GHOST HOUSE

After their friend's grandfather dies, leaving behind an old, abandoned house, Amanda Heissler is contacted by their childhood friend they hadn't heard from in years, getting invited to meet with the rest of their former group to help clear out this derelict place. The group get locked into the house, discovering it's full of ghosts, and are tasked with the same goal as the previous story's team. Led by Vincent Mendoza-Garcia, the grandson of the owner of the House, the trapped explorers begin trying to find a way out of this place.

However - Mandy still holds a deep, bitter, festering grudge over a terrible accident that happened before they had all lost contact years and years ago, and these feelings are bubbling back up again after years of suppression. Can they resist the urge to get revenge against these people who hurt them so deeply?

The demo begins with Rosie and Dotty walking through the woods at night, having abandoned a school dance to look for Moe, their mutual friend. He had run away into the woods due to being rejected at the school dance, rather harshly, it appears. As they search, they hear shouting, which they assume is Moe and follow to a decrepit house in the middle of the forest. The two hurry inside, seeing Moe in the living room but finding the glass doors into the room are locked. Rosie suggests searching the entryway for a key, where the player can choose to either search the shoe cubby or the cabinet.

Regardless of the player's choice, the characters find a key in a child's boot with the name 'EDDIE' written on the bottom, and a stack of letters in the shoe cubby. Before they enter the living room, Dotty asks to read the letters, which are sent back and forth between a mother and her eldest son. The mother talks about the younger children, about how an Emmeryn is suffering from an unknown ailment that causes her nose to bleed and her skin to be ice cold. Eventually, Emmeryn passes away, to which the eldest son says he will head home soon.

Rosie is a little frightened by this, but Dotty teases her, which makes her annoyed. They bicker for a moment before they're interrupted by a mysterious child, who Rosie identifies as one of the children from a photograph that had been attached to the letters. The mysterious boy says he's playing hide-n-seek with his sister, and he hasn't seen their friend Moe. After he runs off, warning them not to disturb the chef in the kitchen, Dotty tells Rosie she knew the boy was the same boy in the photo, and decides to move on.

After the encounter, Dotty takes the lead, since Rosie is shaken. It's this point where Rosie notices she's somehow missing her necklace, a gift from her mom, and Dotty promises to search for the necklace after they find Moe and leave. She tucks the photo of the dead twins in a cabinet and heads into the kitchen with Rosie, the only place Moe could have headed into. On the other side of the door is a warped, stretched kitchen, which confuses the two visitors badly. They're attacked by a ghost, and no matter what the player picks, Rosie will always die to this attack. The demo ends here.

The player is introduced to Klair early into the prologue - a college student whose kid brother went missing recently while walking home, which prompted them to drive back to their hometown to help in the search and rescue efforts. However, the first thing they really did was meet up with their old friends, Bonnie, Issac, and Leon, going barhopping to celebrate the team's reunion and passing out at Issac and Leon's residence. Klair wakes late in the night to a thunderstorm, finding that Leon had wandered off in the night, which prompts them to wake Bonnie and Issac to help them investigate.

With their friends and flashlights, Klair goes out into the night and investigates some tracks in the mud, which look like shoeprints headed for the forest's edge by the property. Assuming these are from Leon and following them, the group finds a mysterious building they don't recognize out in the darkness, and Leon standing in the front doorway to the residence. When they call out to him, he runs deeper into the building, so of course Klair and friends decide to follow him.

After they set foot into the place, the front doors slam shut and lock, sealing them in.

Deciding to investigate their surroundings, Klair finds the place they're in is an abandoned house - there's still family photos up on the walls, and furniture covered with white sheets populates the rooms. It doesn't look like anyone has lived here for a long time. They also discover that it's unnaturally dusty and dark in this place, which causes Bonnie to start to panic. Issac heads down the hall to see if he can find Leon while Klair tries to cheer Bonnie up, but as the two are talking together, they hear Issac shout in alarm in the distance and freeze. After a minute, a bright light approaches them from where he was, which Klair discovers is a little sprite-sized ghost named Bai.

