This is the section for commentary about the game that would probably ruin your playing of it, so please go back to the low-spoiler
Haunted Mansion Hints if you haven't played the game yet.
If you have, and you still have questions remaining, then read on:
This is an unavoidable spoiler, but there are a limited number of possible deaths in The Haunted Mansion, and some of them are creative. You may not have experienced
all of them, and may be curious. (-: So, here's a list:
*You can be eaten by a grue if you try to explore the underground tunnel without a lantern.
(Actually, Nancy is probably supposed to have fallen down a pit in the darkness, but you can't
see what becomes of her, so I prefer my old-school explanation. :-D )
*You can die in the fire if you don't fetch the fire extinguisher quickly enough.
You can lose the game without dying if Nancy breaks the chandelier, gets caught snooping around in Abby's room,
or admits breaking into Louis' briefcase; Louis escaping with the gold in the end also counts as a 'bad' ending,
although it really shouldn't affect the success of the B&B at all (since the gold had to be returned to the bank anyway.)
There is a small easter egg in Secret of the Haunted Mansion, but it's really not worth going out of your way to see. After putting the gem in the
phoenix's eye, before opening the treasure panel, if you go up to the attic and open the small trunk you will get a brief image of a woman's face and
hear a sound like a chicken clucking. What relevance this has to anything, I have no idea. You can also hear 'ghostly laughter' as you descend the
stairs back to the treasure.
There was also a newspaper clipping referring to Rick Arlen and the events of the previous game, Stay Tuned For Danger; and on Rose's desk
can be seen the obligatory Her Interactive coffee mug.
There are also a number of actions you can take in the game which are entirely optional to the plot. To give them a try, follow this link:The Haunted Mansion Options.
Also, here is a list of all the 'haunted' occurrences you can encounter in the game and what caused them:
1) Abby's seance (staged by Abby, you can find the smoke machine, projector, and seance tape under the table afterwards)
2) Sound of woman crying and other spooky noises in the hall (done by Abby, you can find a speaker hidden in the vent and the same sounds recorded in Abby's room)
3) Phone call to Nancy with a spooky sound effect (also done by Abby, this sound is also on her recording machine)
4) Ghostly figure in the mirror in the hall (done by Abby, the trick mirror leads into her room and it's the same projection she used for the seance)
5) Dead flowers in parlor (done by Abby, who has a stash of dead flowers in her trunk)
6) Spooky sound near the violin in the parlor (done by Abby, this sound is also on her recording machine, though it's unclear how she projected it into the parlor)
7) The mysterious fire (started by Louis, who has matches in his briefcase and admits he was the one who cast suspicion on Charlie by taking away the fireplace grate)
8) Slamming door as you start up the stairs from the saloon (? It happens even when Charlie and Abby are at Winterfair, could it be Louis?)
9) Candles in Rose's room mysteriously blowing out and/or lighting on their own (? Not clear how anyone could have done this.)
10) Wooden dragon in the parlor uncurling its neck to look at you (? Not clear how anyone could have done this.)
Haunted Mansion has a very good plot that holds together quite well, but a couple of loose ends did stand out:
1) Who runs out of the basement as you head up the stairs? The game never seems to come back to that.
2) What were the papers that were burned in the fire? There is no way to piece the burned scraps together into anything legible. One of the scraps on top
seemed to be a remnant of the letter Hue sent to Rose (which you could see in the desk drawer earlier in the game.) What was this doing in the box?
Did Louis want to destroy it? If so, why? I went back to a previous game to re-read it, and it contained no valuable or incriminating information at all.
3) Did the book about chess moves ever have any bearing on anything, or was that just an especially boring red herring?
The Haunted Mansion Walkthrough
Possible Deaths in The Haunted Mansion
