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Welcome to the Haunted Mansion v2.0
Welcome to the Haunted Mansion
Version: 2.0
Single Player Action/Horror Survival RPG
The infamous hunter Morning Star has been hired to save a village by slaying a vampire count that resides in a nearby mansion.
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Map Description:
Help Morning Star overcome impossible odds, horrifying encounters and challenging puzzles as he quests deep inside a haunted mansion towards his ultimate goal: the final confrontation with Count Sanguis himself.
Other Notes:
This is a unique RPG map that tries to stray from the common "tank and spank" style of combat that you see in most warcraft maps and puts its focus on immersion, initiative and strategy. So try the map, follow the story, experience the twists, and tell me if this is like no other map you have ever played. And just as a disclaimer, I, as the author of this map, take no responsibility for any heart attacks that may occur from any frights you may receive as a result from playing this game.
---------
Post your thoughts either here or at this email
- [email protected]
Keywords:
haunted, mansion, rpg, epic, single player, vampire, zombie, boss, role playing game
Version: 2.0
Single Player Action/Horror Survival RPG
The infamous hunter Morning Star has been hired to save a village by slaying a vampire count that resides in a nearby mansion.
---------
Map Description:
Help Morning Star overcome impossible odds, horrifying encounters and challenging puzzles as he quests deep inside a haunted mansion towards his ultimate goal: the final confrontation with Count Sanguis himself.
Other Notes:
This is a unique RPG map that tries to stray from the common "tank and spank" style of combat that you see in most warcraft maps and puts its focus on immersion, initiative and strategy. So try the map, follow the story, experience the twists, and tell me if this is like no other map you have ever played. And just as a disclaimer, I, as the author of this map, take no responsibility for any heart attacks that may occur from any frights you may receive as a result from playing this game.
---------
Post your thoughts either here or at this email
- [email protected]
Keywords:
haunted, mansion, rpg, epic, single player, vampire, zombie, boss, role playing game
Contents
Reviews
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2008
- Messages
- 17
sounds promising gonna try this one later XD
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 4
This map came as a mixed blessing for me - I've been looking for a decent 1-player RPG to review for some time now, and this one snared my attention immediately. This map is, in fact, more than decent, this map is one of the first genuinely enjoyable RPGs I've happened across in a great while. The atmosphere is great, the story is easy to follow, and gameplay is simple, innovative and exciting - well, up to a point, but I'll get to that later.
As far as genre goes, I'd label this an adventure-horror game, with elements of strategy and puzzle-solving. You take control of Morning Star, a hardened vampire slayer who never speaks and who exhibits no discernable traces of personality. This reticence, however, is quite appropriate for a character who shares his name with a spiky Germanic mace; Morning Star tends to favour action over words, and makes for an agreeable silent protagonist.
The game begins in a spooky forest filled with spooky trees and the occasional spooky headless corpse. Upon arriving at a small village, the local peasantry hastily contract you to deal with a vampire, Count Sanguis, who has been preying on their humble settlement. Count Sanguis, it transpires, resides in a haunted mansion situated a disturbingly short distance from the village itself.
Now, given the elements of a vampire count, a haunted mansion, and a setting that suddenly starts to feel suspiciously like northwestern Romania, it is understandable that one could simply change the name 'Morning Star' to 'Jonathan Harker' and just predict the rest of the plot. Still, in spite of lighting on familiar concepts, the author manages to weave a convincing and engaging story. It's not poetry, but it's one of very few RPGs I've played where the dialogue hasn't made me want to scratch my eyes out and send them into orbit with a 9-iron.
Welcome to the Haunted Mansion is one of those games that take the 'war' out of 'Warcraft', and by that I mean it tends to draw the focus away from standing next to a group of enemies and pummelling them until they fall over. Naturally, there are still enemies to be pummelled, but they require the player to pummel them in a certain way, or pummel them during a particular window of opportunity, or pummel them with a mind-controlled dog while trying to avoid being pummelled themselves. In a nutshell, the combat is fun. Not only that, but the fights are difficult enough to feel like a challenge without becoming frustrating.
And, in keeping with that last point, I was also pleased to note that not every situation in the game can be remedied with a ruthless dosage of pummel; there are items to be gathered and puzzles to be solved - one moment you might be fleeing from a zombie disco, the next cooking dinner for a hungry flesh monster.
But what really makes this game stand out is the atmosphere. This game is creepy. Like, seriously creepy. Until you start to get used to it, the tension inside the mansion will have you reflexively karate-chopping your keyboard every few seconds. Wind whistles through the stonework, doors slam shut behind you, and I must have passed that ghost in the corridor at least three times and EVERY SINGLE TIME it made me leap about a foot into the air (quite painful when you're sitting at a desk).
