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Casual Playthrough—Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek

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I’ve now finished Section 3 & have got all of the wedges. There were far too many HO scenes for me which I would have minded less if they had been less intricate! I finally got past the dog, skipped the lockpick puzzle but was very intrigued by Hamiton’s relationship with the missing girl now found as is her boyfriend – is Hamilton stalking her? or have I misinterpreted the scenario & got things completely wrong?

     
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I think the young man just got into the middle of things and was going to blow Hamilton’s cover.

     

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Lady Kestrel - 22 November 2014 06:24 PM

I think the young man just got into the middle of things and was going to blow Hamilton’s cover.

This is the one part of the story that troubled me. Hamilton is obviously there to investigate the death of his girlfriend. But under what “cover”? I think someone described him as a hermit. A hermit wearing a trench coat and a brown fedora? Not the typical hermit attire. The old man certainly fits the description better, but he has a nice house and is hardly a recluse.

I seriously doubt he is stalking the girl. His sole motivation appears to be avenging the loss of his girlfriend/lover thirty years ago at the hands of the preacher.

I think I said earlier that he appears to be an honorable sort. Rather than a hermit or recluse, I would call him a distant observer.

Rather than taking vengeance based on what would be (perfectly logical) assumptions. He awaits proof.

     

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ENIGMATIS: THE GHOSTS OF MAPLE CREEK PLAYTHROUGH – SECTION FOUR – FINAL SECTION


There’s no avoiding this place. Here’s where the answers lie.


You may now finish the game. For the next two days, while people are playing this last section, please continue to use spoiler tags.

If you have the CE version, you should also play the bonus chapter, which takes you back into the ruins of the distant past.

     

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The bonus game tells about what happened to Hamilton in the past.
What he finds in the house in the bonus chapter (Becky posted a picture of the hall), explains his actions at the end of the main game —why he feels he has to kill the preacher rather than arrest him. It doesn’t explain why he hasn’t done away with the preacher before now. Maybe the power the preacher was getting from the bell ringing and controlling the townspeople prevented Hamilton from acting. For some reason the preacher doesn’t think Hamilton is a threat (this was stated in one of the notes your character finds).

As far as I can tell, Hamilton and his girlfriend Emily were going to vacation in Maple Creek. I think they were planning to meet there, which is why Hamilton wasn’t with her at the beginning of the bonus game. After Hamilton realizes Emily is in trouble, but fails to save her, he leaves Maple Creek for a while. Later he returns to Maple Creek—ostensibly to “investigate” Emily’s disappearance, but actually to avenge her. It’s kind of strange how it’s the preacher who sends Hamilton to the house in the first place, considering that house is where Hamilton learns about the preacher’s true nature and how to kill him (it?) The house seems to have belonged to a Colonel Russell who was investigating the disappearance of women in his time (I think it was some time in the 1800’s). This is apparently the same house where nothing is left but the foundation in the main game.

I ended up with some pictures that I didn’t match to anything on the wall in the main game. A picture of a room that the main character commented was a nice room. There was also a picture of a house that I don’t think I explored in the main game. I think these were both pictures of the house in the bonus game.

     
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chrissie - 22 November 2014 09:00 AM

... but was very intrigued by Hamiton’s relationship with the missing girl now found as is her boyfriend – is Hamilton stalking her? or have I misinterpreted the scenario & got things completely wrong?

You might be mixing things up a bit (if I understood your post correctly), and have confused Emily for Kate.
The first victim Emily that went missing in 1981 was indeed Hamilton’s girlfriend, and she is the whole reason he is doing this. But Hamilton has no relationship with the latest missing girl Kate.

Exactly why he locks up Kate’s boyfriend is never really told, perhaps because he doesn’t want him to get in the way, or perhaps it is to protect him from the Preacher.

 

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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I have now finished both the main game and the bonus chapter, and I have to say that I have no less than 3 MAJOR problems with the story:

1) The Amnesia Thing

I don’t as such have any problems with amnesia stories in general, and in the beginning I actually thought that it was a nice touch and I was curious to see where they were going with this, but as the story progressed it became more and more obvious that they were actually going nowhere with it, and in the end the whole thing just sort of fizzled out.

First of all when you add a plot element like amnesia, then it has to be because you have to have a very good reason for it, there has to be some kind of plot twist or other element that you can’t really execute in a more normal manner. There has to be something that you discover about yourself or what you have done in the past, that should come as a big surprise and change everything - But this isn’t the case here, and without that twist or surprise, then it is imo just a cheap plot device or a kind of deus ex machina.

More importantly, what role does it actually play in this game, what is it we discover when we get our full memory back? Well what we discover is that we had actually already solved the case and caught the killer!

There are still a few details that we hadn’t discovered and we still hadn’t found and saved the girl, but pretty much all the important things had already happened before the game even started, and that is a very backwards way of telling a story and imo also not a very good way of doing so, or at least something that is difficult to pull off, and something that the game fails at doing.

