Yûrei Station

About Yûrei Station

Yûrei Station, Ghost Station in English, is a free point-and-click adventure inspired by Japanese ghost stories. It was written and designed by Atelier Sentô, a French duo, from memories of their life in Japan and the trains they took at dawn, and made in two days in March 2017 during a workshop with 25 students at La Joliverie art school in Nantes. It came out on itch.io in May 2017 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A young girl has been getting strange messages on her phone since her boyfriend disappeared. One night she sneaks out and takes a train; a presence sits down beside her, and the phone shows a message: I see you. The messages lead her off the train to a nameless village lost in the countryside at the edge of the woods.

Everything was drawn in pencil and painted in watercolour by the students, then set in Unity as flat sprites inside a 3D space, with the camera following behind the girl like a film. The village is full of torii gates, stone statues, lanterns and pale spirits, and Rock Paper Shotgun called it a solid ghost story with some freaky imagery. Kotaku wrote that it draws on what lies in your peripheral vision.

It takes about half an hour and leaves much unexplained. It suits players who like quiet, eerie ghost stories over chases and jump scares, and short train-set horror such as Underground Blossom or the Exit 8 games.

How to play Yûrei Station

1. Download it free from Atelier Sentô's itch.io page for Windows, macOS or Linux.
2. Click to move the girl and to look at or use things around her.
3. Read the messages that arrive on her phone; they tell you where to go.
4. Explore the village, pick up what you find and use it to move on.

Tips

• Read every message on the phone; they are the only guide you get.
• Look around the edges of each scene; much of the eeriness is in what stands half hidden.
• It is short, so play it in one sitting with the lights low.

Questions