Spirit Seasons: Little Ghost Story

This article contains ***spoilers***. Please read at your own risk.

Official thumbnail, featuring Agatha with her doll Diana

## System requirements

Adobe Flash 8.0 or higher

**Spirit Seasons: Little Ghost Story** is a 2011 hidden object game released by Ukrainian game developer Tiki's Lab on 22 January 2011. The game is set in fictional mansion Blindhill Place, where Player's car had broken down, and features its two main inhabitants: Jacob, an old man, and Agatha, a dead girl who haunts the mansion.

## Plot

The game begins at 4 AM, during the dark night. The Player is driving to his home city of Gloomvile. Suddenly, the engine breaks down and the player stops near a mysterious, distant from any town, mansion named Blindhill Place. When the player fixes the door knock, he is welcomed by Jacob Carlyle, an old man. He asks the player to bring some firewood from the barn. While doing that, the player is suddenly hit with a school bag. Inside it they see a kid's note stating "Jacob is boring!". The protagonist doesn't pay attention to that and tries to go inside the house. Unexpectedly, they end up falling in a mansion's basement through entrance's stairs.

In the basement, the player tries to climb a ladder which leads to the exit. The ladder, however, had two unfixed stairs, which break and fall down. When the player fixes one of them, he discovers that a large lock is a major obstacle from getting out. The protagonist soon finds another door, which leads to a storage room. Meanwhile, they also notice a hamster inside a washing machine. They launch the animal inside a room, where it finds a paperclip, which the protagonist uses to pick a lock and get out of the basement. Outside is daytime already.

After getting out, the player notices a giant hole in the stairs, which they fix with a surfboard found in the barn. As the protagonist enter, they hear a Jacob's scream, which came from somewhere underground. A phone on the floor distracts the player, who now tries to use it. Suddenly, a ghost grabs the phone and throws it violently on the floor, destroying the only way to communicte with the rest of the world and greatly frightening the player. A note on the Elk reveals that Jacob is in the Library. The player fixes a railing on nearby stairs, which partially opens up a hatch in the floor. The hatch mechanism appeared to be rusted, so the player cuts the rope of the chandelier(which hangs right above the hatch), completely destroying both the hatch and the chandelier. Thinking that the "library" is right below them, the protagonist jumps down only to discover they are in basement archive. After fixing the cord panel, they use an elevator and go up to the library.

In the library, the protagonist finally finds Jacob, who tells them that he hid here from Agatha Baker, a 12-year old girl's ghost, who has been haunting (and before her death ― living in) the mansion for many years. Old man also says that he is a former servant of now-dead Baker family, which was living here until 1999, when Agatha died from drowing in the nearby lake. Same fate on the same day was sealed to Emily Carlyle, Jacob's former wife. The player now understands that school bag throwing, basement fall-down and phone breaking was the girl's hanky-panky and that he needs to eliminate the ghost once and forever to get out from the mansion. The protagonist finds a interesting book which has many spell instructions in it. The player composes a ghost-eliminating spell and Jacob sends them to the upper floor (where Agatha's former room is located) via secret passage behind a bookcase.

When the protagonist comes close to nursery door, they are suddenly hit with a vase and wooden beams, the latter block nursery's doorway. The player solves the problem with an axe found in bedroom next door. The key from the nursery happens to be in an aquarium with piranhas, which is located downstairs. The protagonist pours the whole bottle of whiskey into the aquarium, neutralising the dangerous fish, and reaches the key with fishing rod. After opening the door, the player for the first time encounters Agatha. They try to use a spell, but Agatha says it doesn't work since her body is now located in the family crypt at the graveyard. She also says that Jacob is a murderer, who killed her intentionally.

At the Alley, the protagonist uses garden shears to pave the way to the graveyard. There, player discovers Emily Carlyle's grave and a crypt, which is closed with the key liying near the door. When player tries to grab it, the Squirrel runs in and steals it, escaping back to the alley. Player tries to shot the animal with some cones, which resulted in key falling inside a well. When the protagonist climbs down the well (using a rope) and finds a key, Agatha suddenly cuts the rope, so the player uses water spigot in order to fill the well and get out. In the crypt, Agatha tells player more about Jacob and that the player needs to read old man's diary. Player goes to the Servant House.

