidon.
On March 8, 2018, Ghostery shifted back to an open source development model and published their source code on GitHub,[15] saying that this would allow third-party contributions as well as make the software more transparent in its operations. The company said that Evidon's business model 'was hard to understand and lent itself to conspiracy theories', and that its new monetization strategy would involve affiliate marketing and the sale of ad analytics data.[16][17]
In May 2018, in the distribution of an email promoting changes to Ghostery's practices to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), hundreds of user email addresses were accidentally leaked by listing them as recipients. Ghostery apologized for the incident, stating that they stopped the distribution of the email when they noticed the error, and reported that this was caused by a new in-house email system that accidentally sent the message as a single email to many recipients, rather than sending it individually to each user.[18][19]
Criticism[edit]
Ghostery 2017 Movie
Under its former owner Evidon, Ghostery had an opt-in feature called GhostRank. GhostRank could be enabled to 'support' its privacy function. GhostRank took note of ads encountered and blocked, then sent that information back to advertisers so they could better formulate their ads to avoid being blocked.[20] Though Ghostery claims that the data is anonymized, patterns of web page visits cannot truly be anonymized.[21] Not everyone sees Evidon's business model as conflict-free. Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford graduate student and privacy advocate, has said: 'Evidon has a financial incentive to encourage the program's adoption and discourage alternatives like Do Not Track and cookie blocking as well as to maintain positive relationships with intrusive advertising companies'.[22]
Since July 2018, with version 8.2, Ghostery shows advertisements of its own to users.[23] Burda claims that the advertisements do not send personal data back to their servers and that they do not create a personal profile.[24]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'Releases · ghostery/ghostery-extension', GitHub, February 18, 2019
- ^'Releases · ghostery/browser-android', GitHub, February 17, 2019
- ^'Ghostery Privacy Browser on the App Store'. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
- ^'ghostery/ghostery-extension'. GitHub.
- ^'CLIQZ and Ghostery join forces to defend your privacy'. CLIQZ. February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^Ghostery Team. 'Ghostery is Acquired by Cliqz!'.
- ^'Ghostery (Dead link)'. www.ghostery.com. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
- ^ abAttacking Tracking: They're Watching You (Video). Fox News. March 15, 2011.
- ^'Third-Party Cookies vs First-Party Cookies'. Opentracker. Opentracker. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
- ^'Prevent 3rd party script from setting cookies (specifically Google adsense)'. Stack Overflow. July 29, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
- ^'How does Ghostery work? (Dead link)'. www.ghostery.com. Ghostery, Inc. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ^Pierce, Jon (2010). 'Github - Ghostery Source Code'. Github. Ghostery, Inc. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ^Storm, Darlene (March 10, 2014). 'Snowden at SXSW: We need better encryption to save us from the surveillance state'. www.computerworld.com. computerworld. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
- ^'Private search browser Cliqz buys Ghostery ad-tracker tool'. techcrunch.com. February 15, 2017. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
- ^'Ad-Blocker Ghostery Just Went Open Source—And Has a New Business Model'. wired.com. March 8, 2018. Retrieved January 1, 2019.
- ^'This tool to block web tracking software just went open-source so you see exactly what it's up to'. CNET. March 8, 2018. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
- ^Conger, Kate. 'Ad Blocker Ghostery Is Going Open Source to Win Back Some Privacy Points'. Gizmodo. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
- ^Dellinger, AJ. 'Ad Blocker Ghostery Celebrates GDPR Day by Revealing Hundreds of User Email Addresses'. Gizmodo. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
- ^'Ghostery Email Incident Update'. Ghostery. May 26, 2018. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
- ^Henry, Alan. 'Ad-Blocker Ghostery Actually Helps Advertisers, If You 'Support' It'. LifeHacker.com. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
- ^Hill, Kashmir (August 1, 2012). 'How Your Browsing History Is Like A Fingerprint'. Forbes. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
- ^Simonite, Tom (June 17, 2013). 'Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry'. Mashable. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
- ^'Ghostery FAQ - What is Ghostery Rewards?'.
- ^'Ghostery-Erweiterung blendet Werbung ein'. Heise (in German).
External links[edit]
