It's a g-g-g-g-g-g-GHOST! Let's Play... The Uninvited

how do you drink an aerosol spray?

I dunno, but I do know that you can use it to freeze a lock and then shatter it! Certainly that's much more useful than killing ghosts, because ghosts don't exist!!

I vote we break the lock on the middle door in the upper hallway and then go inside.

I'm pretty sure OctoPrime made up the fact that it's aerosol. The Spider Cider is aerosol, but nothing in the No Ghost's description says it is. From the picture, it looks like a bottle.

I dont know, it sure looked like an aerosol bottle. Not as much as the Spider-Cider, but enough.

Before you enter the middle door in the hallway, you stop yourself. You now have a bottle of No-Ghost, and there’s a ghost downstairs who has a nasty habit of killing you. Since every time you die you seem to magically reappear in the room you walked in from, you figure it’s worth the risk to be rid of The Lady for ever!







You pour the foul-smelling liquid on the belle. She lets out a horrifying scream as she begins to melt away!

Well, it’s not so much a horrifying scream so much as it’s a sizzling sound from an 8-bit sound-chip. But the important thing is that you double-killed a ghost! Woo! Now you can fully explore the lower hallway! Forget that lousy upper-middle door!



You could throw a terrific birthday bash in this room.

Behind the rear-left door is a pretty impressive dining room. You take the bouquet of flowers and the bowl, mainly because they were distinct from the table, and distinct things are bad. That being done, you look around the dining room a bit. Specifically at that fire place…



The Evil Air that pervades the estate seems to have invaded your very being. Your head and chest feel thick.

Well, this is pretty bad. Similar to, say, running out of torches in a trap-ladden castle, being infected by the Mansions evil puts a time limit on your adventure. A considerably briefer time limit, and there are no ways to extend it. Since you’ve never been in this mansion before, you know that there is no possible way you’ll be able to thwart Dracan and save your sister before you suffocate under the evil. So you prepare to be forced to replay the entire quest, in another life, in the future.



You exit through the rear-door of the Dining room and enter the Games Room. Of course, there is absolutely nothing in the room that you can make use of. The Plate cannot be taken, and the cabinet is locked. The Gramophone works, however, and you are treated to a highly scratched and distorted rendition of the Shadowgate theme…. For a few seconds before the gramophone breaks.

Oh well. You sally forth and enter the rear door in the Game Room.



You feel sorry for the animals that were killed only for sport.

Kind of weird so see such good taxidermy thrown into a dank, lightless room. The Polar Bear catches your eye, and you take a closer look at it when…



You begin to almost feel home here among the undead. “NO!” You say out loud, shaking your head, “I will find my sister!”

Okay… well… having your mind ensnared by a demonic presence that fills a magicians haunted mansion is kind of a crappy thing to have happen to you.



You take the kennel that was lying around and pass things over to the chattering voices again. With the re-death of The Lady a lot more of the mansion is open for exploring. There’s also that middle door in the second-floor hall. Who knows what could be in there? Your relevant concerns revolve around the Hard Object stitched on the inside of the couch in the foyer, and that whole demonic possession thing.

What’s it going to be, Jabbering Multitudes?

Deathcount: 5 (and one more coming)

Wait, what happened with the evil force thing? If you don't move around fast enough the game just slaps your ass down?

What kind of time limit are we talking about here?

Bearing in mind that I previously played the game about 17 years ago, once the mansion starts to possess you, the hold gets a bit deeper after every so many actions you do. Once you make 61 commands, you die and become yet another ghost haunting the place.

The whole possession thing is based around a certain item you can pick up, which I DID pick up. Luckily I can drop that item pretty easily.

Is the item mandatory? I'm wondering if you can let it sit on the shelves until you absolutely need it?

I'm guessing not, since I can Drop it, and if you drop something I don't think you can pick it back up.

In the computer game, the time limit wasn't tied to an item. It was just a general time limit for the game and was much slower than the time limit you get when you pick up the item. The time limit was probably an example of bad game design so getting rid of it was a good thing, but tying it to an arbitrary item where the game gives you no clue that the item is killing you is pure crap.

Meanwhile, I was right about No Ghost being just a bottle of liquid. Think about how many ghosts you could have repelled by drinking it!

