The date is October 22nd, 2003. The place is an average high school in middle-of-nowhere Alleghany County, Virginia. Well, okay, maybe "average" is a bit of an overstatement -- this place is constantly flooding, kids frequently pass out from heat exhaustion due to the total lack of air conditioning, the cafeteria food probably should come with a biohazard warning sticker, and despite getting 90% of the school's budget the football team has racked up a 4-year losing streak against an elementary school. But there's more going on here than just gross misuse of funds... when the school is hit with the third power outage in a week, things get a little weirder. Giant bugs roaming the hallways, doors sealed shut from the outside, disappearing students, suspicious announcements over an intercom system that shouldn't even be working without power... and all signs seem to point toward Mr. Higgins, the school's slightly unhinged principal.
Note that currently the game is not complete -- you'll be able to play through all of the power outage storyline as well as the one that follows it, but there's one place where you'll come across a "whoops, this area isn't done yet" message signalling the end of the demo.
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May 7th, 2018 UPDATE: An emergency bugfixing version has been uploaded in place of the previous version. Somehow I missed a script error that caused the "FNRRF YGM SCHNISH" scene to play in an infinite loop if you saved in the new version, quit, and loaded your new save file.
April 20th, 2018 UPDATE: New demo! For a full list of what's new, check the included AHS_History text file; here's a few of the changes:
- * Fixed a bug that let you sequence-break and reach the outside of the school WAY earlier than intended
* Fixed a mapping oversight that made one item in the sewers unreachable
* Added a buttload of flavor text to various objects around the school, as well as extra map details here and there
* Added "Notebook" menu. Three sections are complete; journal, bestiary, and character profiles
* Changed around the main menu -- there is now a "Settings" menu for volume and various other things, "Quit" gives you the option of loading another save file or exiting the game entirely, etc.
* The story continues -- the "end of demo" point in the main office is now a little further on past a new scene (and after that scene NPCs move around in the school maps), and the "end of demo" point in the sewers is removed now that the optional area below the sewers is complete
* Several new rooms can be reached, and as a result the comic-book trading mini-sidequest can now be completed
