Elvira II - House on Haunted Hill

Written by Deimar

Dirk Gentley Journal Entry #3 "My luck had run out. As per usual. My careful exploration of the studio offices yielded nothing. Except for a encounter with a witch. In the literal sense, with lightning bolts, molts and all the complete package. Lucky for me, she was allergic to steel. Unlucky for me, that meant more brain matter across my new security jacket. In any case, I will have to follow the clue the janitor gave me and try to find those magical items in the cursed sets..."

Having finished the exploration of the studio offices, it is time to delve into the real meat of the game: the three cursed studio sets. Access to each one of them is granted through security doors in a hall in the first floor of the studio offices. And when I say security I really mean it, as opening each one requires introducing a value from the anticopy wheel of doom™. The door number 1 hides the set of “Kiss of the spider”. Right after entering this set, Elvira appears to warn us (and mock us, of course) about the dangerous nature of the place.

What’s behind door number 1?

An Elvira!! Glad the game is over so fast. I thought it would last longer but I appreciate the brevity (and the pun)

Bait and switch. No Elvira, just your regular insect-infested dungeon

Door number 2 hides the set of “House of Horror”, your typical haunted mansion. This time, there is no Elvira to explain what this set is about, but from my previous experience playing this game I know this is the most puzzle-focused one, while the other two are little more than a dungeon crawl.

I think The Munsters lived here

The last door, number 3, allows access to the set of “It came from beyond the grave”. No Elvira either and I felt somewhat uninvited so I decided to go back to door number 2 and its puzzles before confronting the insects and the undead.

Does the gate prevent me from entering or them from coming out?

When I stepped into the set Elvira came to warn me regarding the nature of the set I had chosen to tackle first. I like that the programmers introduced these messages to allow players to choose which set to explore. However, given that all sets are mandatory and the erratic behaviour of the messages (one appeared just after entering the security door, this one after trying to enter the mansion and only god and myself from the future know when the third one will appear) make me doubt their usefulness. In any case, we are now in the mansion and ready to unravel all of its mysteries.

Come on, this one is not even a pun. I know you can do better

The entrance is a large space with several outs, as shown in the map below. There is nothing of interest here but for a barometer in the wall which can be used for the “Summon Storm” spell. Sadly, it is a level 7 spell and I am still level 3, but I take good care of keeping it safe. Oh, and it seems like Elvira is at the end of the hall next to the barometer.

I will let my good friend Admiral Ackbar say it for me

I had a bad feeling regarding that suspicious silhouette so I decided to explore the door next to that passage. It led me to the dining room, which seemed prepared for six guests I probably don’t want to meet.

Having learnt nothing from Goldilocks, I helped myself to everything in the table

There is a serving hatch in the wall but when I try to open it something attacks and the character just faints. A true hero, ladies and gentlemen.

I would probably also faint. But I’m not the star of the show, so I can call this detective a fraud

We wake up in a pantry full of bodies. So I guess we have solved the issue of finding the crew members that had not left the studio when the party started. One of them carries a nice pair of boots which I quickly grab and wear, (I always wanted to look like a biker and this is the closest I will ever get) and turn my attention to getting out of the room. The door has no doorknob and no keyhole. There is some food next to it and a temperature sensor connected to an alarm but otherwise nothing to do. After some time, Elvira appears to spell out the solution for me: To get out, first I have to manage to warm the room.

This just seems too advanced for this kind of house...

Can I play the old “body warmth” trick? Also, I have not the slightest idea why it looks like that

I check if I can mix any hot spell, but to no avail. So I reload to the dining room and check the tray in the middle of the table. After lifting the cover, the character faints. Again.

Come on. You didn’t faint with the exploding witch, what is so horrible about this?

Lucky for us, this time we just wake up in the same place. So this is completely pointless. But makes for a cool gif, I guess.

Less cool than the second time you lift the tray however… (I leveled up between the two occasions and my stats went up. I suspect me not fainting has something to do with the Courage stat)

With nothing else to do here, I crossed the entrance to the door opposite of this one. This led me to a sitting room. There are a lot of items in this room. They are useless for the most part, but there are a lot of them. Also, there is a ghost. And for what I think is a first time for this series, he is not trying to chop my head. The ghost is simply holding a door shut, blocking my passage.

Don’t you have any girl to kidnap through a TV set or something?

