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Casual Playthrough—Phantasmat

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Becky - 30 October 2014 08:27 PM

1. Who or what pulled us – the player(s)—into the Drowned Dead Hotel world?
2. Where is the Proprietor’s treasure/money cache hidden?
3. In your opinion, which character most deserved his or her fate?
4. Are there common factors to the visions you experience (the ones that knock you out and leave you waking with one eye slit open)?

1. My guess is that it was the girl.
2. We saw it in the locked room during several visions. There is no reason to expect that it’s not still there…just out of our limited sightline. Hiding the seven keys would seem to be safer and more secure than hiding the money.
3. Certainly the proprietor and socialite deserved their fate. One was a double murderer, so perhaps he was most deserving. As to Chrissie’s question, her motivation as pure ambition. She said that she wasn’t satisfied with just being called Mrs. Mayor.
4. The one glitch in the common thread hypothesis is the “road” dream, because you wake up in a place different from where the dream started.

Now I have two questions.

1. We can safely assume that the skeleton in the belfry is that of the girl. And the skeleton in the second floor room in town is the adventurer. So who’s skeleton is in the locked room? The hotel owner or the proprietor? And if one of those, where is the other skeleton. And, where is the socialite’s skeleton.

2. Did the girl actually die in the flood? Or did she die of something else, e.g. starvation, because she was trapped in the belfry after the flood? I’m actually kind of leaning towards the latter.

     

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furgotten - 31 October 2014 11:14 AM

I decided to take a large swatch I had of my horse’s tail hair, cover it with part of a sheet and wear it around my head. I am playing as a ghost tail.

Nice pun I think, Furgotten.  Grin

     

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1) Probably the girl although it does not look like her. A case could be made for the adventurer.
2) Didn’t the proprietor say he drowned while trying to hide/recover his money? So underwater would be my guess.
3) The socialite because what she did was a deep betrayal of trust.

1a) I’m guessing the skeleton in the room is the hotel owner. Maybe the proprietor is in the rolls royce trying to get away. The socialite said she drowned crying over her husband’s grave so she is in the cemetery which is convenient.

I love just about everything about this game except the overabundance of hidden object scenes. If I were to do a remake of it I would find a different way to acquire inventory items rather than through those.

Thank you, Lady K. I thought it was appropriate given the game. Crazy

     
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Finished now - I decided to go for the disco costume, the invisible man costume is simply too dangerous to wear when going out of the house especially in traffic, and the disco theme also seemed fitting given that the flood happened in the 70’s.

The end doesn’t really add much that we didn’t already knew or had guessed, only a few extra details.

The proprietor drowned while he was busy hiding all the money from his robberies. Taking advantage of the fact the the town had (mostly) been evacuated so he could move around freely, without being recognized as a wanted man, and then most likely either simply lost track of time, or couldn’t get himself to leave before all the money was hidden. You could say that he died of greed.

The old lady drowned while she was weeping at her dead husbands grave. Exactly why she choose not to evacuate with the rest is never said, but it could be because she was simply tired of living, or that she thought that she deserved to be punished for her crime, I never for believed that she loved him for just one second, but she did fell bad about what she had done. You could say that she died of guilt.

As for the young girl then when don’t really learn anything new, apart from the fact that it is the groom that is to blame for her dead: “An engagement ring given to her by her lover, who eventually led her to her death”. I did however realize that what I had previous interpreted as the groom committing suicide, was in fact the murder of the mayor, so it seems like he is still alive and kicking. You could say that the young girl died of a broken hearth.

I also saw a quick youtube video of the bonus section, and even though it didn’t change anything or added some new story changing twists, then it did add a few details to the story:

The groom was apparently some kind of conman, who got young girls to fall in love with him, swindled them out of their money, and then left them standing at the alter. According to the old lady he had done this before.

It also explains why the wedding was taking place at the same day as the flooding, and the reason is pretty much the same as for why the proprietor chose this day to hide his money. The groom had insisted that the weeding should happen in secret, because he was afraid of being recognized, and on this day the town was pretty much deserted. Why he should worry about this if he never intended to show up at the weeding is however another question.

I also couldn’t help but to take a snap of the car waiting in front of the church, just before the flooding happened:

Edit: Also note the the skeleton is actually in the car before the flooding ?!?
So either it is a very special limo-service or the skeleton is purely a HO object.

