Adventure Gamers - Forums

Sorry, real life kept me busy the past days.

>take tome
>search armchair (or between pillows of armchair, at least I assume it is the type of armchair you can lose stuff between the pillows in)
>open doors
>e

>get tome
Taken.

>search armchair
The armchair is empty.

>e
(opening the sliding doors first)
Michael is in the study, typing furiously at his laptop. As you walk in he looks up at you with a pained expression. “Can it wait?” he asks you. “I think I’m onto something really good here, and if I don’t get it all out I’m going to lose it. If you don’t mind, hon, I could really use the next hour or so to myself.”

Not wanting to disturb him, you tiptoe out, shutting the doors quietly behind you.

A little blue triangle means it’s too dark to see anything in the room.

>s

Children’s Bedroom
This must be the children’s bedroom. The bed is smaller than the one in the master bedroom, its bright coverlet providing one of the few feeble splashes of color in what must have been, for most of its history, a joylessly Puritan household. A small vanity table occupies the opposite wall, and in the corner under the window stands an ancient crib. The only exit is to the north.

A child’s jewelry box sits on the corner of the vanity.

>x bed
Not as fancy as the four-poster, but it looks comfortable enough.

>x coverlet
Not as fancy as the four-poster, but it looks comfortable enough.

>x table
A simple vanity table, scaled down for a child, spartan in design and almost wholly without decoration. It’s hard to imagine keeping any sort of makeup or jewelry on it, but then again, vanity of even the most innocent kind was probably discouraged in most of the Verlac children.

>x crib
The crib is made of wood and held together with pegs, not nails. It’s probably at least as old as the house.

>x box
It’s hardly larger than your hand, made of wood and charmingly decorated with a picture of children dancing around a Maypole. Most likely a plaything of one of the later Verlac children. The lid is closed.

>open box
You open the jewelry box, revealing a silver locket.

>x locket
It is oval-shaped, held shut with a tiny clasp.

Oscar - 30 September 2016 11:22 PM

Charming fellow, our husband.

Hey wait - laptop? What year is this? I assumed it was 50s or earlier. For a start there are lanterns and people smoking long pipes in the pub, and lunatic asylums stopped being used a long time ago. The town can’t be that backwater.

Don’t you remember, you’ve played the game. As we will hopefully discover at some point during the second day of the game, it’s 1997. Developer Michael Gentry released Anchorhead in 1998.

>get locket
You pick up the silver locket. It is oval-shaped, held shut with a tiny clasp.

>open it
You open the silver locket, revealing a boy’s picture.

>x boy’s picture
The boy in the picture looks no more than three or four years old. He is smiling, but there is something disconcerting about his expression, as though his head were not shaped quite right or his features had been placed slightly wrong. He might possibly have been mentally retarded. It’s difficult to tell, because the picture has been cropped so closely you can’t even see the edges of the boy’s face. Only his features fill the tiny frame.

>i
You are wearing your trenchcoat, your clothes and your wedding ring; in addition, you have in your hands a silver locket and a jewelry box (which is open but empty).

The pockets of your trenchcoat contain The Compleat Manual of Wardes and Seales, a typewritten notice, a towel, Michael’s faculty card, a keyring, on which are two keys (a key to the house and a key to the cellar), your umbrella and a flask (which is closed).

Oscar - 01 October 2016 10:08 AM

There are a lot of typewritten notices around the game for 1997, wouldn’t you say?

Just the one.

>look in crib
The crib is empty.

>look under table
You find nothing of interest.

>look under coverlet
You notice some odd scratches in the floor around the legs of the bed frame—marks about six inches long, scored into the wood. Otherwise, nothing but shadows and dust under the bed.

wilco - 01 October 2016 12:27 PM

Scratches? mmm

let’s go downstairs and unpack

>n
>w
>d
>open luggage or unpack

What?!? You’d rather unpack than investigate the gloomy old mansion and discover its secrets? Just remember the mysterious scratches…

>n
Upstairs Hall

>w
Upstairs Landing

>d
Foyer
Although it appears spacious from the outside, the house’s interior feels cramped and gloomy. The walls seem too close together; the ceiling is too high. The doorways, leading in several directions, are narrow and filled with shadows, and the stairs leading up to the second floor are steep and rickety. This is not a house that makes you feel welcome. It is a house that makes you feel tiny and timid, and afraid of dark places. It is a house that makes you feel alone.

Your luggage is still here, spread out all over the foyer.

>unpack luggage
Honestly, you just can’t muster enough motivation.

What did I tell you.
Let’s explore some more!