Well, this brings me to the point where I have to mention the biggest flaw I found in this map. It's probably not fair to call it a flaw - more of a bug. Anyway: during his final 'muhuhahah I am so evil and now I will end you and destroy everything wahey' speech, the very horror of Count Sanguis' words seemed to be too much for the game to handle, and it locked me permanently in cinematic mode. Demanding closure, I went into the World Editor to check the triggering - it appeared to be fine, I couldn't really understand what was going wrong - but I found that by changing the modified duration of Sanguis' transmissions from 'Add' to 'Set to' I could circumnavigate this problem and proceed with my vampire slaying.
Also, while dialogue buttons can be useful in helping me to make difficult choices, when I am presented with a single dialogue button and no other options I sort of feel as though there isn't much of a choice to make. And, while I love the idea of using torches to light dark areas, giving the player a single 999-charge undroppable torch just makes it a chore. Perhaps if the torches were scattered about the complex, and Morning Star had to hastily retrieve them ere he was consumed by darkness...
In conclusion, aside from a few technical issues and some minor design faults, this is one of the most entertaining maps I've ever played. It's original, it's frightening, and mashing zombies beneath the wheels of a huge mechanical kill-mobile is just awesome.
Absolutely worth downloading and playing.
As far as genre goes, I'd label this an adventure-horror game, with elements of strategy and puzzle-solving. You take control of Morning Star, a hardened vampire slayer who never speaks and who exhibits no discernable traces of personality. This reticence, however, is quite appropriate for a character who shares his name with a spiky Germanic mace; Morning Star tends to favour action over words, and makes for an agreeable silent protagonist.
The game begins in a spooky forest filled with spooky trees and the occasional spooky headless corpse. Upon arriving at a small village, the local peasantry hastily contract you to deal with a vampire, Count Sanguis, who has been preying on their humble settlement. Count Sanguis, it transpires, resides in a haunted mansion situated a disturbingly short distance from the village itself.
Now, given the elements of a vampire count, a haunted mansion, and a setting that suddenly starts to feel suspiciously like northwestern Romania, it is understandable that one could simply change the name 'Morning Star' to 'Jonathan Harker' and just predict the rest of the plot. Still, in spite of lighting on familiar concepts, the author manages to weave a convincing and engaging story. It's not poetry, but it's one of very few RPGs I've played where the dialogue hasn't made me want to scratch my eyes out and send them into orbit with a 9-iron.
Welcome to the Haunted Mansion is one of those games that take the 'war' out of 'Warcraft', and by that I mean it tends to draw the focus away from standing next to a group of enemies and pummelling them until they fall over. Naturally, there are still enemies to be pummelled, but they require the player to pummel them in a certain way, or pummel them during a particular window of opportunity, or pummel them with a mind-controlled dog while trying to avoid being pummelled themselves. In a nutshell, the combat is fun. Not only that, but the fights are difficult enough to feel like a challenge without becoming frustrating.
And, in keeping with that last point, I was also pleased to note that not every situation in the game can be remedied with a ruthless dosage of pummel; there are items to be gathered and puzzles to be solved - one moment you might be fleeing from a zombie disco, the next cooking dinner for a hungry flesh monster.
But what really makes this game stand out is the atmosphere. This game is creepy. Like, seriously creepy. Until you start to get used to it, the tension inside the mansion will have you reflexively karate-chopping your keyboard every few seconds. Wind whistles through the stonework, doors slam shut behind you, and I must have passed that ghost in the corridor at least three times and EVERY SINGLE TIME it made me leap about a foot into the air (quite painful when you're sitting at a desk).
Well, this brings me to the point where I have to mention the biggest flaw I found in this map. It's probably not fair to call it a flaw - more of a bug. Anyway: during his final 'muhuhahah I am so evil and now I will end you and destroy everything wahey' speech, the very horror of Count Sanguis' words seemed to be too much for the game to handle, and it locked me permanently in cinematic mode. Demanding closure, I went into the World Editor to check the triggering - it appeared to be fine, I couldn't really understand what was going wrong - but I found that by changing the modified duration of Sanguis' transmissions from 'Add' to 'Set to' I could circumnavigate this problem and proceed with my vampire slaying.
Also, while dialogue buttons can be useful in helping me to make difficult choices, when I am presented with a single dialogue button and no other options I sort of feel as though there isn't much of a choice to make. And, while I love the idea of using torches to light dark areas, giving the player a single 999-charge undroppable torch just makes it a chore. Perhaps if the torches were scattered about the complex, and Morning Star had to hastily retrieve them ere he was consumed by darkness...
In conclusion, aside from a few technical issues and some minor design faults, this is one of the most entertaining maps I've ever played. It's original, it's frightening, and mashing zombies beneath the wheels of a huge mechanical kill-mobile is just awesome.
Absolutely worth downloading and playing.
