This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine
What We Built
Meet Ghostlet 👻, a tiny pixel-art desktop companion for Windows!
The idea is simple: leave your PC idle, and little ghosts start appearing around your cursor. The longer you're away, the more ghosts, pumpkins, graves and spooky decorations accumulate.
Move your mouse or press a key, and the ghosts panic, grab their decorations and run away!
We wanted to turn an ordinary idle desktop into a little Halloween scene.
👻 Meet the Ghosts!
 Classic |
 Cool |
 Crying |
 Hunting |
 Loving |
 Magic |
 Peeping |
 Shivering |
 Sleeping |
 Rare Witch! ✨ |
🎃 Meet the Decorations!
 Cross Grave |
 Tall Grave |
 Wide Grave |
 Short Grave |
 Pumpkin |
 Red Pumpkin |
 Skeleton |
 Spider |
Demo
Download Ghostlet and give it a try!
GitHub Releases (Windows executable, no Python installation required)
Code
The project is open source under the MIT License.
GitHub Repository – Ghostlet
Ghostlet
Step away from your PC. Tiny ghosts move in. 👻
Leave your mouse alone for a minute and pixel ghosts float up around your cursor, while pumpkins, graves and spooky friends pile up along the bottom of your screen. Come back and they panic, grab the decorations and run away! 🎃
👻 Meet the ghosts
Each ghost picks a random look.
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| classic | cool | crying |
 |
 |
 |
| hunting | loving | magic |
 |
 |
 |
| peeping | shivering | sleeping |
✨ The rare one! 10× less likely to show up than any other ghost. ✨
🎃 Spooky props
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|
| cross grave | tall grave | wide grave | short grave |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| pumpkin | red pumpkin | skeleton | spider |
The longer you're away, the more pile up. When you're back, the ghosts carry them off.
💾 Get it
Grab Ghostlet.exe from Releases and double-click it. No Python needed.
Ghostlet lives in your tray (bottom-right). Right-click the ghost for Settings.
Run from source or build the exe
How I Built It
Ghostlet is built with Python and PySide6, using the Windows API to detect system idle time.
Why Does Open Innovation Matter?
Open-source development makes it possible for people to inspect, modify and build upon existing work.
Ghostlet is released under MIT, so anyone can customise the ghosts, create new pixel-art decorations or even add their own behaviours.
Sometimes, even a small silly project can become something others want to experiment with!
The Spirit of It
We think the funniest part is coming back to your PC and finding a whole bunch of ghosts having a little party on your desktop.
And then watching them desperately run away when they realise you're back. 🎃
👥 Built by three humans
@ashtonckj
@fionakhl
@moltenice3
Happy Halloween! 👻🎃
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