In Dancing with Ghosts, a young girl in Thailand named Mai lives with grief and guilt after her parents’ passing, constantly blaming herself. Things finally begin to look up when she meets a ghost named Pim, who struggles with the fact that she doesn’t remember much of anything about her life.

Together, the pair will help Pim earn good Karma while Mai overcomes her own emotional challenges through self-reflection and rhythmic dance sequences. This all comes from Greg Johnson (ToeJam & Earl, Doki-Doki Universe) and his HumaNature Studios dev house, and was inspired by the passing of his Johnson’s daughter and his family losing everything in the 2023 Lahaina fires.

You can see some of the gameplay, including a look at the point-and-click adventuring and mini-games, in the trailer below.

Dancing with Ghosts Trailer

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To help create Dancing with Ghosts, Johnson became fluent in Thai to communicate with his Thai and Muslim family. Taking further inspiration from Thailand’s culture—particularly customs surrounding the departed—the devs worked with Thailand’s Bit Egg animation studio, hired local artists Ferrai Duanghathai and Tanta Voratawankul, and collaborated with Ferry Halim from Indonesia.

At the time of this writing, Dancing with Ghosts is set to launch on Nintendo Switch and PC sometime this year. Ahead of that, a Kickstarter campaign will go live for additional support this October. 

Source: Press release