In the Servant House, player finds Jacob's safe on the wall above the bed and tries to find the code by exploring several different locations in the house. After exploring the ground floor entirely, Player decides to go to the house's attic, where they fix a telescope and find out that Jacob just wrote the numbers he saw in the window. The protagonist opens the safe and reads the diary, only to find out that the old man hated the girl and even damned her. The player returns to the library and finds out that Agatha somehow blocked Jacob in a floating cocoon-like trap. Jacob tells the protagonist that he did not want to murder the girl and asks them to free him. The player agrees to do that and composes a new spell via the magic book. Jacob tells the player that he had a strong argument to keep Agatha alive — the Bakers' last will and that the player must find it.

The protagonist again enters the Sitting Room and goes upstairs. They find the location of the will using a film reel and projection unit. The will says that if Agatha had turned 18, the family would recieve about 100,000 $. Jacob advices player to explore the nursery if they want to understand the girl's personality better. In the nursery, the protagonist finds Agatha's diary in which the girl drew a picture of herself and crossed out Carlyles standing nearby. The girl's ghost appears again and says that Jacob killed her by throwing the girl's favourite doll, Diana, into the lake. Player sets out to explore the lake and solve the prolonged conflict.

When the protagonist enters the lakeshore, they find a broken survelliance camera on the ground, with the tape hidden in the alley in a sandpile. The Player finds video player in the car and watches the tape on it, discovering the truth behind Agatha's tragic death: Jacob threw Diana in the lake, the girl tried to find it but began drowing, aquaphobic Emlily tried to save Agatha, but ultimately died as well. Jacob's attempt to save his wife wasn't successful. The player desides to check the dam gate for Diana's presence. After fixing the mechanism's chain, they successfully search in the gate and find Diana there. The last step is go to mansion and choose: return the doll to Agatha or give it do Jacob.

### Agatha's ending

The player returns the doll to Agatha, and the girl dissapears, finally finding the peace and happines. The player calls the police, and they subsequently arrest Jacob, who was given ten years of jail, but then released and put on house arrest after having a heart attack. The mansion was put on sale, but no one wants to buy it. Agatha is then shown walking with Diana on the graveyard and looking on camera with a sly.

### Jacob's ending

The player gives the doll to Jacob, and Agatha dissapers with a cry, turning red from her woe. Jacob burns down the tape and his diary, destroying the last evidence of his guilt. He also nailed the doll to the library wall, it's eyes opening shortly afterwards.

The only scene that appears in both endings is the player driving to the Gloomvile using a tow truck. The player is not alone: they took the hamster from the mansion with them. The hamster is later shown sleeping in Player's house.

## Gameplay

The game belongs to "hidden object" genre, which's main point is to find items and apply some of them on interactive structures in different locations (or scenes). The game is in 2D and is constructed on different locations between which the player can walk by pointing the cursor (which will change to the arrow) and clicking on the LMB. Almost every location has its zoomable parts, which can be seen close-up in order to find some items or solve some puzzles which will progress the plot. There are some specific (mostly being parts of a larger locations) locations which are only available in hidden object mode. In this mode, the player needs to find all the objects named on a special list at the bottom of the screen by clicking on them. After the object is clicked, it will fly to the center of the screen and then fly out and dissapear, and the object's name will be crossed out from the list. One of the objects listed is an useful item, which player can use later somewhere else.

The game's plot is divided into the chapters, the transitions between which are made by animated cutscenes with dialogues or monologues in them. To better understand what's going on in the game now and what to do next, tha player has a Diary, which can be accessed by clicking on it's icon at the bottom left. After the new task appears, the diary will be updated with new text. The player will be anckowledged by this via special butterfly effect and appearing text about new task (can be turned off in the settings).

There are several additional UI parts: the central bottom part of the screen houses the inventory, where all found items are stored. To the right, there is a flower-like hint button with question mark ("?") drawn on the flower. When clicked, the flower will "reload", with its petals dying out and then regenerating. On the top, there is a location name. Also, when player interact with things, they will say something and the quote will fly out from the top part of the screen.