Item - Terror in Ghost Mansion

I have read all but book 7 in this series and I find this the creepiest book. Every book in this series alternates between prose and comics on each page, but I find this book utilises it better than some others. It is always interesting to see how you are depicted in the comic to be gender neutral and this has you dressed up as a mummy for Halloween. You and your friends seek shelter in a mansion, but bad luck, it's haunted...

It has very good continuity, every plot is the same, unlike some others in the series, and the difficulty level is rather high. You certainly won't reach the optimal ending in just one try, even though it is just straightforward choosing without any gimmicks. I took somewhere near 10 tries to reach the best ending. There are also some details in the pictures that could help you avoid an untimely end. It does some vivid deaths as well.

That said, it does have its flaws. Even though I remarked it was the scariest book, it is actually not that scary, just that the rest of the horror ones are less scary. This is mainly because the ghosts aren't drawn that well to evoke fear. Also, some endings are a bit arbitrary, but I think that applies to every book.

Overall, I would recommend this as one of the best in the series.

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As Gamebook mentions in his review, this haunted house exploration game is designed with a lot of attention given to consistency -- characters and dangers are always located in the same places, and no matter which path the reader takes, he or she will always have to take logically coherent actions in order to deal with them. This design is one of the book's biggest downsides, unfortunately. Remembering clues and facts from previous read-throughs makes it much easier to reach the various successful endings, thus making the replay experience less interesting than it should be. It also does not help matters that the book is considerably less atmospheric than classics of the genre such as The Mystery of Chimney Rock. For what it's worth, the book can be a fun read, but the author has a long way to go before he can compete with an Edward Packard or a Steve Jackson.

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