Just in time for the spooky cravings of 2026, Ghost Keeper has officially materialised into Steam Early Access as of January 28. If you’ve ever felt that the “scare-ees” get all the spotlight in horror games, this is your chance to play the “scar-er.”
Developed by Quest Craft, this reverse-horror strategy title is being hailed as the spiritual successor to the 2003 cult classic Ghost Master. Here’s a quick breakdown of what to expect from this Victorian-era haunting sim.
Become the Master of Scares
In Ghost Keeper, you aren’t running from the monsters; you’re commanding them. Set against a gritty, 19th-century English backdrop, your goal is to reclaim territories from pesky humans by scaring them senseless—or, if they’re particularly stubborn, taking more “permanent” measures.
Key Features in Early Access:
A Ghastly Roster: Take control of 7 unique minions, ranging from classic ghosts to demonic beasts, each with specialised abilities.
Victorian Sandboxes: Launching with 6 hand-crafted locations (like Phineas’ Manor and the Cemetery) that serve as complex tactical puzzles.
The Brotherhood of Light: It’s not all easy haunting. You’ll have to outsmart “legally distinct Victorian Ghostbusters” who will try to vacuum up your crew.
Sandbox Mode: Once you finish the initial story missions, you can dive back into any location with total freedom to experiment with your scares.
Why It’s Worth Your “Essence”
The game strikes a delicate balance between grotesque humour and tactical depth. You aren’t just clicking on people; you’re setting up chain reactions—like flickering lights to lure a human to a fuse box, only to have a water pipe burst and deliver a shocking surprise.
Early Access Note: The developers plan to stay in Early Access for about a year to refine mechanics and add more maps and monsters based on player feedback. It’s currently priced at $12.99, with plans for the price to increase as more content is added toward the 1.0 release.
The bell tolls, signaling the start of a new day for your burgeoning monastic community. Welcome to Ora et Labora (Latin for “Pray and Work“), a complex and deeply satisfying board game from the master of heavy worker placement, Uwe Rosenberg.
If you enjoy games where you start with almost nothing and end up with a sprawling, intricate engine of resource conversion, then grab your cowl and a worker meeple—this game is for you!
What is Ora et Labora?
At its heart, Ora et Labora is an engine-building and worker placement game for 1-4 players (though many enthusiasts argue it shines brightest at 3 or 4). Each player takes on the role of the head of a medieval monastery, tasked with acquiring land, constructing vital buildings, and producing prestigious goods to earn the most Victory Points (VPs).
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg (known for Agricola, Le Havre, and A Feast for Odin).
Theme: Medieval monastic life, focusing on building, resource production, and crafting high-value items like books, relics, and ceramics.
The Brilliant Mechanics That Set It Apart
While it shares DNA with Rosenberg’s other “big” games, Ora et Labora introduces a few unique elements that give it a distinctive feel:
1. The Dynamic Resource Rondel
Instead of adding resources to the board piece by piece, the game uses a rondel (a rotating wheel) that dictates the availability of core resources like wood, stone, and clay.
At the start of each round, the rondel rotates one segment.
This rotation instantly adjusts the supply of every basic resource, adding an elegant, global timing mechanism that all players must track. It’s a beautifully smooth way to handle resource generation.
2. The Personal & Shared Landscape
Every player has their own personal game board where they construct buildings. However, unlike some other games where your board is entirely isolated, Ora et Labora features a fascinating layer of player interaction:
Building Your Engine: You use resources to build enterprises on your land, such as a Brewery, a Scriptorum, or a Workshop.
Borrowing Buildings: The key twist is that you can use your opponent’s unoccupied buildings! To do so, you must pay them a fee (usually a coin or a high-value good), and they, in turn, use one of their workers to perform the action for you. This creates a delightful tension, forcing you to monitor what your rivals build and deciding if paying the tariff is worth the powerful action.
3. Spatial Puzzle and Settlements
The placement of your buildings matters! Your monastery grows by acquiring land tiles and clearing out Moors or Forests (which grant a one-time resource bonus).
