History VideoGame / HauntedHotel

** The subtitles of roughly half the games are also dropped. For example, ''Eternity'' and ''Silent Waters'' are the names of the hotels where their games are set, and ''Room 18'' is the hotel room assigned to the player in that game.

* AntagonistTitle: Charles Dexter Ward [[spoiler:is the bad guy]].

* AffectionateNickname: In his opening dialogue at the start of the game, James fondly addresses his friend as "dear." Given some of his other commentary and expressions during the game, this could have been intended as some slight ShipTease which the devs ultimately elected not to pursue.

** Issac Rotenburg was killed by drinking alcohol tainted with [[BitterAlmonds pottassium cyanide]].

* IronicNurseryTune: One of these occasionally plays as background noise; however, it may take a little while before the player understands what they're hearing.

* {{Irony}}: Dr. Reynolds tells Terence in the bonus chapter that if the experimental vaccine was dangerous, then he deserved to be executed. By the present day in the main chapter, Dr. Reynolds is hunted down by the main antagonist for his role in the vaccination project that cost many people their lives, including the main antagonist's brother
* KindheartedCatLover: Terence has a cat named Jimmy in his home who he promises that he would be back soon.

* ThematicSeries: The series is effectively this, as it has no overarching storyline and only some of the games are connected to one another. Two of the games are completely stand-alone and have absolutely no relationship to any of the others. The only thing they all have in common is that the player character is investigating the events at a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin haunted hotel]].

''Haunted Hotel'' is a [[HiddenObjectGame hidden object game]] series, originally developed by Specialbit Studios and later Creator/ElephantGames, and published by Big Fish Games from 2008 to 2021.

* NoNameGiven: Neither the first player character (protagonist of ''Eclipse, Ancient Bane'', and ''Death Sentence'') nor the second (protagonist of ''Eternity, Phoenix, The X, The Axiom Butcher'', and possibly ''Silent Waters'') are ever given a name. All that's really known about either of them is that the first is a woman and the second is a man.
* OccultDetective: James is shown to be this; his particular expertise is in helping ghosts with their UnfinishedBusiness by solving mysteries related to the locations they haunt. This is also true of several of the non-James protagonists.

* NotTooDeadToSaveTheDay: Lucien's ghost provides the player with what they need to defeat Maurice.

* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Maggie, Clark, and Bobby, the three students whose mishap starts the plot. Maggie and Clark are a couple; Bobby is their friend.

* StandaloneEpisode: It's one of only two installments in the series which have absolutely no connection to any other installment. It has no characters or locations in common with the rest of the games, and it neither contains any references to other games nor is referenced by any of the others.

* DisappearedDad: Stephen Blake's father died when he was young. It was revealed that, in the past, he partnered up with the BigBad of the main chapter to hunt for the Viking artifact in the hopes of helping Kate with her illness. Unfortunately, the BigBad became tempted by the power of the artifact, which eventually led to the protagonist's father's death.

* StartOfDarkness: The bonus chapter is a {{prequel}} which shows how the BigBad was once a good man who became corrupted by his obsession with a Viking artifact.

* StandaloneEpisode: It's one of only two installments in the series which have absolutely no connection to any other installment. It has no characters or locations in common with the rest of the series, and it neither contains any references to other games nor is referenced by any of the other ''Haunted Hotel'' installments.[[note]](However, Schneider's Hotel does return as a location in ''VideoGame/DetectivesUnited: The Darkest Shrine''.)[[/note]]

* DisappearedDad: The main protagonist's father died when he was young. It was revealed that, in the past, he partnered up with the BigBad of the main chapter to hunt for the Viking artifact in the hope of helping Kate with her illness. Unfortunately, the BigBad became tempted by the power of the artifact, which eventually led to the protagonist's father's death.
* IllGirl: The main protagonist's little sister, Kate, was ill, and no doctor could help her. This is the main reason why the protagonist's mother took Kate to the Freedom Hotel, in hope that it can help Kate.

* MissingMom: The plot was kicked off twenty years before the events of the game, when the player's mother took his little sister to be treated for her illness. He never saw either of them again.
* ParentalMarriageVeto: The reason why Frank is at the hotel. Mary's father refuses to let him marry Mary, and he hopes that if he passes the test at the hotel, he will be allowed to marry her.
* RightUnderTheirNoses: It takes a long time for him to realize it, but the player character's sister [[spoiler:is the hotel concierge who checks him in at the start of the game]].

* ImaginaryLoveTriangle[=/=]MistakenForRomance: The hotel owner, Leonard, was in love with Caroline; but when she gently rejected him, he mistakenly believed it was because she was in love with Samuel. She wasn't, nor was Samuel interested in her.

* ImaginaryLoveTriangle[=/=]MistakenForRomance: The hotel owner was in love with Caroline, but when she gently rejected him, he mistakenly believed it was because she was in love with Samuel; she wasn't, nor was Samuel interested in her.

* MisplacedRetribution: The concierge blames Caroline for the fire that killed everyone in the hotel. This is despite the fact that Caroline was just as much a victim as she was, and it was the hotel owner who set the fire that killed them - all because he wouldn't accept the fact that Caroline wasn't interested in him.

** Tony Norton was killed by suffocation while trapped in a car.

** Issac Rotenburg was killed by alcohol tainted with [[BitterAlmonds pottassium cyanide]].

** Gordon Marshall

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: The reason most of the victims didn't get punished was usually because they friends in high places.

