i mean the eara of the ghosts item is relivent to the ghost
a lost sailer u give a compass a knight can only be atack by a sword very outdated food that cost 1 pound for the dead guy sitting infront of a sofa and a vhs for the creepy japanese girl with the static tv (wait do u know what a vhs is)
I may be 14 but I know what a VHS is, don't worry . Sorry for the confusion I didn't realize you were just expanding on the idea(s). Do you think having each room in the mansion reflect the timezone would make it more immersive or would it seem more miss-matched? I like the sword to attack a knight and a pound (~$1.6) worth of food. I couldn't tell if you meant pound (the unit of measurement) or pound (the currency) but either way old food for a fat ghost on a sofa sounds fun. Maybe it could be found in a broken microwave and the knight's sword could be found on the wall or having to put the VHS into and old TV/VHS player to get the creepy Japanese back into the creepy movie that is slipping my mind right now. Do you think having access to most of the mansion from the beginning would stray too far from what you want or are you looking for something close to a point and click adventure where advancing to each room/part of the mansion would require the prerequisite items. I think either way would work and having it open from the beginning would add more replay-ability. Just my two cents though.
i think having parts sealed of wil expand gameplay a little bit (backtracking just a little bit) but i think i wil mainly keep the celler area and adic clossed of for end to mid gameplay (just a key and some ghost u need to do some optional)
keep it on coming with ideas im not saying they will be in the game but having some perpective is nice and esential in game design
A couple more ideas I had were mainly based off of ancient Egyptian social structure before I noticed that I was thinking about Egyptian temples because of the archaeologist story you posted but I'll see what I can come up with. Is it only consisting of ghosts and puzzles? Have you considered anything outside that realm like looters, robbers, theifs, synonyms, etc., etc.? That may not be your design goal but it could lead for some interesting encounters such as being chased by two armed robbers around the mansion and having to come up with a trap or some type of defense. Maybe even having more than one mansion in the vain of Luigi's Mansion: Dark moon or a randomized puzzle generator for something extra. Of course the generator might be hard with the limitations then again I'm just spit-balling so I shouldn't worry too much. Maybe even an outside garden/graveyard (possible zombie idea?) with hidden trap doors under a flowerbed or inside a shed that connects to a basement or something of the like to make backtracking easy. I'll try to come up with some more ideas, hope I'm helping.
doing some design for a speritual medium heres the origenal (old sprite) and the first version of the ingame one (im not to happy about it yet but people are hard to do with the limited pixelspace)