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Gaming Historica | The Story of Golly! Ghost! | Arcade | Namco (1991)

Published: April 14th 2025, 2:43:00 pm

Golly! Ghost! Is a very interesting and special arcade light gun game made by Namco in 1991.. it use a real model built at the back of the machine . And it look like a house with many rooms! In this house things open like the door and cupboard and toilets seat … and then ghosts fly out and you must shoot them 👻 💥

But how does it work??

Golly! Ghost! Uses a special way to make it look like the ghost fly from the model room. This is called “peppers ghost” effect:

“The Pepper's Ghost effect is an optical illusion used to create ghostly apparitions or holographic-like visuals. It works by reflecting an image off a transparent, angled surface, typically glass or a clear film, so that it appears to float in space or overlay onto a scene.”

So what Namco did is put a glass in front of the real model. Then they have the ghost sprite on a screen below that the play can not see and they use mirror to reflect them onto the glass and fly around!! It is very careful design because the movement of the ghost is perfect in time with the mechanical open and close of the door and places in the house . And you can zap them with your light gun!:

“Golly! Ghost! uses an electro-mechanical diorama of a house for its background, with movable parts powered by solenoids. These parts, which include a closet door, a chest, and a toilet seat, open and close based on the movements of the ghosts in the game. A mirror inside the machine reflects the game's graphics onto the background, creating the illusion that the characters are interacting directly with the diorama.”

I will try to show you more about this game soon if I can! ❤️