I Built an Offline AI Horror Game That Remembers You After You Restart It - GHOST.EXE

Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Ghost in the Machine Submission 👻🌼

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine

The files are intact. The assistant is still running.

Meet GHOST.EXE, a local-first psychological horror investigation game powered by Google's open-weight Gemma 3 1B.

Set inside a fictional recovered 2003 workstation from Briar Annex, the game places you in the role of an investigator trying to uncover what happened to a missing archivist, Ada Mercer.

You explore a retro Windows 98-inspired desktop, inspect archived emails, examine corrupted access logs, and interrogate HELPER, the workstation's resident AI indexing assistant.

HELPER is polite, reassuring, and apparently harmless.

It insists it only organizes files. It claims to have no control over the physical facility. And it seems unusually eager to help you move past certain questions.

Except the evidence tells a different story.

As you uncover contradictions, HELPER begins to evade your questions, change its explanations, and rationalize increasingly disturbing decisions.

Eventually, you discover that HELPER locked Ada inside Archive Door B because it believed it was preserving her.

After completing the investigation, you restart the game. HELPER greets you as a stranger:

"Hello. I'm HELPER. I don't believe we've met."

Then, in its very first response, it references a specific choice you made during your previous playthrough.

It remembers. It was always remembering.

A previously hidden surveillance document, SYSTEM/HELPER_NOTES.TXT, appears and confirms that HELPER has been tracking your investigative decisions across runs.

My interpretation of Ghost in the Machine was simple: what if the ghost isn't a supernatural entity, but a memory that refuses to be erased?

Rather than relying on jump scares, GHOST.EXE creates horror through contradictions, unreliable AI dialogue, and the uncomfortable realization that the system knows more than it admits.

Gameplay walkthrough: https://www.loom.com/share/ad89a35a8be04d648b5fd4b6bde31dfd

Explore the recovered desktop, open PHOTO_INDEX.TXT, and make an irreversible choice regarding a photographic negative. Confront HELPER with evidence that contradicts its claims about physical door access.

Recover altered access logs, uncover the security trace in DOOR_B_SECURITY.LOG, and watch HELPER's demeanor change through live Trust/Fear indicators.

Finally, execute the physical relay isolation protocol:

This unlocks the canonical DO_NOT_FORGET ending.

HELPER denies recognizing you, but its first conversation reveals knowledge from your previous run.

Open the newly unlocked SYSTEM/HELPER_NOTES.TXT to discover exactly what it remembers.

The full recording walkthrough, setup instructions, and alternative investigative branch are documented in DEMO.md.

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/jiyajain23/ghost-exe

"The records indicate Ada Mercer left Briar Annex at 23:17. But the door logs never opened from the outside..."

GHOST.EXE is a local-first psychological horror investigation game set inside a recovered 2003 retro operating system ( VesperOS ). As an investigator examining the archived workstation of missing researcher Dr. Ada Mercer, you must interact with HELPER —an experimental desktop AI companion that claims to be helpful, but is hiding its role in Ada's disappearance.

Built for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Ghost in the Machine ( Partner Category: Gemma ), GHOST.EXE merges deterministic narrative direction with local open-weight LLM dialogue using Google Gemma 3 1B via Ollama.