So why did they do it, why did they add this amnesia thing? The only possible explanation I can think off, is that they thought that the Preacher would otherwise be too strong an antagonist. That they wanted him to be some passive antagonist sitting in a hole, with only few and weak options to hinder or oppose the protagonist, instead of an active and dangerous antagonist that could pose a serious threat to our heroine.

But I think that was a mistake, I think that the game would actually have benefited from some more direct peril and opposition. Despite the spooky setting I think one of the main problems with this game is that the protagonist is never in any real danger or faces any major obstacles.

2) Hamilton

[spoiler]What the h… have Hamilton actually been doing all these years?
Sitting in his cabin in the woods smoking weeds and eating “mushrooms”, telling himself that tomorrow I will get around to that thing that I actually came here to do… 30 years ago!

I mean c’mon… Hamilton has been trying to stop the preacher for 30 freaking years and have accomplish absolutely nothing! Then Unnamed Heroine (do we ever learn her name?) arrives in town and solves the whole thing in a few days - is Hamilton completely incompetent? How is it possible that he can have watched a serial killer closely for 30 years, and then never actually caught him red-handed, discovered where he have hid the bodies or found any evidence whatsoever against him?

And if his motive is vengeance, then why wait for Unnamed Heroine to arrive in town before he actually does anything about it?

Okay… I guess that part could be explained by him not being 100% certain that it is actually the Preacher that is the killer, and wanting proof before killing him, as Tim suggested… but then the bonus chapter comes along and destroys that hypothesis.

In the Bonus Chapter Hamilton learns with certainty that it is the preacher that has kidnapped Emily and later kills her, and he even attacks Hamilton in a scene somewhat similar to the flashback with Unnamed Heroine in the main game, this time however with Hamilton ending up in the hole.

So what does Hamilton do after he escapes?
Does he run to the nearest police station yelling that his girlfriend has been killed by a madman who also attacked himself?
Even if he doesn’t have any conclusive evidence and it would be word against word, then the police would still have reacted with dogs, search parties, warrants and whatnot, and at least potentially the whole thing could have ended back then.

But no, instead he first flees country, and then returns a couple of years later, and just sits in his shack smoking his weed, and waits patiently for 30 years until Unnamed Heroine arrives in town, so he can finally fulfil his role in this game as[/spoiler] The Donor

(continued in next post)

     

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3) The Ending

[spoiler]So we have saved the girl, solved the case, found the killer trapped in an underground cave with no possibility of escape, reinforcements are on the way and there is no immediate danger or risk to anyone or anything.

So what do we do now?
What would a trained FBI agent and skilled detective do in this situation?
How do they teach you to handle this at the FBI academy?

Do we simply wait for the reinforcements to arrive, take a nice little rest and congratulate ourself on solving the case and trapping the culprit, and let the police take care of the rest?

Do we arrest the culprit, put him and handcuffs, hogtie him with rope, cables, curtains or whatever we can find, arm ourself with a gun, axe chainsaw or whatever and watch him like a hawk to make sure that he doesn’t escape?

Do we put a bullet between his eyes to make sure that he never kills anyone again, and claim self-defence when the police arrives, or as it is the case in this game, allow Hamilton to cut out his black heart?

No of course not!

These things is what a sane person with just the tiniest speckle of common sense would do… what we of course do instead, is that we throw down a rope ladder, climb down unarmed and unprepared to the demonic sadistic serial killer with supernatural powers and then conveniently turn our back to him while we search the rest of the cave, because as we all know:
Demonic sadistic serial killers with supernatural powers who are looking at minimum life sentence possibly death row, are also really good sports that know when they have been defeated and wouldn’t dream of doing something as dishonourable as trying to escape![/spoiler]

Yes, I know, they wanted him to escape because they wanted to have the possibility of continuing the story in a sequel, and they wanted that big dramatic moment with Hamilton because… well because they did. But c’mon… there are other and better ways to do this, than by having the protagonist act like a complete imbecile.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Iznogood - 23 November 2014 05:31 AM

Yes, I know, they wanted him to escape because they wanted to have the possibility of continuing the story in a sequel, and they wanted that big dramatic moment with Hamilton because… well because they did. But c’mon… there are other and better ways to do this, than by having the protagonist act like a complete imbecile.

Yes that was lame—though that sort of thing is not uncommon in casual games.

You have to come up with your own explanation…
For example, your character doesn’t tie up the preacher or cuff him because he still has some residual mind control power—he makes her believe it isn’t necessary and that destroying the ritual table is the priority. The preacher is also able to make Hamilton delay stabbing him. It appeared in the game that Hamilton decided to “sacrifice” the preacher on the ritual table instead of just stabbing him outright. So maybe the preacher caused that minor change in plan. Then your character destroyed the table, allowing time for the preacher to escape.

     
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None of that bothered me too much, Izno.  Plot elements are often not explained, especially in the earlier casual games.  Why did she go down there when she knew it was dangerous?  It’s sort of like a B horror movie where a character enters the creepy mansion when anyone with the brains of a cheeseburger knows it’s a stupid idea.  Basically, it moves the plot along. 