     

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

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As for your questions:

1) In the bonus section the proprietor says the the girl dragged them all back into her memory of her wedding day, so I would say that it was also the girl that brought us here. But if I hadn’t seen the bonus, then I don’t think I would have been able to answer that.

2) If I knew that then I wouldn’t tell, instead I would be out buying some scuba gear and a shovel Wink Somewhere underwater in the flooded town.

3) [spoiler]The proprietor gangster. A professional criminal without a hint of conscience or remorse who has most likely killed not just once but many times. The old lady is also a murderer, but it happened many years ago, she has never done it again, and she has regretted it ever since. As for the young girl, well if being a bit naive was a crime then she would be guilty, but it isn’t so she isn’t. So as I see it there is really not much of a contest here.[/spoiler]

4) Hmmmm… Whenever we learn something knew? Whenever we get closer to the truth? Perhaps it is the girl that knocks us out, because she doesn’t want so to know she is dead, doesn’t want to know herself that she is dead?

As for Tim’s questions:

1) [spoiler]It’s the hotel owners body, he was shot in this very room by the proprietor gangster, it happened shortly before the flooding and the proprietor was too busy hiding the money to dispose of his body. Also as I remember it, the body (not skeleton) looked like the former hotel owner.
Both the gangster and the old lady was out in the open, when they were hit by the flood, so their bodies could have ended up anywhere.[/spoiler]

2) I would say that she drowned, at least that was my clear impression. Even if the top of the tower is now over water, then that was necessarily the case during the flood, and I also seem to remember the water flowing into the tower, during the hatch even after she had closed it. But we never do actually see exactly how any of the three died.

     

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

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furgotten - 31 October 2014 07:39 PM

1) 2) Didn’t the proprietor say he drowned while trying to hide/recover his money? So underwater would be my guess.

He also said something like he was hiding the key to the money. Which I interpret as hiding the keys. Two of the keys were found underwater. He certainly could have drowned while hiding the last of those keys.

The girl is another problem. We have discovered three skeletons. (Four if you count the Rolls driver that accidentally crashed into the lake.)  Smile [spoiler]If the one in the locked room is the hotel owner, then two of the three did not die in the flood. Which, I think lends credence to the fact that the girl, who’s skeleton is in the belfry, also didn’t die in the flood. The missing skeletons belong to the two characters who did die in the flood.[/spoiler]

A few other odds and ends. I restarted again to try and catch a glimpse of the girl’s image immediately post crash. I didn’t, but Iz’s screenshot proved it was there. But I continued to play and caught her image again in the bathroom mirror of room 106. It came so fast that I was unable to get a screenshot. It’s only about 10 minutes into the game so I guess I could go back and try to grab it if anyone is interested.

I did wake up this morning. Showered and shaved. Put on a freshly starched shirt, suit and tie. Made sure the tasseled Gucci loafers were well polished. Presented myself as the management consultant I used to be. Got a few pieces of candy. Then went home and changed into the sweatpants, turtleneck and tenniess I usually wear since I retired. Mission accomplished!

     

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I’m not that surprised that the Girl showed up for a second in the bathroom mirror. She really seems to get around!

The skeletal remains in the locked room in the hotel basement are those of the original hotel owner, the one the Proprietor killed in order to take over the hotel. For this playthrough, I bought the CE version (I’d owned the SE version originally). And it’s clearly stated in the character profiles in the bonus part of the CE that the Proprietor died while in the town attempting to bury his stash of money. The odd thing, though, is that if you look around the basement room, the stash of cash is still there (at least, the stash of bills is still there). I did, however, find a skull, a bag of money (coins), and a gangster-like-hat in a Hidden Object scene in the pet shop. Could this be what’s left of the Proprietor?

The bonus chapter in this game is unusual in that I found the concept art and the character profiles more interesting than the bonus game itself. The bonus game is rather repetitive (some of the same puzzles are reused, for example). It does clarify a bit of what’s going on—as mentioned earlier in the thread, it states that, for the bonus chapter, the characters are trapped in the Girl’s memory of the moment right before the flood. This might indicate that the world of the main portion of the game is a combination of the memories of the three characters, trapped together or even trapped there by one another’s guilt, fear, and denial.