Bai returns Issac to the party, since he was attacked by other, more ferocious ghosts. They reveal they're not here to hurt the friends, and - as a gesture of good faith - offer them all some weapons to defend themselves against the ghosts they'll encounter while in the House. While there's several options, Klair ultimately decides to go with a wooden baseball bat, after which Bai begins leading Klair and co upstairs to the attic (where they claim Leon likely headed). They find the hatch to the attic is locked, so they can't check if Leon's up there. Bai tells them they need to collect pieces of a key from various areas of the House, from strong and vengeful ghosts who fell victim to the House in the past.

On the walk down to the basement, Klair can talk to either Issac or Bonnie. They finally enter the basement to find it's a large, dusty, dank area, filled to the brim with cardboard boxes that form a maze into what feels like infinity. Bai explains that, in order to get the key piece, they need to remind the ghost who holds the key piece of who he once was. Luckily, the House is willing to help the friends by spawning clues and mementos that will allow them to learn about the ghost and share that during their encounter, but the ghost can also be fought. Bai recommends against this, though - when taking enough damage in this world, ghosts will dissipate and reform over a long period of time, taking the key piece with them.

The player must guide Klair through the maze in the basement, encountering different, smaller ghosts and gathering clues as they go. During their investigation, they learn about Nicholas Cornielle, a French pilot who joined the British army during World War II to fight against Nazis that had killed his first love and intended fiance, Jacob Jackson. At the end of the maze, they encounter the ghost of Nick, presenting him with evidence of who he was to remind him of what happened to him. While he's resistant and attempts to attack Klair and their friends the whole conversation, Bai shields them all, and Nick's finally worn down into surrender.

After Nick finally accepts who he was and remembers his past life, he's prepared to move on, giving his piece of the attic key to Klair. When he disappears, the basement does as well, so the team hurries back to the living room - the safest place in the House thus far - in order to discuss what happened and what to do next. Before they can catch their breath, though, Leon appears at the front entrance to the House, on the ground, unconscious.

Issac interrupts the conversation to check on Leon, who's wounded and unnaturally cold. Bonnie uses medical supplies Klair scavenges up to patch Leon's injuries up, and they wait for him to wake up, sitting around the couch. Bai alludes to the ghost who runs the House, though they're unable to expand on who she is and what her deal is. The friends talk about what to do once Leon wakes, which is to head to the library for the second key piece. As they wait, Bonnie asks Klair why they came back to their hometown, since they hadn't explained yet during all the celebration. Before Klair can answer, Leon comes to.

While they do try to get information from Leon, he's still pretty out of it - he doesn't remember running to the House, and he's acting irritable, which is out of character for him. He's very jumpy and skittish too, reacting unfavorably to Bai's presence when they introduce themself. He just keeps insisting they need to leave the House.

Klair and their friends decide to head for the library. During the walk, Klair can talk to Issac, Leon, or Bonnie. When they arrive at the library, they try to look outside the window, only to find it's just inky black void out there now. They proceed further into the library only to be attacked by a ghost, but Klair finds they don't have their baseball bat on them - there's no combat in the library, only riddle solving. As they go through, answering riddles from ghosts, they get more clues as to the identity of the ghost who lives in the library.

Towards the end, they start discussing the state of the ghosts in this House, and Bonnie expresses some empathy for the things. This prompts Leon to go into an uncharacteristically aggressive rant, revealing he knows the name of the ghost who owns the House - Emmeryn Albin - though he doesn't know how. Klair asks Bai if something is happening to Leon, to which Bai confirms Leon is being slowly taken over by Emmeryn's influence. Eventually, he'll be totally possessed, and either will take himself to the attic to be killed or kill everyone here first and then do that. Neither sounds appealing, so Klair picks up the pace.

They puzzle together that their ghost is Lydia Roe, a transgender woman who was engaged to be married to another woman. Her parents were notified of this wedding and sent the bride-to-be a badly written email, prompting her to have an emotional breakdown from her family's inacceptance. She disappeared into the woods, presumably found the House, and passed away in it.

Rather than do combat, Lydia's fight follows the same formula as the area before her encounter. She asks increasingly difficult 'who am I?' riddles, which culminate in her asking the player for what her name is, and for Klair to explain who she is. Klair obliges, and Lydia gives them the key piece before moving on, destroying the library in the House. The party returns to the front hallway, finding they also got an old envelope from Lydia during that fight.

