Cheerful Ghost Blog

The Cheerful Ghost Blog is the place to find important site news and allows you to travel back through time to see how the site has evolved and read some of the most important and interesting articles and discussions!

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I am beyond excited for the launch of Cheerful Ghost Games through our new BBS. It's a launch that Travis and I have been working for the whole year through a series of little projects that are finally complete.

Cheerful Ghost is A New Wave BBS!

Back in the late 80's and early 90's if you could get the Internet it was expensive and having access to a desktop computer wasn't common. In my family my parents always set aside some money for a family computer even if it wasn't top of the line. Our first desktop computer that had a modem was a Gateway 486 SX/25 with a 2400 baud modem running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and DOS. At the time that wasn't the fastest modem out... Read All


Today we are very happy to launch Cheerful Ghost on Patreon! Patreon is a site for funding the things you love and we decided to use it to help you become a Member! Right now we have two funding levels on Patreon Supporter and Member. The premium Member level gets you a full Cheerful Ghost Membership (site title, comment colors & bling).

I encourage you to watch our Patreon pitch video, head over to the site and back us today! We consider this an important step in the future of the site and moving forward we plan on lots of new Member features that should be pretty fun. Plus, it's awesome to support the things you love and we really appreciate it!

... Read All


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Hi folks,

We have upgraded some of the frameworks we use on the site -- Bootstrap has a new major version that's been stable for a few months, and that required an upgrade to jQuery as well. As we plan out future changes to the site, these new tools make things easier for us and better for you.

Some of the tools from Bootstrap 3.x we were using are gone in 4, so we had to re-work things a bit. Fortunately, the tools that replace it in Bootstrap 4 are better, and it gave us an opportunity to improve those things with some redesigns.

For now, we just tried to make things look like the site pre-upgrade for the most part, but in situations where that wasn't possible we put... Read All


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Travis and I have been busy during our spare time coding up new features on Cheerful Ghost and today are launching a new way to look at comments, posts and profile pages. Once upon a time Cheerful Ghost had a Membership system and it was a pretty good way for people that love the site to contribute to it but I always felt like it wasn't the best it could be. Because of that we're rebuilding the Membership system from scratch and it's starting today.

Comments, Posts and Profiles oh My!

If you click open a comment stream or look at a post you will see a new thing we call badges. Badges are a cosmetic thing bestowed on certain users for things like post authorship,... Read All


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Travis gives this an astounding "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale
This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.
Travis gives this a "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale
This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.
Hey everyone, we’d like to share an awesome new feature on Cheerful Ghost. You may have heard us using the Ghost Scale in our reviews on Cheerful Ghost Radio over the past couple of months, and now you can use the Ghost Scale on your reviews here!

When you’re creating or editing a post, just check “This is a game review” to show options for the Ghost Scale. You can give your game review one of four ratings that will show on the post:

  • Skip it :
    Whether due to bugs or other issues, people may have a hard time finding fun in this game.

  • Meh… :
    It’s not amazing, it’s not bad. This game is ok but you may want to choose another title.

  • Rad :
    This is a fun game, with very... Read All


As we begin season 2 of Cheerful Ghost Radio we pause to reflect on the 6th anniversary of Cheerful Ghost by talking about some of our favorite memories. Since the new year in gaming is here we talk about some of the most exciting games coming out this year.

Show Notes:

Travis interviews Ryan Gordon: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/771/interview-with-ryan-c-gordon-about-linux-gaming

FarCry 5: https://far-cry.ubisoft.com/game/en-us/home/

Mega Man 11: https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/3564/mega-man-11-coming-in-2018

Project Octopath Traveler: https://cheerfulghost.com/Will_Ball/posts/3481/project-octopath-traveler-demo-impressions

Super Meat Boy Forever: ... Read All


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Cheerful Ghost Games Club is back with Excitebike!

You may remember this semi-regular CG event where we pick a game and invite everyone to come play it with us and discuss what we think. This time, we're changing things up a bit. We will do one game a month (or maybe more!) and tying the events into a Cheerful Ghost Radio series about classic games.

We'll review the games in an episode following the event, and include opinions and commentary from people who joined and chatted with us about it.

This month's game is Excitebike! Excitebike is an NES racing game that has been a fan favorite since its launch with the NES. In addition to the main tracks, Excitebike lets you... Read All


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I expect that 2018 will be a great year in gaming but how great will it be? I reached out to people in the Cheerful Ghost community to look into the future to see what awesome stuff might be coming this year. At the end of the year we can come back to this and see how well we did and use creative readings to make us all look way smarter than we actually are!

If you have any other predictions drop them in the comments!

Nintendo Releases Virtual Console for Switch

Will Ball: One person can dream, right? Nintendo will finally release a virtual console for the Switch. It will cover the NES, SNES, all gameboys, N64 and GameCube. This will keep the Switch as the number one... Read All


I don't typically write list posts but it's the new year and i've been thinking more about some of the better parts of 2017. One awesome part is talking to everyone on Cheerful Ghost and taking part in Cheerful Ghost Radio that launched this year! It's fun to be part of something that people enjoy even if our community is small. So let's wind up and get to my list which I wouldn't consider to be in any kind of actual order.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Return

I was beyond hyped that a new MST3K season was coming and happily Kickstarted it. I've talked about that process here and the results are for everyone to enjoy on Netflix. MST3K is a special show to me and was... Read All


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Happy New Year everyone! Thanks for helping make the last year on Cheerful Ghost amazing. We're starting things off in 2018 with our 2017 Game of the Year Awards results. If there's a clear runner up, we'll share that as well.

Best AAA Game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
This should come as no surprise. Breath of the Wild has been topping Game of the Year lists all over the place, and with good reason. New game mechanics and a sprawling, sometimes intimidating open world breathe new life into the Legend of Zelda series.

Runner Up: Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo had something to prove with a new console launch, and have they ever! This one is my personal GotY... Read All