The screenshot of the limo before the flood might contain the skeleton because the skeleton is the chauffer who died waiting for the Girl, and in her memory she hasn’t come to terms with that, so she doesn’t remember him as a person—in the main part of the town, you see shadows racing around that represent the people fleeing the area, and she doesn’t remember them as people either, only as shadows. A wackier explanation is that the wedding and flood actually took place on Halloween (the leaves on the trees are clearly changing, so the wedding and flood took place in the autumn), and someone had placed a skeleton in the limo as a tip-of-the-hat to the day of the dead, so to speak.

There is also a skull in the HO scene in the Socialite’s bedroom—would it be too odd if her own skull had found its way into her bedroom? Perhaps a small slice of her mind, that has grasped the truth, enables it to be there?

Showing additional ways the characters can affect their environment, in the final Section that we just finished, both the Proprietor and the Socialite handed us an item that could then be used in the gameworld.

     
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I put on my disco costume (which is in fact the only joke costume I have).
Basically looks like this:

Wig:

Sunglasses:

Disco shirt:

But since that’s more of a Carnival thing than a Halloween thing, I put a large white sheet over it.

I was the Ghost of Disco. Tongue





And I felt really stupid…

Not because of the outfit, but because I only had 6 of the 7 mysterious keys in my possession, and I went over every location twice, thinking I had missed a HOG somewhere.
Turns out I had simply forgotten about [spoiler]the key in the fish piranha tank[/spoiler] - that’ll teach me not to write down any notes.
After twenty minutes of obtuseness, I grabbed the last key and went on to finish the game…

I quite like the ending. It neatly wraps up all the stories, they kept the character backgrounds relatively simple (which is a plus, I hate seeing things happen on too large a scale), and it was a good conclusion to a great game.


All in all, this has been a pretty awesome casual game. If only it weren’t so heavy on the HOGs…




As for the questions:

1. I think it was the girl. She knew something strange was going on and was desperate for outside help.

2. My initial thought was that he simply had it in the locked room, but that wouldn’t explain how he died in the flood. Unless that giant hole in the basement wall (where the elevator is) had something to do with that.
Perhaps the adventurer was right, and he did in fact bury it somewhere in town (somewhere that’s now under water). Maybe the proprietor then drowned trying to bury it, or he drowned trying to dig it up again (to save it from the flood)???
Either way, I’m not sure, but at this point it’s such a minor plot element that I don’t mind it’s left pretty much open to debate (unless the CE has something to say about it?)...

Edit:
I’ll go with Iznogood’s theory as I like that one best:
The proprietor was burying it in town on the day of the flood (because the town was deserted then). He then drowned when the flood hit.

3. The proprietor deserves this most. He’s a bank robber and a murderer who doesn’t show any remorse. The old lady is a murderer as well, but at least she has regretted it (and suffered for that) for a good deal of her lifetime. The girl was innocent. Naive, but innocent.

4. It seemed to happen whenever we got closer to the truth. So it’s the ghosts not wanting to find out that they’re dead (or have their secrets exposed) that are causing it? Although that doesn’t make sense, since it was often accompagnied with a vision of the past, so maybe they DID want us to find out what happened and the ‘blackouts’ were pushing us in the right direction?

1 b) It’s the previous hotel owner in the locked room. I assume that’s where the proprietor killed him. As for the old lady and the proprietor: if they were “in the open” (in the graveyard and somewhere in town) when the flood hit, their bodies could be anywhere.

2 b) I say she drowned. Just because the belfry is above water now, doesn’t mean that was the case during the flood (or before the water settled).


And now I’ll check out a YouTube playthrough of the bonus chapter - see if we learn something new…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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Watched a playthrough of the bonus CE chapter. The puzzles were just rehashes of ones we’d solved already, so gameplay-wise it wasn’t that good.
Story-wise, it gives more info in the least-developed of the three backstories (and it makes it even more tragic, imo).

The best thing about that chapter, though, is seeing the town in all its pre-flood glory. That was really nice to see!

Iznogood - 31 October 2014 08:52 PM

Edit: Also note the the skeleton is actually in the car before the flooding ?!?
So either it is a very special limo-service or the skeleton is purely a HO object.

My guess is it’s purely a HO object, so not a *real* skeleton.



