Part 5: Day 2 Part 2: You Can Help Us

It looks like Nigel is settling into town a bit. He's got a few people willing to give him the time of day, found some evidence that his rented cottage is haunted, and even has a little job to do for his boss, Mr. Hadden. (Note to self: Best way to get a better job is to steal from work and run away.)

At Saxton Station, Nigel picked up a crate of 'gifts' from Mr. Hadden, after picking up a gruesome story about death on the apple train from the Station Master.

Let's scurry back to Harbour Cottage to see what we've got! Something from Hickory Farms? I love that summer sausage.



... some seem new, but others look retro, at best.


Ooh, electronics. There's a letter and a pamphlet too.





Well, it seems pretty clear that Mr. Hadden gave these to us because we're meant to use them ghost-hunting. Dumping water on a mirror worked pretty good, so imagine what we can do with these gizmos! Let's use them immediately!



These gadgets are how we'll be doing ghost-hunting for most of the game. There's 4 of them: the EMF meter, the tape recorder, the digital camera and the camcorder.
EMF meter - this is only useful most of the time to indicate spots of activity. However, music cues or whispers also tell us this, so I don't tend to use it at all. There is one puzzle at least where it's critical, but after that, nah. This doesn't produce pieces of evidence.
tape recorder - This is used to capture ghostly messages on evidence tapes. Listening back to the tapes usually tells us something. Not all hotspots will have messages.
camera - Used to take phots of ghosts, strange activity, etc. Not all hotspots will have photos, but the camera will give us the most evidence and stuff.
camcorder - This is more useful as a nightvision tool than a supernatural-seeing one, but sometimes when we view a hotspot through the camcorder it will show something different than what we can see normally. This doesn't produce pieces of evidence.

The last "gadget" is that setup with the 4 cameras and the computer. We can't use that right now so I'm going to ignore it until we can.

We already know where the cottage's hotspots are from our poking around last night. Let's see what we can capture.

Ghosts in the cottage on youtube! (3 minutes)

How about that creepy wall with the doorway outline? In this hotspot's case, the camcorder reveals a faint 'mist' through the hidden door:



And the camera captures a blurry figure:



(We can see the photo immediately because it's a self-developing and self-printing camera )

Now for the bathroom. The mirror gives us a photo:



Hello nice lady! And the bathtub coughs up a picture of... something:



In the living room, if we take a photo of the chair we get:



And if we make an audio recording, playing back the tape we can hear a voice, but can't make out any words. (Or at least I can't.) Maybe it's backwards but I don't know how to reverse audio. Generally, if the audio is important you can make a bit of it out.



I'm going to omit those 'audio recording' screenshots from now on, if you want to hear the audio obviously you'll have to watch the YouTube video.

Upstairs there is a balcony where we can look into the rafters and take a photo:



Neat! It seems like this little cottage is haunted as shit. That's all we can do here for now. I steer Nigel into the bedroom, and he puts our new evidence on the worktable. We can review the photos and tapes at any time. Good thing there was an empty photo album sitting here for no reason!




OK, if you remember there was one other place we've seen so far where I said we could ghost-hunt: The creepy cell in that first cave on the beach, where we found the skull-photo newspaper about the bodies washing out to sea. Let's head back there now and shove some electronics in a ghost's face.

Ghosts in the Fenland Eye (1.5 minutes)



Using the camcorder results in some flickering white shadows walking back and forth. There seem to be two of them, but getting a screenshot was a total failure as the figures are both misty and only show glimpses. This white bit was the best I got!



And the camera definitely shows a few:



If we play back the audio, amongst the other noises we can hear "Help, you can help us." The whispers say some other things too but they're harder to make out... it's cold here, find us, free us? (You really should listen.)

So uh... what was goin' on in there? Maybe we'll find out more later.

I head a little farther back to Sedgemarsh Station, into the fens, because there's a little something else we can do now that we have some gadgets.

Remember how there's a photo contest going on? Wildlife is pretty great for photo contests, and we have a camera now.



