Ghost Manor

Characters

Items

Most of the items in Ghost Manor help the character out, but one will end your game.

Gameplay

The game consists of five stages:

Stage 1 (the Graveyard)

The player must guide their character around and touch Bones or the Rainbow Ghost a set number of times. In order for the contact to count, the contact must be made on a gravestone and while the player is moving. Each contact that meets these criteria awards the player a single Spear. The number of Spears that can be awarded depends on the difficulty setting of the game.

Stage 2 (the Gate)

The player must use the Spears to shoot down Spooks. When all seven Spooks are shot down, the player must use one final spear to shoot the Chopping Mummy. During this time, the Chopping Mummy will chop at the player in an attempt to touch the character with his blade and end the game. The Chopping Mummy does chop to a rhythm. Learning this rhythm enables players to avoid the Mummy's blade entirely with some practice. It is possible to run out of Spears. If that happens, the player cannot defeat any more Spooks or the Chopping Mummy, and the game will run until either the Chopping Mummy's blade comes in contact with the character or the player resets their console.

Stages 3 and 4

Although the layouts and colors change, these two stages are nearly identical. The player must move their character to the staircase in Stage 3, and then from one staircase to the other in Stage 4. Touching any of the stationary walls may stun the character. The character can press up against the trailing side of the moving walls to earn extra points, however, touching the leading side of a moving wall will end the game. Players may search the coffins in these stages by touching them from the correct side. A tone is played for each successful search. One coffin in each stage contains a Cross, which is used to repel Dracula in the final stage of the game. If the character has a Lamp, the playfield will be illuminated the entire time the character is in either stage 3 or 4. If the character does not have a Lamp, the playfield will only be illuminated for brief periods when lightning strikes near Ghost Manor.

Stage 5 (the Prison)

Situated atop Ghost Manor, the Prison is where the game's final battle takes place. Players must guide their character underneath Dracula and press the red button on their Joystick to force Dracula upward into one of the cells at the top of the screen. Players cannot force Dracula to move any direction other than up, however when Dracula is not being repelled he will follow the character left or right. To successfully restrain Dracula, players must use their character to bait him into moving underneath a cell, then press the button to force him upward into that cell. Repelling Dracula requires the character to have at least one Cross. Each Cross only lasts a few seconds, so players must keep the battle as short as possible. As soon as Dracula is restrained in either cell, the character's friend is released and will follow the character to the stairwell. Once both the character and their friend reach the stairwell, the player wins the game.

Ending

When the game is over, the Boy and Girl are both displayed in the Graveyard holding hands. If the rescue was not successful, both characters will sink into the ground along with the tombstones and Ghost Manor itself. The tune "Taps" plays during this ending. If the rescue was successful, the characters will remain standing in the Graveyard while everything else sinks. A "happy melody" plays for this ending. After a few minutes the game will restart automatically unless the power is turned off.

Scoring

Although winning or losing Ghost Manor depends on rescuing your friend, the game does keep score.

Difficulty Settings

Difficulty settings in Ghost Manor affect how fast enemy characters move and whether or not the Lamp is available for use. At higher difficulties, fewer spears are awarded by Bones and/or the Rainbow Ghost. Each difficulty level is set as follows:

Note that on Sears Tele Games consoles that the Difficulty Switches are called "Skill" switches. Expert is the same as the A position, and Novice is the same as B position. Further, on the Atari 7800, the difficulty switches are located on the front of the console between the controller ports. Slide the switch to the left for B position and to the right for A position.

Xonox Development

Xonox games were developed by a team of people across the United States. Credit is given to the individual programmers in the accompanying instruction manuals, but not on the game's label or the box. Xonox worked with design houses for each of their games, each house having its own expert staff. Typically the development cycle of each game proceeded from script to storyline to the programmers and finally to a target audience of kids. From there, the games were play tested by kids, then sent to Xonox and the programmers in turn for tweaking.

Ghost Manor was originally intended to be released for the Atari 2600, Colecovision, the Vic-20 and the Commodore 64, and licensed to third party software companies for release on other systems. The final releases, however, were only for the Atari 2600 and the Vic-20.

Marketing

Ghost Manor was typically sold alongside one of Xonox's other games in a double ended cartridge. The idea was to give the customer a "two for the price of one" purchase of new games. The games packaged with Ghost Manor were selected based on common elements shared between the Ghost Manor and the paired games.