One odd thing about the CE chapter, though: the old lady was living at her mansion, not at the hotel…  Confused

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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TimovieMan - 01 November 2014 07:12 PM

One odd thing about the CE chapter, though: the old lady was living at her mansion, not at the hotel…  Confused

Yes, I was surprised at that, too, but I guess she was the logical one to be there to tell us about the diary and the con man groom.  Asking us to fetch money for her was a bit…er…far-fetched, but I did like the puzzle. 

I do agree that the HOs became tedious, but, fortunately, most casual games have much more variation nowadays.  It has always been a pet peeve of mine that once you take an object away, it should stay away if you’re going to have to go back to the same scene.

     

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Warning—Spoilers from this Point On in the Playthrough/Thread

Since I imagine that most people have now completed the game, those who wish to can drop the spoiler tags. People reading from this point on (I’ll post this at the top of each thread for those who are skimming) should be aware that spoilers may be posted and that images may also contain spoilers.

My answers to the last set of questions.

1. Who or what pulled us – the player(s)—into the Drowned Dead Hotel world?

The consensus seems to be that the Girl did this, and I agree. The Proprietor and the Socialite don’t want a lot of visitors because they have things to hide. The girl wants out and doesn’t realize that she is actually hiding something from herself that might be discovered if someone new starts snooping around.

2. Where is the Proprietor’s treasure/money cache hidden?

I mentioned earlier that there’s a skull, a hat and a bag of money in the Pet Shop. However, it’s part of a Hidden Object scene. Using HOs to tell the story is tricky because so much that’s plopped on the screen is NOT part of the story. It leads someone like me to come up with even wilder theories than usual.


3. In your opinion, which character most deserved his or her fate?

I would say the Proprietor because of his ruthless disregard for human life and his lack of regret for the pain he caused. The three characters together provide a close study into the art and practice of selfishness. Yet it’s somehow fascinating instead of repugnant, maybe because of how the truth about them is revealed.

4. Are there common factors to the visions you experience (the ones that knock you out and leave you waking with one eye slit open)?

I’m still wrestling with these visions because everything in them is information that the three characters are trying NOT to reveal. So why do we see these things? Do we have a direct connection into a part of the characters’ minds that they are trying to shield, even from themselves in some cases?

     
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Something I noticed as the game progressed—as we learned more of the truth, lights in some of the areas we had solved became apparent. So the landscape is gradually illuminated.

The exterior at the beginning of the game, lights out.

Here, with the electricity on.

And here late in the game, with light shining from the cemetery and on the church tower.

The same phenomenon from the overlook outside the hotel.

     
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Seaweed seems to be a symbol of ruin or corruption, but also almost a defense mechanism or weapon for the three characters.

Here are the sewers as you first venture in.

The seaweed grows impossibly fast as you are exiting.

Clearly someone (the Socialite, I assume) doesn’t want you venturing back there again.

     
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Been away for a day or two. And will be away again until Tuesday afternoon my time.

I wonder if there is an easy way to bring everyone’s opinions front and center.

I’ll go with a few of mine: (And this is all based on the SE game we played. I think that any opinions should be based solely on the information gathered from this version of the game.)

The only person that thinks the proprietor buried his money underwater is the adventurer. I think the money is still in the seven-key vault. And it was the keys, not the money that the proprietor was trying to hide when the flood came.

I think the girl didn’t die in the flood, but from other causes resulting from her inability to escape from the tower. That would explain why we can find the skeletons of three people who didn’t die in the flood, but are unable to find the bones of the two people who did die in the flood.

The adventurer died post-flood. The only reasonable explanation for his death is suicide caused by his perceived persecution by the proprietor’s ghost. That is well documented in the two tape recordings he left behind. His weapon of choice was the gun found in his hand.

I still don’t believe in the skeleton as limo driver. You would have to play the game enough times, but “skull” eventually comes up as an object in this HO scene, and the driver’s is it. It’s simply either an object in the scene or an irrelevant prop that arrived at the scene after the fact. Nothing more significant than that.

AGAIN all of the above are solely based on knowledge gained from playing the SE version of the game.

     

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I think the girl drowned.  Why else would they show the scene with the water pouring into the tower? Since the tower is high, the water would have drained out again relatively quickly, leaving her body there.

     

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