The frog is still there, and now that we have a c-hammer-a (ha) we can use it on the little guy:



As well as the heron:



But the photo contest isn't quite won yet! We really want to show that kid who's the picture-taking boss of this little town. Also, we're not done ghost-hunting. There's a whole other cave we can delve into.... now that we can see in the dark!

I'll be honest here and say that the nightvision navigating bits are my least favorite thing. They're not too awful, but it's awfully easy to get confused about where you are and which direction you're looking in, because the nightvision is in first-person and you only advance screen-by-screen, and the areas you use it in are a little confusing anyway. Secondarily, the camcorder is accompanied by a visual effect of a line going down the screen every few seconds, and some electronic beeping noises- which get annoying when you're taking too long because you got turned around in a cave. Thankfully for you, you'll just be getting the relevant screenshots most of the time.

Phew, okay. Well, we head back to Professor Hardacre's cave. He's just poking around in the first room, which is kind of dumb considering he has a lantern and surely there can't be that much of interest in the first room. Nigel can head farther in, equipped with his NiteShot (tm) camcorder.



What's inside the cave? Some tunnels with "symbolic images, or ancient graffiti?" on the walls, but there's also some junk (Nigel picks up a board):


These other planks are far too rotten.


and a small chasm, which conveniently enough the board fits over:



(I'm not convinced that board could handle anyone's weight.)
On the other side of the gap is a small rockfall, which we retrieve our board and pry loose:



On the other side is a nice, non-nightvision cave. Nigel comments on the stalagmites.



Also in this cave are the remains of a campfire and some chests and crates... hmm...
These crates are depressingly empty.




Ghosts in Grindle's Maw (2 minutes)

The EMF meter tells us there's definitely something here, and it's also repeating a pattern on its dial. 2-5-1-3-off (If you check the EMF meter on the pamphlet, the dial says things like hi, lo, etc. instead of numbers. Details!)



I take a photo, because:



And check the camcorder:



Wow, we're 3 for 3. Let's try the tape recorder! We're successful- listening back to the tape, we hear some lively (but still ghosty) sea chanty singing. Hey ho!

Looks like this used to be where some sailors hung out. Investigating the chest reveals a locked numberpad:



Well, we already got the solution for this, so we zoom in and enter 2-5-1-3. What would the ghosts have done if the lock used 6, 7, 8 or 9?



We've done it! We've found the treasure! The game is over.



Ah well. Here's a book we can read:





We've already seen some references to Spivey. He was a local smuggler. There's a room in The Bear named after him, and we'll also see him mentioned again in one or two other spots. Sounds like things didn't go well for him. It's not clear whether he ever escaped this cave or not... but we do find out a little bit of local history, and a lead to follow up on for more information. Although this book would surely be of interest to someone in town, Nigel leaves it here in this stupid cave for some reason.

Next to the chest is an oar, which I grab for reasons:



And since our old board broke, we need some way to get back across the crevasse or poor Nigel will surely die, or at least have to call Hardacre for help. Luckily there's an old boat hook in the ceiling:



Nigel's really working up a sweat this morning. One more place to visit in this cave, a little side-tunnel with a tidepool.

Ghost in Saxton Caverns (3 minutes)



Ghosts ahoy! Nigel automatically starts the conversation. I have to ask all those questions, but there's no response other than faint whispers until I've done all four. But then:



A light blooms in the centre and peaceful, echoing music starts playing. That's about as much manifestaton as we're going to get, but we can use our trusty gadgets here now:



And the recording reveals "Pasque flower... Ager, it was Ager... flower... you promised me the pasque flower... bring me the pasque flower... Ager promised the pasque flower..."

There's that name again!

We can head back now, and pass by Hardacre without saying a word. Smell ya later, chump!



Nigel's had a pretty successful round of ghost-hunting so far. I don't know why the existence of ghosts is such a disputed topic! Clearly most people just aren't trying hard enough.

Hard-working Nigel makes a new to-do list:



And next we've got a few stops to make in town! It's a very short period in the game, but it's pretty screenshot-heavy (like this one was) so it'll be its own part.