My spells don’t seem to have any impact on him so I turn my attention to the rest of the room. Specifically, two sets of armor flanking a door. My experience with armor in the first game was not the nicest, as just wearing it started dropping my strength. In this one you don’t have that problem because you simply can’t take the full set. Oddly enough, you can take the right armor’s helmet and left gauntlet. Seems a little arbitrary, but any protection is welcome, even if I don’t know if wearing it has any effect whatsoever. While I was doing this, Elvira appeared to give me a hint regarding the ghost.

And we are back to form. Nicely played, lady. Nicely played.

Nothing I had was of interest to the ghost, so I left through the armor’s door. This led me to a study with a desktop and a fish tank. There is a key inside the tank, but when I tried to reach it the fish inside ate my hand. The typical piranha tank.

Understatement of the century

With a missing un-healable limb, it was time to reload. This time I avoided the fish tank, as not even wearing the gauntlet made any change. These piranhas certainly have a strong jaw, being able to chew through metal. Further exploration of the room yielded a padlock and a bible from the desktop and the discovery of a strongbox behind a picture in the wall. The key in the fish tank must open that box, seeing as it has a keyhole.

Such a picky curse. Everything comes to life except for the books. Discrimination!!

After a quick trip to the inventory pile, I decided to start exploring the second floor of the mansion. The first room I entered after going up the stairs was on fire. And you are blocked from going out the moment you enter. RELOAD TIME!! Next to it there was a simple dormitory with nothing remarkable in it. Next one is another dormitory, a tad more interesting and bigger. More interesting because of the nice fireplace, the porcelain figurines and the dead body in the bed. And the button hidden under the bed. A tad more interesting, as I said.

At least someone bothered to cover this one

The body is covered by a white sheet. Removing the sheet reveals a man that seems to have been stabbed in the chest holding a set of keys and a paper. Trying to take any of those two items makes the ghost of the man appear. Somehow he is angry at us. Killing him must have not been a big deal but trying to take the papers certainly was worth a death penance. The ghost is easily dealt with. The papers are a script and a set of photos of a man with different costumes from the costume room.

The bumblebeeman is chasing me, I swear

Activating the button opens a secret door behind the door with a passage leading to something blue made of lightning. Which is as scary as it sounds.

I could make the second Poltergeist reference here but I will leave it to you

We can pass through the thingy with no visible penalties and reach a small satanic chapel. The game allows us to look up at this moment. But the faint-hearted should avoid doing so. In any case, the altar contains 10 black candles and a gold chalice full of blood. Neat.

It is so nice someone built a Black Sabbath altar here. ROCK WILL NEVER DIE!!!!

Oh, the little angels. Lucky for me, Scorpia’s review warned about these little bloodsuckers and what makes them not attack

Following the exploration of the second floor, the next room is a bathroom, full of bath utensils. No laudanum this time and nothing really interesting.

Elvira II: The jaws of the cleaning crew

The next room is clearly being remodelled and everything is in boxes. There is a set of matches inside one of the boxes and several carpets and a set of portable stairs.

As kind of a fan of Buying & Selling, I think proper work in this room would improve the house’s profit margin by quite a good amount even though the kitchen and bathrooms are what usually most increase a house’s price

Next to that room there is a set of stairs to the attic, where a vampire kindly tells us to suck it up, literally. I don’t think I have anything at the moment for that particular pest, so we will leave that room for later. In the opposite section of the hall we have a nursery full of toys. This may seem like quite a waste of time, but here lies the key to access the room guarded by the spirit downstairs, which I dare to say is the most important one in the whole game.

Dad! I wanted an Amiga 500, not this wooden pony!

And finally, the last room is another bedroom. However, the moment we enter this room, we fall asleep (maybe I should just add another counter for the amount of times our character falls unconscious). Then we proceed to revive the famous ghost fellatio scene from the original Ghostbusters but with less of a happy ending. I will conclude this post here, having explored all the rooms in the house that do not require solving any puzzles. Next time on Elvira, we will be doing some reading. Doesn’t that sound fun?

MAP OF THE EXPLORED FIRST FLOOR:

MAP OF THE EXPLORED SECOND FLOOR:

DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 7)

PSA: I am not counting the vampire deaths as separate as they use the same image and they are both vampire related, that’s why the death count is 7 instead of 8

Session Time: 0 hours 37 minutes
Total Time: 1 hours 29 minutes

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