Believe it or not, North Texas has a Ghostbusters franchise. No, it’s not a sign of the end times or a sudden spike in the amount of psychokinetic energy in North Texas the same size as a Hostess Twinkie approximately 35 feet long and weighing 600 pounds.
The North Texas Ghostbusters are a nonprofit fan group inspired by the film franchise and are one of many across the country known as “franchises,” who build screen-accurate uniforms, proton packs, and other specter-tracking and exterminating equipment. They also use their love for the films and prop-building by meeting and greeting the public to help raise money for charities and engage their communities.
Some franchises take their love for the films further than others, and that’s what the North Texas Ghostbusters do. Along with appearing at conventions and events with a full-size replica of ECTO-1, the long, modified 1959 Cadillac from the movies, the North Texas group also raffles off hand-built pieces of equipment to raise money for charity. They’ve taken over downtown Denton’s Visitors Center & Gift Shop and remodeled the space to serve as their temporary headquarters during the city’s 31 Days of Halloween celebration.
Now, the franchise has their own video game for the portable Nintendo Game Boy system. The North Texas Ghostbusters is not a physical cartridge. It’s a ROM, a memory file that means “Read-Only Memory,” that can be downloaded from GhostbustersNews.com and played on a Game Boy emulator on a computer or smartphone.
The local Ghostbuster who designed and built the game is Zach Hidalgo. The webmaster for the North Texas Ghostbusters had previous experience with the system, but “this is the first full game I’ve ever made.”
Courtesy North Texas Ghostbusters
The North Texas Ghostbusters game puts players in control of Chris Uzzle, the president of the local franchise, sent on a call to a fancy hotel to rid it of the spooks, specters, and other nonliving entities haunting its hallways. It’s only one player, so there’s no risk of crossing streams.
“It all takes place in one big hotel,” Hidalgo said. “I thought it would be funny, and the layout makes no sense.”
The game is very tongue in cheek with funny dialogue that references other movies and games, and all the enemies are ghosts and monsters from other video games like King Boo from Super Mario Bros., metroids, and the ghosts from Pac-Man, who escaped from a cursed television. A Pokémon enemy also serves as the perfect stand-in for the terror dogs from the movies.
“I wanted enemies that people would recognize,” Hidalgo said. “I wanted little kids to be able to play it, too, so I wanted the levels to be very linear.”
Hidalgo said it took two and a half months to build a playable version. It was quite a challenge, even for a modded version of an old Ghostbusters game.
“In order to mod it, I had to basically tear down all the code to figure out how everything’s coded in,” he said.
Players walk around the hotel flinging proton streams at ghosts and other enemies to wear them down before throwing out a ghost trap to transfer them to the group’s custom-made storage facility.
Hidalgo said there were moments he thought he wouldn’t be able to build a workable game. He felt a great sense of relief and pride when he put the final pixel in place.
“It was a great feeling to know that it is playable because I was getting a little worried I might not have enough time,” he said. “Once I got to the point when it was playable, I was really hyped.”
Once he finished the game, the other members of the franchise got to take it for a spin. The group also premiered the game at its temporary Denton headquarters, where anyone can play the game through Halloween.
The North Texas Ghostbusters scored even more traction when Ghostbusters News uploaded the game to its site and posted a news item announcing its release, so fans and franchise members all over the country could play it.
“Everybody really likes it,” Hidalgo says. “I think it’s a silly little game. I didn’t think it would be this popular. It’s just really cool to see people really enjoy something I spent a lot of time to build.”