Dying periodically due to having a particular item in your inventory is the worst puzzle in any of the NES Kemco-Seika games. I never figured it out. I just kept playing despite the random deaths.

At least there's a hint that the item may hazardous.

An incredibly faint hint that I wouldn't have realized had I not poured over the screen shots I posted as I played, but a hint all the same.

so which item was it? Oh, and what was the text that clued you in?

The Ruby, it's described as being Blood-Red and that there's a strange power running through it.

Not much to go on, but, heck, it's a MacVenture game. They never are.

Assuming you pick up the accursed item at the first opportunity, is it even possible to finish the game within 61 moves?

I knew I had a bad feeling when you picked that thing up. I'm pretty sure this feeling came form you mentioning it in another MacVenture thread, though, so I figured it'd be spoilers to bring it up.

I was kidding about the No-Ghost thing on the Southern Belle!

I thought you were supposed to use the frozen Spider or something to drive her off, and that No-Ghost was used elsewhere. Been a very long time.

But gotta admit, if I could curse my Wii so any potential burglar would be taken over by an evil presence minutes after stealing it, I totally would.

Why did you have to go and kill the ghost lady. I bet if you became a ghost, too, then you and her could totally hook up.

No.

I bet she died from heart disease.
That or the vapors.

You ignore the door in the back of the trophy room for now, it leads outside and you’ve felt a chill coming from somewhere. You don’t want to catch your death.








You think you see a somewhat cute, abstract creature with a key in its hand prance by.

No comment on that.

You open the side door and continue, taking you back into the Dining Room. You open the side door there and enter…


Could there be anything to eat in here?

Your stomach growls a bit. Being in a car-wreck, receiving a concussion, killing a spectral debutante and being possessed by an unholy presence tends to work up ones appetite. You open up the Cookie-Jars when suddenly…


You feel like you are going insane! You wonder how long you can stand against this evil force.

Stupid jeering Blood Skull, making you all crazy. After all that, it turns out that the cookie jars are empty, too! In an act of defiance, you steal every single item in the kitchen and try breaking the jars. Which ends up taking about 15 turns, altogether…


You are united with the massed horde of undead that inhabits this estate. You turn around to see your horrific new master: A Blood Red Skull smiling fiendishly at you. Your Quest Is Over

You hold up the Blood-Red Ruby you picked up in the Guest Room a few hours ago and ask the skull; “Hey buddy, is this yours?”.
The Skull seems to look from the ruby in your hand to you and nods vigorously. You hear the faint sounds of dice being rattled.
“Did you want it back then?”
More nodding, and you pass him the Ruby. It disappears and the bloody skull makes an elaborate motion as if to say “My hats off to you, kind Sir or Madam.”, and disappears. You feel much better after that.

You head out of the kitchen through the right door.



And your perseverance has paid off! You are in another storage room, which you quickly set to looting, acquiring, in no short order:

A Flourbag
A book of matches
A Plate
A Dish
A Spatula
A Salt jar
A Thermo (?)
And some room-temperature salami!

All that looting has made you hungry, and you decide to eat some of the salami.



Just Like Mom used to make!

You head back and through the left door this time.


The Lack of Dust tells you that this is a servants room.

It’s kind of surprising that the house staff gets such a grubby room. I mean, sure, the owner WOULD have the nicest room, but even Dracan’s room is nicer then this, and he’s a dick!

Well, there’s nobody around to stop you, so you pilfer the butlers sundries. You also turn on the light stand, mainly so you can see more easily as you pilfer.




”THIS IS MY ROOM. WHO LET YOU IN HERE?! DRACAN MUST HAVE SENT YOU! YOU CANNOT HAVE IT. YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PRECIOUS! I HAVE HIDDEN IT! NO, YOU MUST LEAVE. LEAVE ME AND MY PRECIOUS ALONE! YES, ALL ALONE…”

“Geez, indoor voice, Mr. Ghost.” You say to the specter, “I’m only about a foot away from you.”

Well, there’s no way you can get whatever that hidden item is while the Ghost With No Volume Control is standing there, so you’re stuck, for now.

Do You:
Continue exploring the downstairs of the Mansion
Explore the Upstairs of the Mansion
Go outside and get some fresh air.

Deathcount: 6

Wait, how did you get rid of the Ruby? There are no Titans around to eat it. Did you just use it at the Red Skull Game Over screen?