The letters inside the envelope are from a doctor, who's informing a Mrs. Albin of her daughter's condition at the hospital. The girl has a mysterious ailment, which prompts her to be hungry and cold at all times, unnaturally so. She insists she needs to find her twin brother as well. The girl unfortunately passes away from this, revealing her name to the party.

Klair reveals to their friends that their kid brother, Jason Marsh, has been missing longer than usual without notice. Their friends comfort them about the issue, understanding now why they were so odd when they came back to town and why they didn't want to talk about what brought them home from college. After the pep talk, they head to the backyard, where the next key piece is. Stepping forward, they find themselves put into a fighting ring with a shadowy cheering audience, bright blinding lights, and an unknown announcer commentating on the event. Each member of the group is put against a ghost, forced to fight until the ghost dissipates or the human dies.

The ghosts drop clues as they dissipate, and the ring disappears each time, allowing the team to move forward only for the same trap to spring every so often. As they go, gathering these hints, they piece together the identity of their announcer. Rochelle Cordova was born to a neglectful mother and little money, deciding to run away rather than endure any more mistreatment in her life.

During this discussion, Bonnie yet again expresses sympathy for the ghosts, saying she wishes that Rochelle's life - and all the other ghosts' lives too - were easier on them. Leon, growing more and more irritable as time goes on, snaps at her for this, saying their only goal is to get the key piece and make it out alive.

At the end of the gauntlet, the team encounter Rochelle's ghost herself, and she fights them as they present to her the proof they've accumulated about her life before the House. She surrenders, ending the fight and giving them the key piece for the attic they need. Along with this, she gives them some kind of strange item - a memory orb, which Bai explains is a physical manifestation of a very emotionally powerful memory from a strong ghost. Klair decides not to investigate this item now, putting it away and preparing to head for the playroom for the final key piece.

When they stop in the living room, they realize each ghost kind of ties into their own struggles in some way. Bai says it's a funny coincidence.

The group heads to the playroom, though strangely, upon entering, it isn't as warped as the other rooms have been in this House. There's only a simple playroom here, with a piece of paper in the middle being the only clue they get for the identity of this ghost. Before Klair can investigate the item, Bai tries to distract them suddenly, while Leon takes a look. At his reaction, Klair asks to see the paper, upon which they find a picture of themself with their kid brother Jason back before they left for college a few years ago.

Klair realizes what it means that this is the clue for the playroom. They break down, which causes Leon to start yelling at Bai and Bonnie to hurry to comfort them through the rush of emotions at this information. During his fit, Leon falls over, being impacted by the attempts at possession he's experiencing. It's now that Bai explains what's happening to Leon, which doesn't make the tension in the situation any better. Klair finally speaks up at this, interrupting to calm their friends down.

After they make amends and agree to head into the fight, they're confronted with the ghost of Jason. He doesn't want to give them the key piece outright, instead preferring to draw out the encounter with them. Issac has a quarter on him, and suggests a best of three coin flip game, to which Jason agrees. When it comes time to tell Jason's ghost who he is, Klair falters, so Issac steps in for them and tells Jason a story about when he was a little kid. The other friends take Issac's lead, telling Jason who he was, since they'd watched him grow up. Klair and Jason share a sweet moment, hugging each other before Jason encourages them to take the key piece he has and leave.

Things aren't all alright, though - Leon's in the final stages of being taken over. Bai says they could maybe change the target of her possession, but not really the power of it, meaning somebody's going to have to go to the attic and possibly die to Emmeryn. They all start arguing over who should take on such a role, and Bai gets too stressed out by the argument, knocking all of them out by smashing the memory orb in Klair's inventory and taking on the possession themself. The team is knocked out.

The final chapter opens by showing a human Lucien Bai, back in 199's, approaching the original, physical version of the House based on a lost bet on Halloween night. They manage to get inside the building, but when they do, they hear what sounds like crying somewhere inside, causing them to be concerned. Bai finds a crying little girl upstairs, asking if they've seen her brother. They're very worried about her, since she's alone on Halloween night, and freezing to the touch. When they make contact, she grabs them tightly, attacking them suddenly and viciously.