You need to carefully manage the spatial arrangement on your board, as certain high-scoring Settlements require specific adjacency to other buildings and terrain. This adds a compelling polyomino-like puzzle to the resource conversion chain.
Building Your Path to Victory
The ultimate goal is to convert basic goods (like wood and grain) into prestigious, high-VP items (like Whiskey, Ornaments, or Books). The game is a true sandbox, offering multiple paths to victory:
The Brewhouse Route: Focus on converting grain into malt, then ale, and finally high-scoring whiskey.
The Manuscript Route: Prioritize wood and parchment to produce manuscripts and books in the Scriptorium.
The Real Estate Magnate: Invest heavily in acquiring land and building large settlements and monuments for substantial end-game points.
With two different variants included in the box (France and Ireland), which use different sets of building cards, the game offers excellent long-term replayability, inviting you to explore new synergistic building combos every time you play.
Final Verdict
Ora et Labora is a dense, brain-burning, and incredibly rewarding experience. It successfully blends resource management with worker placement and a spatial puzzle, all wrapped in the peaceful (if economically cutthroat) theme of a medieval monastery.
While the sheer number of conversion chains and buildings can feel overwhelming during your first play, sticking with it will reveal an elegant design and a vast decision space that keeps you coming back for more. It stands tall as one of Uwe Rosenberg’s finest achievements.
Time to put your hands to work and your mind to the prayer of point maximization!
Monastery: Ora et Labora – https://www.dragonkinstudios.com
If you’ve been craving that pure, frantic, keycard-hunting action of the 90s FPS golden age, then indie developer FatCatGames has delivered a brutal love letter straight to your Steam library: Brotherhood. Inspired by classics like Wolfenstein 3D and early Doom, this retro-styled shooter is less about cinematic flair and more about raw, unforgiving skill.
Welcome to the Brotherhood’s Basement
The premise is a grim one: you are a test subject held captive within a sprawling, secret underground complex run by an ominous, mutant-making Brotherhood of religious fanatics. Most subjects succumb to the mutagens, but your character is immune—in fact, the poison is now a source of power. Your mission is simple: break out and annihilate everyone involved in the atrocities.
Brotherhood delivers on its dark setup across 24 massive, labyrinth-style levels spread across six distinct acts. You’ll blast your way out of a brutal prison and through secret laboratories, scorching deserts, and ancient fortresses, uncovering the millennial Brotherhood’s secrets along the way.
Old-School Action, Modern Punch
FatCatGames nailed the core appeal of the ‘boomer shooter’ genre:
Fast Movement: Forget cover mechanics. You’re constantly strafing, weaving, and circling to avoid overwhelming hordes of enemies.
Maze-Like Level Design: Levels are intricate and sprawling, emphasizing exploration and secrets. You’ll need to hunt for keycards, manage your limited ammo, and scavenge for medkits—just like the good old days. There are no hand-holding mission markers here, just pure navigational challenge.
Diverse Arsenal: You’re armed with classic weaponry, including a satisfyingly loud shotgun, a laser rifle, a flamethrower, and a rocket launcher, plus a few unique upgrades to keep the carnage fresh.
Mutagen Abilities: Leveraging your immunity, you can harness mutagen powers to push through overwhelming odds, adding a modern twist to the old-school formula.
Hard-Earned Survival
This isn’t a casual stroll. Brotherhood is designed to be a moderate to hard challenge. With over 20 unique enemy types—from swarming melee fighters to heavily-armored cyborgs and massive walking mechs—you’ll constantly be under pressure.
Danger lurks around every corner:
Traps like laser barriers can slice you into pieces with one wrong step.
Ammo management is crucial; you can’t just spam your best weapon.
Healing is handled by medkits, forcing you to be proactive about your health and exploration.
If you have fond memories of the punishing difficulty and labyrinthine complexity of early 90s shooters, Brotherhood is the unapologetically brutal retro fix you’ve been waiting for.
Have you played Brotherhood? What retro shooter do you think it best channels? Let us know in the comments!