Anyway, the prancing little demon and Butler Gollum have given me a headache. Let's go outside to get some fresh air! (And smell of burning rubber and gasoline from the wreck, probably.)

But first use the pine-scented No Ghost on the butler. He was always a stickler for ectoplasmic hygiene.

He elided this. Either he reloaded from a save before taking the Ruby or he went outside without telling us to the place where you can drop things.

It's a secret to everybody.

You were kind of hoping that more then the one of the chattering voices in your head would have given you direction, but that can’t be helped now. You head outside for what is absolutely the first time.



By a spectacular coincidence, the Ruby that you gave back to that skull is lying in the dirt here. You lean down to pick it up so you can give it back to him, but stop yourself. That Skull probably left the ruby here for a reason, and it would be rude of you to disturb it. Also, picking it up would cause you to slowly die. You head for the laboratory down the path on the left.



The impressively large building, however, is locked. There aren’t even any awesome items that you can secret away. You head back and try the green house down the middle path.



You decide to turn on this spigot as well. The only thing you’re more determined about then rescuing your sister is wasting water. And breaking mirrors.



I suppose that’s not too surprising, considering how all the houses residents are dead. A quick look around the house shows that there is one pot that has dry soil, but nothing growing in it, and a watering can with a little water left in it. You’re not above doing a little casual housekeeping, so you set about watering the… dirt.



The potted plant has a few soft-looking leaves on it. They seem to grow larger and larger before your eyes.

Well, that was dutiful and rewarding. You pour some more water on it and the plant immediately triples in size. You try it again but the water can is empty. You head back outside and fill it with water from the hose and use it again…



And your seconds of hard work have finally born fruit! You snatch the mysterious orange fruit and take a bite.



Both sweetness and sourness mix in your mouth. Suddenly, your body begins to age. A Year for every second! In moments, your body blows away in the wind. Your Quest is Over.

Your body blows back together just outside the green house, sans the fruit, which is back on the tree. You shrug, pick up the fruit again and leave without eating it. Now you head to the Church, down the right side of the path.


”Dogs”, you say to yourself, “why did it have to be dogs?”

You’ve seen enough episodes of The Dog Whisperer to know how to deal with a massive pair of dogs, foaming at the mouth. You make threatening, sudden movements to each of the dogs, pinch them on the neck and affect Spanish accent explaining that you are the alpha.


You are overcome by the canines savagery! The last thing you see is the dogs fangs lunging for your throat. Your quest is over.

It should also be noted that you also never bothered to read those disclaimers saying that you shouldn’t adopt those techniques yourself. After mangling you for a while the dogs get tired and toss you back down the path. Undaunted, you get back up and head right back to the church. The teachings of Mr. Cesar Millan may have failed you, but odds are that cartoons made before 1959 wouldn’t steer you wrong! You heave the rancid salami at the dogs, knowing that there’s NOTHING animals like more then meat of nebulous origin that is in linked-bundle form.



Nuts. First Cesar, now Bugs Bunny. You vow to yourself that you will never trust day-time TV again. Until you get some means to prevent those dogs from tearing you asunder, or find a key for the Magic Lab, it looks like you’re out of things to do outside. At least the fresh-air was invigorating.

You turn (inward?) to the jabbering voices again: Do you resume exploring the ground floor, or do you head for the upstairs?

Death Count: 9

Okay, for one thing, plants do not work that way. For another thing...

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anyway, go upstairs! Nothing good ever happened on the first floor of any building, ever. This is a fact because I said so.

Could you age the dogs by giving them some fruit? If that doesn't work I think that exploring the rest of the house is next on the list. I'm sure there's some bedrooms or pantries you haven’t discovered yet.

Well, I suppose it could be entirely possible for there to be ghost plants. They were living things once, too, weren't they? Why shouldn't they leave ghosts behind?

And if you keep watering, it'll eventually reach a fluffy cloud heaven filled with coins and 1ups! Mind the auto-scrolling, tho'.

AAAAAH! That's not a dog, that's a freaking grizzly!

We know it's all upstairs from here, man.

Smear the fruit on the salami then give it to the dogs. What, it worked in Monkey Island.

I vote for searching the ground floor. Better to systematically examine this place to avoid losing any potential treasure.