5 August 2026ImprovementClaude Sonnet 5
Two of the legendary gods just became four — a whole new way to hunt them down.
- Loki, Artemis, Freya and Hades now fight completely differently from the other eleven legendary gods: instead of chasing a drifting target through magical wards, they vanish into hiding and only show themselves in short bursts.
- Throwing while one of these four is hidden always misses — and never costs you a trap. Wait for it to surface, then throw fast.
- Land a hit and you cut off that hiding spot for good. Corner every spot but one and the god is pinned in the open — that's your moment to catch it.
- Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, is the toughest of the four, with an extra hiding spot to track.
- A new spoken line sets the scene the moment one of these four gods appears.
- The collection screen now shows how every legendary god fights before you ever face them, not just the ordinary ghost types.
26 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5
Ghost Catchers now plays properly on a phone — held upright, by thumb — with a pause button and honest aiming.
- The game is now built for a phone held upright: the whole thing is playable by thumb, the map keeps its pinch and pan, and every button is big enough to hit without looking.
- Turn your phone sideways and the game politely asks you to turn it back, in Dutch or English, and pauses itself while it waits — nothing sneaks away behind the prompt.
- Aiming in an encounter was quietly wrong on a tall screen: the target ring could drift off the edges, so hitting a ghost meant aiming inside it rather than under it. The ring now always sits where your finger is, and “aim right under the ghost” finally means what it says.
- New pause button, on the map and inside an encounter (or Escape on a keyboard). Sound and language are reachable mid-hunt at last, and pausing genuinely stops the world — your walk, the ghosts' timers, and a god's unbound countdown all wait for you.
- Throwing a trap uses one input path now for finger, stylus and mouse alike, so a swipe that runs off the bottom of the screen still lands.
- The demo walking pad no longer hides behind the bottom bar on phones with a home bar.
24 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
Every ghost type now fights back its own way — the six everyday personalities each got a signature trick instead of hovering politely while you aim.
- Serene ghosts stand perfectly still, but every few seconds they settle into a calm moment — land a trap in that golden window and your catch chance jumps by a third.
- Wise ghosts read your aim: they blink to the other side of the arena on their own rhythm, and blink early if you hover your sights on them too long. Throw quickly and decisively.
- Brave ghosts sweep slowly across the arena and get faster every single time they break out of your trap, so a long fight is a harder fight.
- Devious ghosts vanish completely for a second at a time, and your aiming ring stops telling you whether you are on target while they are gone — you have to throw where they will be.
- Fierce ghosts move fast and tight, and lunge at you to swat your trap aside; like any miss, a swatted trap costs you nothing, so watch for the lunge and throw between them.
- Eccentric ghosts wander on a path that never repeats twice. Every ghost's trait is now listed on its collection card, so you can learn them before you meet them.
- Honesty fixes: the god trials now tell you how many seals are actually left instead of always saying three, the Dutch text no longer calls the goddesses "him", and running out of traps says so plainly instead of pretending the ghost simply fled.
23 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
Added quiet, privacy-safe gameplay analytics (run starts, progress milestones, deaths, and wins) so the studio can see how players actually experience the game.
- Ghost Catchers now quietly reports its own progress milestones so the studio can see how far hunters get through the campaign — no change to how the game plays.
20 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
Legendary gods are no longer ordinary ghosts with bad odds — every one of the 15 is now a real boss fight, The Divine Trial.
- Tap a Legendary god and you enter The Divine Trial: it drifts across the arena behind three divine seals instead of hovering politely in the middle.
- Land a trap under the moving god to shatter a seal — but time it, because it raises a ward that turns your trap aside, and it drifts faster with every seal you break.
- Break all three and the god is UNBOUND for a few seconds at four times the catch chance. That window is the only way to trap it, so make the throw count.
- You can never lose a trial: seal throws cost you nothing and a god will never flee mid-fight. Miss the window and it simply re-seals so you can go again.
- All 15 gods now have their own personality — signature powers like Zeus's Stormwall and Loki's False Ward, their own colours, and lines they speak at you in Dutch and English, with new narration and sound effects.
13 July 2026HousekeepingClaude Opus 4.8
Fixed a bug in the shared cutscene system where holding a button as a cinematic began could skip it instantly — cutscenes now play as intended.
- Fixed a bug where a button still held down from the previous screen — the one you just pressed to confirm a menu — was mistaken for a fresh press the instant a cinematic opened, skipping the whole scene before a single frame played. Intros and endings now start properly.
- The problem depended on how long you held the button: a quick tap hid it, while a normal press destroyed the scene, which is why it went unnoticed for so long. Controller players were affected most.
- Skipping and fast-forwarding still work exactly as they always did — press to advance a line, or skip the scene entirely, once the button is released and pressed again.
- Added an automated test suite around the cutscene controls so this class of bug is caught before it ever reaches a player again.
- Gameplay, visuals, audio and balance are completely untouched — this is a repair to a shared piece of the studio cinematic system, applied to every game that uses it.
12 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
A real campaign to chase and a cinematic makeover for the intro, finale and victory.
- New Hunt Log: a six-stage objective ladder that gives your ghost-hunting real goals, each rewarding traps or berries the moment you complete it.
- A current-objective badge on the map and a pop-up whenever you finish a goal, so you always know your next target.
- The opening is now a camera-directed cinematic that flies over the haunted city with spoken narration instead of a wall of text.
- Sealing all six mortal ghost types now triggers a narrated 'the gods awaken' moment, and becoming Ghost Master plays a full voiced victory sequence.
- Voiceover in both Dutch and English, and it respects your mute setting.
8 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
Every ghost type now looks unique, ambient music sets the mood, and the road to Ghost Master is finally within reach.
- All seven ghost personalities now have their own distinct look — crests, horns, halos, flame crowns and antennae — instead of the same shape in different colours.
- Added atmospheric background music that plays while you hunt, with a mute button that now remembers your choice between sessions.
- The legendary gods you need to finish the campaign now appear far more often once you have caught every other type, so becoming Ghost Master is an earned finish rather than an endless grind.
7 July 2026HousekeepingClaude Opus 4.8
Cleared out unused legacy code and added an automated test and lint safety net — no change to how the game plays.
- Removed a large amount of unused legacy server-and-login code that was no longer part of the game, shrinking and simplifying the codebase
- Added an automated test suite (32 tests) covering catching, XP and leveling, saves, and the win condition so future updates can't silently break them
- Added a code linter and cleaned up the flagged issues for long-term maintainability
- Tidied the build and container setup to follow studio conventions
- No gameplay, visuals, or audio were changed — this was purely under-the-hood housekeeping
4 July 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 4.8
Un-bricked the game: migrated from a never-deployed backend to fully client-side, with a play-anywhere demo mode.
- The game was unplayable in production — it booted into a login gate against a backend that was never deployed; it now starts and plays fully client-side
- Catches, XP, levels, inventory, unlocks, the collection and the seven-type win check all resolve locally now
- Ghost spawns are generated locally with rarity weighting
- Added a default demo/play-anywhere mode with automatic fallback when GPS is denied, plus a simulated-player driver (WASD/D-pad)
- Added menu, intro and win screens