5 Days a Stranger Review

Within a great manor, we are introduced to a man in a grey suit, who by his own admission is a gentleman thief. Trilby has come to the DeFoe manor as a thief-for-hire, his job to “liberate” it of it’s valuables. Trilby learns quickly that some dark forces are holding him hostage in the house, so he is not able to escape again. He comes to find that there are four other people in the house: Phillip Harty, a “treasure hunter”, Jim Fowler, a highschool student who got stuck in the house by doing a dare from his friends. Then we have Simone Taylor who is a journalist from the BBC wanting to make a documentary of the mansion. Lastly is a strange man called AJ. Everyone, excluding AJ, decides that the next morning they will try to break out of the mansion. In his sleep, Trilby dreams that he wakes up to everyone being killed by machete, by a masked man. The murderer removes his mask, and reveals that he is in fact Trilby.

The second day Phil is out in the backyard looking for a secret tomb whilst Simone is in the library. AJ has seemingly disappeared. They find a map, and inspect it for where the tomb should be, but learns  that it is not within reach. Trilby makes a note, that there is something on the map he has not seen in or around the house. Telling Phil it is no use searching for the tomb, the two of them explores on, only to find AJ murdered, tied and gagged at the bottom of the pool. Discussing the events, Trilby is being blamed for the murder. The following day Trilby decides to break in to rooms he has not accessed before, where he discovers a bunch of diaries – the original owner’s and his sons. In the son’s diary he desccribes that there is a boy behind the door in the kitchen. On the boy’s 15th birthsday, the diary reveals that his father was lying in regards to the boy behind the door, but also that there now seems to be blood on the kitchen floor. It ends with “I will do what I can. Then we can be a family together and be happy”. In the fathers diary we learn that his wife died in childbirth, giving birth to a monster. And that the father wants to remove said monster from the world. Within the mansion, you can find an article that explains that the father and son disappeared from the mansion on his 15th birthsday.

Trilby believes the next plan of action is to find the body of the son. By using a white magic spell, he does just that – located within a secret dungeon behind a wall in the kitchen. The dungeon is outfitted with shackles and all, and when Trilby digs the ground beneath, he discovers the body of the father and the son. Right after a crash is heard, and upon investigation Trilby finds a wooden idol lying on the floor, it’s glass casing shatered. Wanting to inspect the item, Trilby passes out when touching the idol. When he regains conciousness, he finds himself holding a machete with a welding mask on – right next to the corpse of Phil. Trilby is then knocked out by Simone. When he wakes up again Trilby is locked up inside the garden shed, guarded by Simone. The next plan is to get our tie back, as in it Trilby hides a pair of lockpicks. He convinces Simone that suicide aint out of the picture, so she gives him the tie back. Upon exiting the shed Simone has left, having learned that Trilby was posessed when he murdered Phil.

The man in the welding mask then enters the room, and tries to kill them both. Trilby saves them, by tripping the killer with a rug. When they remove the mask they find Jim underneath. With Jim put to bed Simone and Trilby starts to puzzle things together. They deduce that the father and son was not the only family members in the house, there was a twin brother. Since the second son killed his mother in child birth, the father chained him up for being a demon-spawn, which caused the child to become both insane and mentally challenged. The father proceeds to try to beat the kid to death on their 15th birthsday by using the idol, the demon-son equipped the welding mask and machete, and went on to kill his brother and father before he himself died from the beating he recieved.

When the demon-son died, his soul was trapped within the idol that he was bludgeoned with. The idol now serves as a catalyst, and anyone who touches it will be possessed, and will kill anyone they come across, thinking it is the father who has come to beat you up again. In an upstairs bedroom Trilby makes the discovery of the demon-son’s remains, which looks all deformed. By using black magic Trilby summons the soul of the demon-brother back into his corpse. At the same time Simone and Trilby are haunted by the father and son, and they partake the last conversation they ever had before the murders took place. Simone ends up shooting at the body with a rifle which knocks it into the fireplace, and a fire erupts within the manor. Being burned to the ground, Jim, Simone and Trilby escapes. As an ol’ cat burglar, Trilby does not want to talk to the police, so he tells Simone and Jim to declare him dead to the law.

And thus ends Five days a Stranger. An interesting game, created within the Adventure Game Studio engine by the same guy who made Zero Punctuation. Although there are a bit if plot holes to the game, it does have an intriguing story and a good mystery. The graphics aren’t great, and the music is so-so, but that being said it is indeedly the story that makes the game worth it. The game is old now, and probably largely forgotten, but it is free to download and play. The game is not overly hard, the puzzles are rather simple. It is also not very long, so if you have some time to kill it is worth a go.