Mind Games

[AbeLinkedIn]

I thought of a house idea that keys into a fascination I have with the juxtaposition of childhood memories and horror. Now mind you, this is my first ever idea for a house, and I would love any feedback you guys may have to further craft this idea. 

Backstory: Everyone loved board games back when they were kids. Whether it was Monopoly, Mouse Trap, Operation, Candy Land, you name it, you probably played it (Or in the case of Mouse Trap, set up the trap without playing the game). However as with every interest there's obsession, where they grow like a cancer and become the one thing you care about most in life. Enter Charlie Henderson, a child who sees board games as the key to life. They're social tools, they teach lessons on the economy and life itself, they help expand your mind. However not everyone sees life through his eyes and ridicule him for his mindset, to the point where he has no friends except the board games he collects. His parents are concerned and take him to a psych ward in the hopes they'll help him out of this obsesson. All young Charlie can imagine are the ways he can use these board games as a way to get revenge on those who doubt him. A way to force them to see life through his lenses by making them play these games on a grander scale in a matter of life and death. 

The facade: I thought that a psych ward would work here, since this is where the story of the haunt begins, but it's a children's psych ward so distressed images of shattered childhoods display on the walls. The name is placed over the entrance way as you pass by a rusty playground and leafless trees. 

First room: The first room is the registration room of the psych ward, where we see Charlie for the first time, sitting and looking odd at the passersby. He will occasionally say the tag line of a board game or work the name of one in a sentence (Hope you don't get caught in the Crossfire!). The room itself has a desk where the nurse's dead body lies bloody on a checkers board with the words "King me" written in blood behind her on the wall, presumably with her blood, giving a taste of what's to come in the house later. 

Transition rooms: The transition rooms are all either children's bedrooms (Charlie's) or the rec room of the psych ward with a TV playing commercials for the game being represented in the next room. With each passing room the quality on the TV gets worse as you get to the fuzzier, grimmer side of Charlie's brain.

Hangman: The first game room is rather simple. We're in the gallows where several body parts and blood line the floor and letters and words are written on the walls. This version of Hangman is the inverse of the usual game, as a body part is removed from the hanging body when a letter is wrong until the player's decapitated or bleeds out. The scares of the room include the executioner and his victim(s)

Operation: The setting is an operating theater where there are several doctors watching a skilled surgeon (Or butcher) take out the many ailments that plague the subject, in this case, Charlie's principal Mrs. Banks, who recommended that he get psychiatric help. The scares of the room include Mrs. Banks, the surgeon, and some live actors sitting with the dummies of doctors observing the procedure. 

Candy Land: The setting is a darker, twisted version of the kingdom from the game, where many kids (Presumably Charlie's classmates) have died in various candy related ways, like having sharpened candy canes pierce their heart or an axe in the peppermint forest or drowning in the chocolate river (It could be a fatter kid as a Willy Wonka reference to Augustus Gloop). The scares could come from the different characters from the game.

Battleship: You're on board an aircraft carrier as the final missile to sink the ship has been deployed. Alarms are going off, everyone is trying to escape and will stop at nothing to get off the ship before they're blown to pieces, you included. The men on board are not wearing the usual uniforms but are instead the guards at the psych ward who are panicking over the sinking ship. 

Monopoly: You're entering a seedy looking apartment where a cutthroat loan shark is fed up with waiting for a payment from one of his debtees. This debtee is Charlie's dad, who could not pay to put him in the psych ward and had to take out a loan to make it happen. The loan shark is counting his money over the dead body as his cronies look on, telling passersby not to snitch or else they'll be next. 

Mouse Trap: This room kind of correlates to the past one, as this one has Charlie's mom trapped after telling the police about her missing husband. The mob found out about this and have her the victim of a Rube Goldberg deathtrap in an abandoned warehouse. She's screaming and crying to get out, begging passersby to let her go. 

Perfection: We're in a twisted version of the psychiatric office where Charlie is evaluated before being admitted in the ward. The doctor's body has been sliced into various shapes and another associate has to put them back in the spot while under the gun. If time runs out, he gets shot. The doctor is screaming for help and urging his secretary to put the pieces back in before her time runs out. 

Don't Wake Daddy: The warden of the psychiatric hospital has been charged with child endangerment and several counts of abuse and has been sentenced to execution by the electric chair. To prolong the agony, a system has been put in place to shock the victim at random presses of a button, increasing in intensity with every burst. The smell of burnt flesh and hair fill the room with every shock. 

Finale room: The final room of the house is another transition room, with stacks of board games in place in a child's bedroom, with the TV showing only a test signal, signifying the end of Charlie's suffering and reign of terror. The TV also flashes clips of the commercials to startle passersby as Charlie looks at the guests asking is they want to play as he sits on his bed playing with his blood stained Lite Brite which says the same thing. 

 

So what do you guys think? Is it a good idea? I wanted to make it kind of tongue-in-cheek but ended up making it dark in the end. 

[Psycho_Bates]

This looks good, but if its real wouldn't it cause Copyright issues?

[AbeLinkedIn]

That could cause a problem, so it could be tweaked to generic games, but then the underlying story and meaning of the rooms would change drastically.