The 7th Guest
The game begins with a flashback to 1935 in the town of Harley-on-the-Hudson. A drifter named Henry Stauf kills a woman to steal her purse, beginning a series of deplorable acts. One night, he has a vision of a beautiful doll, and the next day begins carving it. He is able to trade the doll for food and drinks & a place to stay. Stauf begins to have other visions of dolls and toys, and crafts and sell these as well. Stauf becomes a successful toymaker, and uses his fortune to build a mansion at the edge of town, following yet another vision he had. At the same time, several children possessing Stauf's toys come down with a mysterious illness and later die. Stauf disappears into his mansion and was not seen again.
In the game's present, the narrator (the player's character) named "Ego" awakens in the Stauf mansion. The mansion is deserted, but as Ego explores it, he has ghostly visions of events in the past. These visions all take place on a night sometime after the deaths of the children, where six guests were invited to the Stauf mansion: Martine Burden, a former singer; Edward and Elinor Knox, a dissatisfied middle-aged couple; Julia Heine, a bank worker who reminisces of her youth; Brian Dutton, a fellow shop owner; and Hamilton Temple, a stage magician. The six arrived but found no sign of Stauf or anyone else, but do discover a number of puzzles set up that give them various instructions. They came to learn that Stauf wanted them to bring him the seventh, uninvited guest, a young boy named Tad that had entered the house in a dare from his friends; the one that did so would be rewarded with their greatest desire. The guests debated on what to do, and while Elinor and Hamilton feel they must find Tad and help him escape to avoid whatever evil plan Stauf had, the others searched for Tad in earnest to claim their reward from Stauf. The evening became bloody as the guests begin to turn on themselves and kill one another or become trapped in machinations set up by Stauf. Julia was the last guest left alive, and had discovered Tad, and dragged the boy to the attic where Stauf waited for them; Stauf had by this point become a horrific creature, having made a pact with the evil force that helped him to make the toys and caused the illness in the children. Stauf needed Tad's soul to complete the pact. Julia turned over Tad and demands her reward, but Stauf dissolved her with his own bile, and then lashed out at Tad with a long, prehensile tongue to prevent him from escaping.
At this point, Ego realizes that he is the spirit of Tad, witnessing the events from that night over and over but previously unable to help and forgetting what happened on each loop; the house has been a type of purgatory for him. Ego finds he can now intervene in the events, and helps Tad to escape. Stauf is unable to recapture the child, and the evil entity consumes Stauf for failing to complete the pact. Tad thanks Ego for his help, and then a sphere of light appears, which Ego steps into, ending the game.
insanity, murder