Klair wakes from the memory in present day, finding themselves on the floor in a hallway, items scattered around them. They gather themself again and get moving to find their friends, meeting with a terrified Bonnie in the stairwell. Walking downstairs, the two run into Issac, who's fighting some ghosts off himself. He confirms he's not possessed too, and they reason it's likely Leon - unfortuantely. Klair leads their friends back upstairs, to the hatch to the attic.

Here, they find Leon - acting normal, rather than erratic and irritable as he had been all night. He'd assumed one of the other three had been possessed in his stead, which is now that they realize Bai isn't with any of them. The four friends hurry into the attic to find Emmeryn and Bai, with the young girl leeching all of Bai's powers to strengthen herself. As a result of exposure to the memory orb they'd destroyed, Bai is also in their human form, and are unable to do anything to fight against Emmeryn in this state. She offers to let the party leave now, before the fight, but Klair refuses to go.

Emmeryn refuses to listen to any talking, forcing Klair and their friends to fight Bai - now called Luke as they remember their identity - for her. They try to find a way to rescue Luke as they fight, but they find Luke takes too much damage during the conversation, causing them to begin to dissipate. Emmeryn lets go of her control on them as they do to save herself, and Klair impulsively reaches out to stop Luke from vanishing, as they wouldn't reappear for a very, very long time again (if ever). With an unknown force of power, Klair is able to bring Luke back to life, saving them from the House.

After they confirm Luke is alright, Klair approaches Emmeryn, who's now cowering in a corner fearfully. Deciding to talk to her, Klair suggests that her missing brother wouldn't want to see her moping around all the time. Emmeryn seems to appreciate the advice, and opens the front doors of the House for the friends, so that they can leave with their lives. She also confirms she's not the ghost that the House belongs to, and that her role here has been exclusively maintenance. However, they don't have time to think about this information - they hurry downstairs and out the doors, to freedom. When they go outside, they find that Luke was able to go with them, and - for all intents and purposes - is pretty much alive again.

The earliest ending the player can get in Ghost House I is by going back to sleep in the prologue instead of waking Klair's friends. Achieving the "lazy" ending rewards the player with the fact that Leon is missing after that night, and no sign of him is ever found to explain what happened to him. Klair is haunted with guilt, though they do eventually manage to move on.

The "coward" ending comes towards the end of Chapter 5, during Emmeryn's fight. If the player chooses to leave when Emmeryn offers to let them do so, Klair's allowed to escape, though none of their friends agree with this decision and stay behind to fight to free Bai. Their friends don't make it out of the House, and Klair is left alone in the real world as the sole survivor of the incident.

After Emmeryn's fight in Chapter 5, another ending - "warmonger" - is available, where the player can choose to dissipate her despite her surrender. If Klair does so, heading downstairs reveals the front doors aren't open, and they're still trapped inside. They're confronted by an unknown little boy, Edward, who asks if they know where his sister is.

In Ghost House I, there's only one true ending, "release", which is seen in the Epilogue. The friends escape the House alive by cooperating with Emmeryn after fighting her, helping her move on. They go to IHOP for breakfast in the morning, talking about the fact that the House they saw is still out there, somewhere. Klair suggests going to find it and put it to rest for the final time, which they all agree to do, which leads directly into the events of Ghost House II.

The "SUPER ULTRA AMAZING SECRET" ending is associated with some of the secret content. See the below section for more information.

There are three advertised secret pages on the website, though only one has anything substantial on it - the encounter with Gardener-B, whose first iteration initially appeared in the original Ghost House I.

In this secret route, by going to /gardener-b on the Neocities, the player is met by Gardener-B. He's surprised by the player's presence, and offers them a link back to the main story of Ghost House I (which actually links to a joke! What a prankster!), though the player can decide to instead either fight or talk to him.

If they choose to fight him, he warns the player, saying they should choose their battles wisely. Should they commit to fighting him, he gives them a second chance to back down, though choosing Fight a third time sees him hitting the player with his spade, dealing unknown amounts of damage and narrating their demise.

Talking to him, he apologizes for pranking the player with the false return link to the homepage, and gives them a real one. When the player doesn't heave, he offers to give them a secret ending for their curiosity, to get them to leave him to his work. This is the "SUPER ULTRA AMAZING SECRET" ending, which shows a poorly drawn Klair finding Jason in the woods alive, a cheap plot twist.

WIP.