Every ghost has a story.
"I'm sure I'll be able to find enough evidence to support their claims and put their minds at ease."
— Conrad after arriving at each location
Located somewhere along the coast of New England, the town of New Eidolon has seen more than its fair share of history. Some even claim to have experienced it in more ways than can be naturally explained, and the town has garnered particular interest among paranormal communities. With families and business owners alike seeking help dealing with experiences beyond their understanding, paranormal investigator and enthusiast Conrad Stevenson sets out to use his honed instincts and methodical approach to get to the bottom of each case, bringing closure to the living and dead alike.
Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. (often shortened to CSPPI) is a single-player game developed by D&A Studios. The game centers around fully-voiced protagonist Conrad as he goes out and investigates reportedly haunted locations, seeking to find as much as he can about the entities that are said to reside there. Despite revolving around ghost hunting, the game takes a more "grounded" approach than many others in the genre, never putting the player in serious danger and requiring a patient and diligent mindset to investigations. Evidence of ghost activity will, in most cases, start out scarce at first, then ramp up as players find clues and progress in their investigations. It also heavily emphasizes the story of each ghost, how it ties into the history of the location they haunt, and why they may still linger there.
The game can be found on Steam
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The game contains examples of:
- Another Dimension: While most entities are lingering souls of the deceased, both poltergeists and demons seem to originate from different planes of existence entirely. Removing them from a location requires a vastly different process as a result.
- Banishing Ritual: After concluding an investigation on a ghost and obtaining its relic, the next step is to rid the location of it. For souls that linger after death, the process involves the use of their respective relics and smudging in order to initiate communication with the ghost and convince it to move on. A more forceful procedure is required for poltergeists and demons, requiring prayers and incantations.
- Barred From The After Life: Most hauntings are spirits of people who find themselves unable to pass on due to personal issues left unresolved at the time of their death. Understanding the nature of their grievances is required to achieve resolution.
- Creepy Cave: A cave along the coast at the Barr Harbor Lighthouse served as a hideout for the Lipstick Killer and was where he would take his female victims. You can still find bones and pieces of discarded clothing there, as well as the demon responsible for orchestrating the murders.
- Creepy Cemetery: The Spruce St. cemetery has no shortage of reports of paranormal sightings linked to it, from a pair of glowing red eyes in the darkness to stories about a Lady in White and even the ghost of one of the original gravekeepers, a thorough investigator can expect to spend a lot of time here.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The reason many souls find themselves unable to pass on is their inability to let go of the grief and trauma in their past. Helping them overcome their personal tragedies is what allows them to be released from the mortal realm.
- Demonic Possession: A telltale sign of demonic presence in a location is sudden and unexplained changes in behavior in one of the residents, usually in a much more aggressive direction. Given enough time the demon is actually able to take full control of the victim for a period of time and cause them to commit horrific acts they can't recall afterward.
- Demon Lords and Archdevils: As explained in the in-game wiki, demons are believed to belong to specific hierachies within four domains: Conquest, War, Famine and Death. The demons encountered in the game all serve the heads of their respective domains and seek to exert their own brand of power upon the mortal world.
- Disappears into Light: When Conrad successfully releases a ghost from this plane, they will manifest one last time in front of him before vanishing for good in a silent burst of light.
- Dissonant Serenity: Conrad has the remarkable ability to regard with cheerful interest paranormal events that would have anyone else running from the place in terror and panic. This likely stems from his experience, as he understands by now that most spirits are not antagonistic, and the ones who are don't present much danger to him under the circumstances.
- Electromagnetic Ghosts: Detecting electromagnetic disturbances ghosts generate around them with an EMF meter is a significant part of investigations, and strange EMF readings can be used to 'track' ghosts. Manifested entities will also sap battery power from your equipment if you try to walk through them.
- Ghostly Chill: Ghosts are believed to absorb thermal energy from their environment in order to interact with it, so sudden unexplained drops in temperature are a key type of evidence for ghost activity. You can in fact often use your thermometer to track an invisible ghost's location as well the direction it's moving.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Some demons can choose to manifest as a pair of glowing eyes suspended in midair, staring intently at the player for a few seconds before vanishing.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Once a relic has been used to release its respective ghost, Conrad can take it with him and add it to his museum as a display piece.
- Harmless Villain: Demons, from the player's perspective. These are wholly nefarious beings capable of inflicting untold misery, death and suffering on their victims... eventually. Their influence is mostly limited to the place they've been summoned to, and as non-corporeal beings, they usually have to try and gradually exploit the vulnerabilities of those within that space before they take hold of them and use them to execute their plans. As such, there's not much they can do to a lone level-headed investigator besides getting them to briefly pass out, occasionally forget some recent evidence and drain easily replaceable batteries on their equipment.
- Haunted Fetter: Every entity haunting a location possesses a "relic", a physical object it's attached to, which only becomes available to the player after enough evidence on the ghost has been collected. Obtaining them is a requirement for releasing the ghosts from the mortal plane, and they must be removed from the location afterward to ensure their departure is permanent.
- Haunted House: Conrad gets called to investigate the residences of families who have reasons to suspect they're haunted. They're always proven correct.
- I Know Your True Name: To exorcise a demon, its name must be uttered in a banishing prayer. Once they've found the demon's summoning scroll, the player can learn the name by collecting strangely glowing runes around the location, which will highlight the right letters on the scroll.
- Lighthouse Point: Later into the game, Conrad gets invited to investigate the Barr Harbor Lighthouse, a place notorious for stories surrounding the paranormal. It essentially works as a "final level" for the game, and fittingly, it's the only map to be haunted by all ghost types.
- Living Memory: Residual ghosts endlessly relive specific memories of their lives, being entirely unaware of their current surroundings. The player can immediately identify a residual by their failure to acknowledge their presence when approached.
- Living Shadow: A subtype of "intelligent" ghost is the "Shadow Person", these ghosts manifest as moving shadows.
- The Lost Lenore: Several ghosts are unable to move on from this world due to how badly the loss of someone beloved to them affected them in life.
- Magic Prerequisite: Conrad is able to perform rituals that can either unbind or expel spiritual entities from the mortal plane, though there are several conditions he must fulfill to be successful. The right type of smudge stick must be burned at a specific location that is of significance to the entity, and an object it has a strong attachment to must be placed there so communication with the entity can begin. At the end, the same object must be removed from the area to ensure the spirit's departure is permanent.
- Meaningful Name: This ghost-hunting game is set in the fictional town of New Eidolon. 'Eidolon' is a word derived from Greek, meaning "phantom".
- Museum of the Strange and Unusual: Conrad's opened a museum dedicated to the paranormal in his office building, where you'll be spending your time outside of investigations. It contains a variety of exhibits to start with, and it'll also house most pieces of evidence as well as ghost relics you find at each location.
- My Greatest Failure: Guilt and regret over actions that resulted in tragic consequences are a common source of grief binding ghosts to the mortal realm.
- Non-Malicious Monster: A possible interpretation of poltergeists' behavior. Unlike demons who obviously seek to harm humans, the wiki states there's little to no evidence of poltergeists deliberately hurting people, despite the ruckus they cause. In at least some cases they will actually put the objects they move back in their original places shortly after, further bringing into question assumptions of destructive intent.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are the only actively hostile type of spirit Conrad can encounter. They have entered the mortal realm from their own dimension at some point in the past, usually through a summoning ritual, and intentionally prey on the living. Though they can't possess or truly harm the player, they can attempt to chase them, and physical contact will cause Conrad to briefly pass out and fully drain the battery on whatever equipment he's holding.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: There are multiple types of entities that can haunt a location. Being aware of each type and how to recognize them is necessary to conclude investigations.
- Residual ghosts exclusively relive key memories of their life, and are unaware of you or anything surrounding them, as such they're unable to interact or communicate in any way.
- Shadow People are aware of the player and can interact with objects. They can be clearly identified when manifested by their shadow-like appearance, and the fact they don't make footstep sounds as they walk.
- Intelligent ghosts appear more solid and, like shadow people, are fully aware of the player, and may even respond to questions through EVP.
- Poltergeists never vocalize or visually manifest, making their presence known exclusively through loudly throwing or moving objects around.
- Demons are the only actively hostile type of spirit. They have the power to influence and possess their victims to carry out their evil purposes. Being monstrous spiritual beings from another dimension, they look the most visually distinct, and when manifested fully they will usually try to chase the player, causing them to briefly pass out on contact. Like intelligent ghosts, they will also respond to questions through EVP, though they only speak Latin.
- Paranormal Investigation: The game is about conducting them. Successful investigations involve obtaining evidence of paranormal temperature fluctuations, EMF, audio recordings and, naturally, a photo of the entity. Players are also encouraged to prepare for investigations beforehand by taking 'notes' on ghosts from the contacts' emails, local resources and any previous on-site findings before they head out. The more notes on a ghost you bring with you, the more cooperative it is likely to be.
- Poltergeist: One of the types of entities you'll find in investigations. As you'd expect, they make their presence known by throwing objects around and generally causing a ruckus. They appear to lack a visible form, so visual evidence is limited to photos of the messes they often cause.
- Possession Levitation: Never directly witnessed, though the reference picture for demons in the in-game wiki shows a girl clearly levitating off a bed during an exorcism, implying it is a possible result of possession.
- Salt Solution: Specially blessed salt is required to perform exorcisms, as it's used to create a circle trapping the demon in place and preventing it from escaping or interrupting the process. Its protection can eventually fail if the player takes too long to complete the process or gets important information on the demon wrong while trying to cast it away.
- Serial Killer: While researching the history of the Barr Harbor Lighthouse, you get to learn about the extremely gruesome murders committed by the Lipstick Killer, who operated out of a cave by the coast before his arrest. Due to several peculiar details reported in the wiki, Conrad starts suspecting a demonic influence behind the killings before he even goes out to investigate in person. He's correct.
- Spooky Photographs: You'll get to build quite a portfolio of these. The autocam will constantly take photos of entities in its field of view, giving you an impressive collection of ghost photos to appreciate if well-placed.
- Summoning Ritual: This is how demons come to haunt locations. If a location contains evidence of demonic summoning, you can expect the entity to still be around.
- Supernatural-Proof Father: Despite contacting Conrad on behalf of his family and providing an impressive list of suspected paranormal occurrences in their home, Max Laurent from Polk St. really wants to make it clear he personally doesn't believe anything out of the ordinary is going on. Conrad is not impressed.
- Thinking Up Portals: A particular section in the "Book of Corpses" contains invocations granting the reader power to open and close inter-dimensional gates, which Conrad uses to great effect against poltergeists.
- Undeath Always Ends: It certainly does when Conrad's on the case. Helping ghosts overcome whatever issues bind them to this world is the end goal of most investigations.
- Who You Gonna Call?: As the titular paranormal P.I., Conrad excels at finding out everything that can be learned about ghosts, and using that knowledge to remove said ghosts from the mortal plane.
