Realms of the Haunting

Realms of the Haunting is a British adventure game, played from the first-person perspective, released in 1997 by Gremlin. The 3D engine used in this game was borrowed from Gremlin's own Normality.

Adam Randall ventures to a haunted house in order to investigate the mysterious circumstances around his father's death. As he enters, however, the doors locks behind him and he is forced to journey throughout the entire house while looking for answers as well as means of escaping it. Along the way he meets up with the psychic woman Rebecca Trevisard who provides Adam with guidance as they work together in trying to escape. Adam soon discovers the house contains portals to several different universes, and that he is the Chosen One who must prevent the final apocalypic battle between the forces of good and evil.

The game has over 40 hours of content and includes many different universes to travel, and has a plot which involves multiple sides fighting for their own causes. The beginning gives the idea of Adam being against demonic forces, but later on player finds himself caught in much deeper plot between different forces, where demons play only one role.

Tropes used in Realms of the Haunting include:

Always Night: As long as you're in Heled anyway. Usually in combination with Dramatic Thunder. The Tower qualifies as well.
Animal Theme Naming:
- Hawk, the captive angel that you have to free.
- Gaul, which is the German expression for donkey or, in a more derogatory sense, an old, incapable horse. Notice how in one of the cutscenes Gaul sort of limps, which could be a reference to him being the vessel for the Power of Satan, should the seventh seal be broken. On the other hand, the name Gaul could also refer to the person from the Roman-era region; there's another entity in the game called the Ire, after all.
Another Dimension: There are four realms: Heled, Raquia, Arqua and Sheol, which are interconnected by the Tower.
As the Good Book Says...: There are several instances where biblical quotes are implemented in the game:
- In the Mausoleum, there is a wooden door bearing a passage from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians 11:14f (King James translation): "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness."
- In the ominously greenish room where Adam sits on the throne and receives the marks, there are two passages from the King James version of the Bible, written on the wall: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6) and "I will also send wild beasts amongst you." (Leviticus 26:22).
- While wandering around the Tower, Adam will frequently hear the voices of souls devoured by the Ire, one of them reciting a passage from the Book of Revelation 6:12: "And the moon shall turn as blood and the sun as sackcloth, in the last days."
Bad Moon Rising: During one of the cutscenes when Adam and Rebecca first access the courtyard with the hanging skeletons, a red moon can be seen, potentially a reference to a passage from the Book of Revelation that talks about the opening of the sixth seal: "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood."
Boom Stick: Most of the magical weapons Adam finds qualify for this trope.
The Computer Shall Taunt You: There's a small platforming section preceding Florentine's observatory. Every time you fail to jump over the moving platforms, you will hear the disembodied laughter of mocking children.
Dead Man's Hand: Partially. Adam and Rebecca find an Ace of Spades (which in popular myth is referred to as the "death card"), left by Gaul at the main entrance of the house, on which is written "Adam, now it begins".
Difficulty Levels: You can adjust the difficulty on a number of counts.
Doppelgänger: Inside the Halls of Doppelgangis, the demon of insight and personality, Adam happens upon a copy of himself, seated on a throne and stating that "Goodness reflects the light, and evil bears the seed of all darkness. Choose well."
Dragon with an Agenda: Belial.
Expy: The Eyre is essentially Machin Shin from The Wheel of Time, a vague, ominous force of evil that roams the waygates between worlds and consumes unwary travellers.
Fetch Quest: Collecting sixteen brains in one of the labyrinthine stages of Sheol.
Full Motion Video
Green Rocks: Green crystals appear in several instances, being shards of the Soulstone and usually serving the purpose of teleportation, as in you need one of these to meet the Gnarl, and later on to gain access to Sheol.
Haunted House: The mansion which also appears to be significantly Bigger on the Inside.
The Hero: Adam Randall.
Hypercompetent Sidekick: Rebecca, a lecturer with psychic abilities who is also quite knowledgable about history, theology and the occult.
I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Sheol.
Interdimensional Travel Device: The tower gates in combination with the Egyptian masks.
Locked Door: Most of the doors in the mansion are initially warded by magic and can only be opened after having progressed beyond a certain point in the game.
MacGuffin: The Shrive.
Making a Splash:
- There's a type of enemy that can only be killed by using a chalice filled with water from a fountain.
- There are two instances where you have to splash water at doors for them to open (cf. Arqua, as well as the room where you find Aelf's Dagger and free Hawk later on).
The Men in Black: A type of enemy, and one of the more dangerous ones, adept at firing guns and magical projectiles.
Multiple Endings: Though the bad ending might as well be considered a Nonstandard Game Over.
Numerological Motif: Seven Seals, seven serpent statues, seven gems in Raysiel's Tower.
Prison: While the House itself can be considered a large prison (and as such mimicking the architectural features of a mental institution, too), imprisonment is a recurring theme in the game: Raysiel threatens to lock you up for eternity if you wake him up in your attempt to acquire the Key of Tears, necessary for freeing Hawk; late in the game, Adam is put in a cell by Belial; Abaddon is trapped in a red light.
Psychic Powers: Rebecca is adept at extra-sensory perception, not least thanks to an eye-shaped pendant with which she can also communicate remote events to Adam.
Room Full of Crazy:
- Some walls in Florentine's observatory bear lengthy agitated writings.
- Some of the rooms in Charles Randall's vicarage are covered with occult and astronomical symbols.
Shout-Out:
- The address header of one of the letters which Adam finds in the Study reads: The Delberry, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H.P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.
- At the beginning of the game, the player can pick up Thomas Wolfe's novel "Look Homeward, Angel" from a small table in the mansion's entrance hall.
- In Charles Randall's vicarage, Adam finds a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum".
Spooky Painting: There are two paintings in the entrance hall of the mansion, depicting a dark face with red blinking eyes that seem to observe you.
Standard FPS Guns: You got yer shotgun, yer Colt-45 and, when all else fails, yer 19th century grenade launcher.
Super Drowning Skills: Adam can fight demon forces with guns and a magic staff, but when it comes to deep water, he sinks like a rock. Subverted in that it is possible to get out of the water before he drowns, but sometimes it's not that easy.
Supernatural Aid: The Holy Relics, pieces of Aelf's equipment, which he entrusts Adam with to offer assistance.
Suspicious Videogame Generosity: One of the cells in Belial's prison harbours a good deal of ammunition and health vials, an accomodation one should not miss, considering there's an imminent fight against a multitude of gun-wielding men in black outside in the rainy night.
Sword of Plot Advancement: Eternity.
- Sword Beam: Eternity shoots magical projectiles when you finally complete it, making it one of the most powerful weapons in the game.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Adam isn't particularly disturbed when demons suddenly appear out of nowhere and start attacking him. When he first meets Rebecca, he simply remarks "people are trying to kill me"... to describe fighting through dozens of teleporting demons, killer robots and walking skeletons.
The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Sheol.
Whispering Ghosts:
- Whenever you approach a tower gate, you hear a disembodied voice asking you to "combine the face with soul, traveller."
- The statues in the courtyard say things like "The marked one approaches" and "Take us back to the gardens" when Adam approaches them.