Inspirations Behind Ghost on the Shore

Ghost on the Shore is a story and relationship exploration game about ties that transcend even death. You play as Riley, a young woman who finds herself stranded on a desolate island with a headstrong ghost, dead for as long as he can remember.

The Dream

Ghost on the Shore´s core story came to our writer in a dream. In this somber dream, she had died and could experience in great force her partner´s immense grief. Unable to reach out she could only be a witness to her partner eventually dealing with the loss and moving on. The dream left her feeling complicated emotions, that morphed into a seedling of a story.

A little while later Dagmar saw a trailer to the movie Jamie Marks is Dead and the tagline says "how far would you go to be remembered?". She found it such a strong idea and wanted to do something with it, hence merging it with the dream. A story about love, dying and holding on...

Ghost on the Shore sketch

The Island

Dagmar was selected for a writing retreat on The Isle of Eigg in Scotland. She spent a week there writing throughout, creating the entire outline of the game´s story. She got a lot of inspiration from there while discovering the shores and talking to local people. Much of the game´s locations and general feel is inspired by the misty bogs and bright beaches of the island.

The cabin that Dagmar stayed in had a little library on people and folklore and she binge-read all those. The Isle of Eigg was too an island that had been bought by a family to turn into a working force, like the Rogue Islands in Ghost on the Shore. Some of the inhabitants became inspirations for the game too. There used to be a skipper named Scruff with a famous pet otter on Eigg and we named one of our characters after him.

The Isle of Eigg

The People

We´re constantly doing a lot of historical research about different islands and their people. In Ghost on the Shore, we tell stories of islanders from the past 200 years. So there are many historical themes infused into it: about young men being drafted into wars, the hardship of living on the islands, how rich families brought small islands to make them a source of profit.

First, we create characters of flesh and blood, who start having a life of their own. Through them, we get to tell our story, a story that leaves you feeling like you´ve been somewhere and known someone.

Inspirations behind Ghost on the Shore

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