Hauntless

Tragic deaths leave the old circus haunted, but progress marches on so the ghosts must make way for the new owners to develop the plot. Your job is to find and remove any remaining spectral activity.

The best way to send a persistent ghost on its way to the Great Beyond is to make it aware of the circumstances of its death. Since this particular lingering deceased’s ending was of the violent kind, your straightforward approach of scattering a bit of purifying salt and telling the poltergeists to “move along, nothing to see here anymore” will not work. You’re facing a real cold case mystery.

I really like this setup. It offers all the sleuthing opportunities of a murder investigation while providing a look back in time through the eyes of the protagonist. A time when the circus was a place of wonder and awe and that strange mixture of attraction and repulsion caused when entertainment borders on freak-show.

The setting is beautifully realised. The writing and the remarkable drawings give an almost tactile impression of the old derelict circus tents and the shambles that remain of the performance equipment. It was a joy and a thrill wandering through this environment, half-expecting some paranormal activity around every corner. And there is certainly something going on here. Details of the rooms are changed when you revisit them. Some ghost going behind your back, or is it your own inattentiveness the first time through? Either way, Hauntless demands thorough, careful, and ongoing exploration to expose its many layers of clues.

There. See that last word? It’s a clue!
Hauntless is heavily inspired by the board-game Clue (“the butler did it in the library with the golden candelabrum”). During your investigation, it’s your task to sift out any clues, indications, suggestions, as to the possible location, method, and culprit of the murder. (There’s a nifty note-table available where you can indicate your knowledge about these things.) When you’ve investigated the circus and its immediate surroundings to your satisfaction, you should be able to deduce the true account of the crime.

Perhaps it’s my parser-instincts, but while I did enjoy the exploration and investigation very much, it frustrated me at times that I couldn’t actually do a lot of stuff. The example that sticks most in my mind is the corner of a newspaper sticking out from under a cushion. I so wanted to pick it up and read it, it was a detail so temptingly mentioned in the room description, but I couldn’t get at it.
The vast majority of “action” in this game happens in the player’s head, sifting through the text and searching for important information, combining that information to deduce facts and eliminate possibilities. But there is very little active searching for clues.
Everything you need is in the descriptions, and discovering the things that weren’t initially in the descriptions is achieved by walking away and coming back to the same room, where the angry fit of a poltergeist may have blown some important papers into view. If I’d had a parser at my disposal, I would have looked on, under, and behind the furniture the first time.

I extensively used paper and pen to take note of everything’s and everyone’s whereabouts, and finally I did manage to fill in the in-game roster and find the murderer. Maybe it would be a nice touch to have a blank in-game notebook too, where the player can type anything.

I enjoyed walking around this old and rundown circus a lot. The wonderful drawings made my exploration even more engaging. And it was very satisfying to put all the clues together at the end. (After, fortunately I would say, also being wrong the first few times so I did experience the “You Lose! Mwuahahaha!” fail state.) I even stayed after the main investigation to play the epilogue game, where you can tie up some loose threads about the deaths of the other circus performers.

Good game.