Introduction
Video: Title Screen Autumn has arrived! It's a time of costumes, pumpkin pie, and getting the pants scared off you in a hastily-constructed haunted house. This means it's also a perfect time to blow the dust off the CD case and crack open Shivers!
Background
Shivers is a Sierra horror game, released in the US in late 1995. It followed very shortly after Phantasmagoria's release, though it sticks more closely to the game style of Trilobyte's 7th Guest. Unlike both of those games, which have received modern rereleases, Shivers seems to have languished away into practically abandonware territory. This is a shame that needs to be fixed.
To be fair, much of the acting is cheesy as hell. The puzzles themselves seem to stick to being either fairly easy or bullshit hard with little middle ground. And the nonlinearity can mean a lot of backtracking if you're not careful. On the other hand, there's no pixel hunting, and even the hard puzzles are all fair. And, there is something about the feel of the abandoned museum setting that's been hard to recreate in future games. I'll always have a fond spot for Shivers.
Format
The format for this LP will be a hybrid: screenshots with videos and sound interspersed as appropriate. This game involves a lot of backtracking to hunt for semi-randomly placed items, so I feel this shows off the most content without dragging on.
One last note. There is a rather good series of videos on YouTube that shows the entire game with minimal backtracking and maximum efficiency. While awesome for a walkthrough, I've decided the Shivers experience will be more 'authentic' if I play through without a walkthrough. While I'll be editing out most of the backtracking caused by a decade of rustiness, I will not edit out the fuckups. Enjoy!
It's Puzzle Time!
I will try to end updates on puzzles. Participation is encouraged! Play along at home and see if you can solve them, too.
Table of Contents
- Part 1 - What a lovely evening for some trespassing
- Part 2 - Shivers: First Blood
- Part 3 - Esteemed Professor Windlenut
- Part 4 - Like Reading Rainbow, with 100% More Mummification
- Part 5 - Sweet Valley Horror
- Part 6 - Merrick Got a Little Jaded
- Part 7 - Gonna Have Nightmares for Weeks
- Part 8 - Ixupi Must Be in the Monstrous Manual 8
- Part 9 - Maybe Pineapple Flavor, Instead?
- Part 10 - Requisite Musical Episode
- Part 11 - Marginally Less Creepy Than "Parents' Basement"
- Part 12 - Oh Goodie! Red!
- Part 13 - Adventures in Bad Exhibit Ideas, Volume #368
- Part 14 - Hunter Hunted
- Part 15 - Every Single Deity in This Place Looks On Disapprovingly
- Part 16 - Cleanup, in Multiple Senses of the Word
- Part 17 - Wherein We Snap and Kill (Almost) Everything
- Part 18 - Let's End This
Supplemental Updates
Bonus Materials
Retro Junk has a video of a magnificently B-movie-esque commercial for the game. I have a hard time believing this wasn't made in the 80's.http://www.retrojunk.com/content/co...al/12161/index/
Professor Windlenot's Museum e-Annex:
I.e., all of the weird side research uncovered by this thread
Wikipedia article on lost lands, including Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria