Video Game / Shiver

Shiver is a Thematic Series of casual adventure games by Artogon Games, featuring plots based on ghost stories and urban legends.

Not to be confused with Shivers (1995) series by Sierra.

The series comprises the following games:

• Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker (2011)
• Shiver: Poltergeist (2012)
• Shiver: Moonlit Grove (2013)
• Shiver: The Lily's Requiem (2015)

---

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

Tropes shared between games

• All There in the Manual: All there in the bonus chapter, in this case. Only in the complete versions (a.k.a. "Collector's Editions") of these games are the stories fully concluded. The general format is that the victims are freed in the main game, and the antagonist is defeated in the bonus chapter, along with loose ends being tied up.
• Broken Bridge: A tree struck by lightning, a truck blocking a gate, a non-functional watermill, a wagon with a wheel missing, a broken-down car, and more than a few locked doors. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
• Closed Circle: Although it's because the plot says so in some cases, all the protagonists are compelled to stay until whatever mystery they're investigating has been solved.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Although none of the games' opening cinematics explicitly begin with this, they certainly do in spirit.
• Late to the Tragedy: The plots of the first three games all involve someone turning up long after the events which caused each mystery.
• The Nameless: In the first and third games, we learn the names of other characters, but never find out the name of either protagonist.

Tropes for Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker

• Chekhov's Gun: The teddy bear left by the hitchhiker at the start of the game. Near the end we discover it contains a plot coupon.
• Demonic Possession: The antagonist is a boy possessed by the spirit of an Indian shaman, made creepier by that fact that he seemed to be a willing host.
• Creepy Basement: There are two - the protagonist falls through the floor into the first; the other is the hospital's morgue - and the power's out - and the door slams shut behind him.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: The protagonist is the only living soul in the entire story. Even the titular hitchhiker is long dead. It's arguable whether the boy survives at the end of the bonus chapter, however.
• Evil Orphan: The possessed boy, John Rossi, became this when he discovered "his new 'friend'", the spirit of the shaman. They both seemed to share the same aim - one of John's notes in the bonus chapter reveals that he fully intended to go on a killing spree as soon as he could.
• Indian Burial Ground: The source of the evil.
• In the Style of: This game is more or less an unofficial Silent Hill IHOG, right down to the creepy abandoned town, the everyman protagonist mysteriously drawn there (by an equally-mysterious girl), the Abandoned Hospital, and a helping of Mind Screw.
• Jump Scare: A notable one occurs early on, when returning to the old woman you met at the start.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Several child's drawings depicting people being killed/murdered in various ways appear throughout the game. From notes left by the townspeople, it's revealed that each drawing was discovered just before the event depicted actually occurred. It turns out that the drawings are modern versions of those on the wall of the shaman's tomb, recreated by the possessed boy.
• Paper Key-Retrieval Trick: how the protagonist escapes from the morgue.
• Scenery Gorn: The game takes place in and around a derelict, depressing, long-abandoned town, and it's dark and rainy the whole time.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Silent Lake".
  • A photo of paranormal researcher Harry Price and the Foyster family, taken at Borley Rectory, appears as a "family photo" which needs to be completed.

Tropes for Shiver: Poltergeist

• Disconnected Side Area: The small island with the lighthouse is visible from the main island, and appears on the map, but is only accessible in the bonus chapter.
• Flechette Storm: One of the poltergeist's attacks against Ricardo is to fling every available knife at him, shown in a dramatic cutscene.
• Frameup: James's framing of Richard is why the poltergeist feels such antipathy towards the latter.
• Heel–Face Turn: Brenda does one in the bonus chapter when she realises who the real villain is.
• Identical Grandson: The protagonist, Ricardo Chellini, observes that he's the spitting image of the family's former heir, one Richard Kangale, who died fifteen years before. This is likely why Brenda hounds him at every turn.
• Karmic Death: In the bonus chapter, James the butler is killed by Brenda's poltergeist in exactly the same way that he killed her, saving Ricardo.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the bonus chapter, James's attempts at sabotage end up helping Ricardo to summon help and escape.
• Non-Linear Sequel: The first game takes place in the present day, or at least the recent past; this one is set in 1936.
• Old, Dark House: A ramshackle old pile - the country seat of the Kangale family - that the protagonist has just mysteriously inherited, with a dark and stormy night to go with it.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Richard's father, Henry, held this position over Richard's love for Brenda, a servant. He eventually relented, incensing James.
• Poltergeist: Well, the title is a bit of a giveaway. This poltergeist favours pyrokinesis, though - this is because the butler shut her in the burning lighthouse.
• Shout-Out: Ricardo breaks a metal post off a damaged fence - an act repeated from the first game.
• The Butler Did It: The bonus chapter reveals that James Shelton, the Kangale butler and former gardener, murdered both Brenda and Henry Kangale.
• The Chessmaster: James is revealed to be one, the motive being a fanatical desire to preserve the purity of the Kangale bloodline.
• The Stool Pigeon: James again, of the "disgruntled" variety. Tattling on Richard and Brenda, being told by Henry to mind his own business, and eventually taking matters into his own hands.
• Together in Death: Richard and Brenda are reunited when the ritual to summon them is completed.

Tropes for Shiver: Moonlit Grove

• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The white and black wolves.
• Doorstop Baby: The opening cutscene shows the discovery of the protagonist as a baby, next to a dead wolf, killed by an arrow. Coincidentally, this is where he ends up after his carriage crashes years later.
• Genre Blindness: The seer leading the gypsies seems to have suffered from this, tempted as she was by the "power" in the area resulting in the massacre of her whole group.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The baby in the opening cutscene has these. He got better.
• Healing Potion/Poison Mushroom: The two potions which the village's former doctor, Rene Malot, developed, while researching a cure for the curse. The latter is the only one remaining, which ends up in the protagonist's hands.
• He Knows Too Much: Cited as the reason that Rene had to die.
• Hoist by His Own Petard/The Corruption: The curse which the Keeper Master placed on the humans backfired somewhat, causing the benevolent Master to transform into the horrific creature commanding the werewolves.
• Humans Are Bastards: Humans bringing their livestock and killing the lupine "Keepers of the Grove" is what caused the Keeper Master to curse them.
• I'm a Humanitarian: One of the villagers leaves a note telling how the (monstrous) Keeper Master let him taste human flesh for the first time - that of Rene.
• Long-Lost Relative: Of a fashion - the wounded girl/white wolf was adopted by Rene, as was the protagonist. It's unclear whether they are actually related.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The protagonist unwittingly administers a potion to a wounded girl which binds her to her wolf form, he himself having been given the one that binds someone to human form by his foster father, the village doctor, years before.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The game's overall plot.
• Reset Button: The bonus chapter's opening cutscene has the Keeper Master transform the girl into a wolf again, despite the protagonist having spent a good deal of time setting up the ritual to cure her of lycanthropy.
• Silver Has Mystic Powers: The ritual requires "true" water which has touched only silver.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The curse on the villagers.
• Villainous Rescue: Having been healed, the white wolf draws away the black wolf just as the latter is about to attack the protagonist.
• Was Once a Man: The Keeper Master. Thankfully, he was aware of his gradual transformation and made notes on how to break the curse, and destroy his monstrous form in the process.

Tropes for Shiver: The Lily's Requiem

• Art-Shifted Sequel: This game has a markedly different feel to the first three, featuring brighter colours and much less of a horror element.
• Lighter and Softer: Especially when compared to the first.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: For Peter leaving her for Katalina, Abigail turned Katalina and Beatrice, Peter and Katalina's daughter daughter, into her minions alongside any redhead women she can find as they remind her of Katalina.
• Woman Scorned: Abigail was so furious that Peter left her for Katalina that she turned herself into a siren and turned Katalina, Katalina's and Peter's daughter Beatrice and later other redhead women into her minions because of the slight.

---