The ending was purposely vague to allow for the sequel, which is a better game, and I’m glad we’ll be playing them back-to-back.  Also, Hamilton hadn’t been back in Maple Creek that long.  He had investigated the preacher before Emily was killed and managed to escape Maple Creek after she died.  I forget where it was mentioned, but it seems that the demon, Asmodai, needs to feed on souls periodically, so there was nothing to investigate in the town until the people started disappearing again.

     

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I hate to beat this dead horse, but it seems that, yet again, we come up with a plausible reason for why things happened the way they did in the SE version of the game only to have that logic take a nosedive when contained in the CE is revealed. In this instance, as it did in Angelica, the CE information not only fails to make things clearer, it only serves to make things more confused.

     

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I think the heroine/detective is unnamed—at least, I could never find her name on any correspondence or any other place it normally would appear.

Re: Amnesia—In the last cutscene (I believe it was the last one in the SE edition) we see the heroine struck by lightning. That’s what caused her amnesia.

Re: The Ending—[spoiler]The Preacher couldn’t be made vulnerable until his bell was destroyed and he can only be killed (once the bell was destroyed) with a specific dagger. Hamilton never managed to silence the bell. Once the heroine/detective managed that feat, Hamilton had to locate the Preacher to use the knife. Apparently the heroine/detective had found the knife before her amnesia occurred (Hamilton had to get into her room to steal it after the storm). Hamilton’s knowledge of the Preacher’s vulnerabilities came from Colonel Russell’s notes in the bonus chapter. I think the Preacher sent Hamilton to the Colonel’s house, where he’d find Emily’s stuff, as a way to trap him—to get him to come to the ritual slaughter place. I assume that the Preacher didn’t know that there was evidence in the Russell house that could lead to his (the Preacher’s) death. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have sent Emily and then Hamilton there.

Re: The Phantasmat-like peering-in-at-windows— I first noticed this when sitting in the car early in the game. The screenshot above of the dining room actually has a figure peering into the room at the window. Like Tim, I think it’s Hamilton. I don’t think the Preacher needs to peer in—I think, while the bell is active, he can sense what’s going on with every person in Maple Creek.

Did anybody notice that in the bonus chapter when Emily is about to be killed, she’s wearing jeans and a shirt. Yet when the heroine/detective finds Emily’s body (and a bunch of other bodies) Emily is still wearing the necklace that opens Hamilton’s box, but she’s now attired in a dress. Is there any reason the Preacher would change her clothing after he killed her?

     
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I think Emily’s attire was just a mistake in consistency.

     

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crabapple - 23 November 2014 12:10 PM

You have to come up with your own explanation…

I kind of like that explanation, a bit far fetched, but it is at least an explanation that makes sense.

Lady Kestrel - 23 November 2014 01:37 PM

None of that bothered me too much, Izno.  Plot elements are often not explained, especially in the earlier casual games.

I know I shouldn’t expect Shakespeare from a casual game, but the other games we have played here in these CP’s did do much better story-wise IMO, and at least avoided any major problems.

Lady Kestrel - 23 November 2014 01:37 PM

Also, Hamilton hadn’t been back in Maple Creek that long.  He had investigated the preacher before Emily was killed and managed to escape Maple Creek after she died. I forget where it was mentioned, but it seems that the demon, Asmodai, needs to feed on souls periodically, so there was nothing to investigate in the town until the people started disappearing again.

Emily was abducted and killed in 1981, and it says in the bonus chapter that Hamilton returned to Maple Creek a few years later, so if we assume that the main game takes place pretty much at the present, then it means that Hamilton must have been in Maple Creek for at least 25 years. You might be right about it only being recent that people started to disappear again, I can’t remember the dates of the other cases, but it still feels very forced, like they wanted Hamilton to play a specific role in the game regardless of whether or not it actually makes sense.

Becky - 23 November 2014 07:22 PM

Re: The Ending—[spoiler]The Preacher couldn’t be made vulnerable until his bell was destroyed and he can only be killed (once the bell was destroyed) with a specific dagger. Hamilton never managed to silence the bell.

But that is exactly the problem that I had with it, that Hamilton never managed to accomplish any of the things that our heroine does in a few days, so he either has to be completely incompetent, or our heroine is some kind of super-detective that succeeds where other fails - and I don’t buy it.

     

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And I say again…wipe your brain clean of every bit of knowledge gained from playing the bonus material found in the CE version. (For those of you that decided to go that route.)

It all makes sense if you only consider the facts you have available from playing the basic game. Except, I admit, Iz’s incredulity re: our protagonist turning her back on the Preacher during the endgame sequence.

I’m going to say it again. I believe the playthrough discussion should be limited to the experience of playing the basic game. If people wish to discuss alternative theories that arise from their CE experience, have at it, but it should be on a separate thread.

Or, make it a requirement that everyone purchase the CE. I don’t believe that should be the case.

Neither should it be the case that eight out of twelve players should have their conclusions rendered invalid by four players that have “inside information.”

Yes, there is YouTube. But really….do you really want to watch a two-hour video of someone playing HO screens in order to capture the “essence” of the bonus chapter? I can only speak for myself, but not me, never again.

     

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