** Issac Rotenburg was killed by

* ForgoneConclusion: Anyone who has read Lovecraft's horror story of the same name knows what will happen to Charles.

* AntagonistTitle: Charles Dexter Ward is the bad guy.

* AffablyEvil: The masked man is excessively polite to the detective, asking how he feels and complimenting him on his success as he navigates the puzzles.

* IncendiaryExponent: The Stone Spires Hotel has been the location of a number of fires believed to be the work of a phoenix. Prior to its existence as a hotel, the same property had been Stone Spires University, forced to shut down when the chemistry lab exploded and killed a professor.

* OneWordTitle

* MissingDad: The main protagonist's father died when he was young. It was revealed that in the past that he partnered up with the Big Bad in the main chapter to hunt for the Viking artifact in the hope of helping Kate with her illness. Unfortunately, the Big Bad became tempted by the power of the artifact, which eventually led to the protagonist's father death.

* ParentalMarriageVeto: The reason why Frank is at the hotel. Mary's father refuses to let him marry Mary, and he hopes that if he passes the test at the hotel he would be allowed to marry Mary.

* AffectionateNickname: In his opening dialogue at the start of the game, James fondly addresses his friend as "dear."
* AncientEgypt: The CollectionSidequest involves locating various artifacts related to Egyptology.

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: The first three ''Haunted Hotel'' games from Elephant (''Eclipse, Ancient Bane,'' and ''Death Sentence'') appear to have a late Victorian or Edwardian setting. ''Personal Nightmare'' is explicitly set in 1958, and ''Beyond the Page'' seems to be in the late 90s or early 2000s. Yet all of these games (and others) have James Blackthorne as the player's companion, and he hasn't aged a day.

* CrisisCrossover: Seen at the very end, the Mystery Trackers send one of their top agents to rescue the player.

* Irony: Dr. Reynolds tells Terance in the bonus chapter that if the experimental vaccine was dangerous, then he deserved to be executed. By the present day in the main chapter, Dr. Reynolds is hunted down by the main antagonist for his role in the vaccination project that cost many people lives, including the main antagonist's brother

** Averted by ''The Thirteenth'' and ''Lost Dreams,'' which are stand-alone adventures and have no connection to any other games in the series. (However, Schneider's Hotel from ''Lost Dreams'' does return as a location in the ''VideoGame/DetectivesUnited'' spinoff series.)

* HappilyMarried: Mark and Jane

* BadassBystander: The player character is more or less this. He's a detective hired as extra security for a wealthy man, who turns out to be the target of a revenge plot. The detective has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, and the villain has literally no reason for dragging him into the whole thing. Luckily for him, he's got the skills to survive.
* CrisisCrossover: Seen at the very end; the Mystery Trackers send one of their top agents to rescue the player.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: ''Eternity'' is the name of both the hotel where the game takes place and the project that Professor Reynolds funded which led to the deaths of all of its test subjects. This is not a coincidence.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The masked man is ultimately on one of these, although it takes a long time for the details to come to light. It's never explained, however, why he dragged the (completely innocent) detective into it, other than that the detective accepted the contract to protect Reynolds.

** The subtitles of most games are also dropped. For example, ''Eternity'' and ''Silent Waters'' are the names of the hotels where their games are set, and ''Room 18'' is the hotel room assigned to the player in that game.

* AssholeVictim: With the exception of [[spoiler:the fortune teller]], all of the murder victims are eventually revealed to have unsavory pasts. [[spoiler:The pianist was charged with sexual assault (and pinned it on someone else), the hotel owners committed tax fraud (and possibly murder), and the maid was sleeping with her married boss.]]

* StartOfDarkness: The bonus chapter shows how the BigBad was once a good man who became corrupted by his obsession with a Viking artifact.

* LoveTriangle: Played with in that there really wasn't one. The hotel owner was in love with Caroline, but when she gently rejected him, he mistakenly believed it was because she was in love with Samuel. Samuel and Caroline were genuinely JustFriends.

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: The first three ''Haunted Hotel'' games from Elephant (''Eclipse, Ancient Bane,'' and ''Death Sentence'') appear to have a late Victorian or Edwardian setting. ''Personal Nightmare'' is explicitly set in 1958, and ''Beyond the Page'' seems to be in the late 90s or early 2000s. Yet all of these games (and several others) have James Blackthorne as the player's companion, and he hasn't aged a day.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first four games can come across this way to players who encounter them later, as they were made by a different developer from the rest of the series. Starting with ''Eclipse'', the series is the exclusive property of Elephant Games and almost all the games have James Blackthorne as a recurring character.

* FeaturelessProtagonist: Starting with ''Eclipse'', unless the player character is James (who appears in cutscenes), the most we usually see of our avatar is their hands.

* HauntedHotel: The main setting of every game, for obvious reasons. Frequently causes a TitleDrop; many of the subtitles get dropped as well.

* RoaringRampageOfRescue: What brings the player character to the Lexington Hotel. His sister Samantha disappeared while investigating the premises, and he's there to find her at any cost.

* OddballInTheSeries: It's the only ''Haunted Hotel'' game in which the main game has no supernatural entity causing problems. The ghost of the Axiom Butcher is only a rumor. (There is a real ghost in the bonus chapter, however.)

* DeadToBeginWith: The game ''begins'' with the protagonist, Dave Barlow, [[StartToCorpse being murdered]] and his son Matt being kidnapped. Dave then spends the rest of the main game as a ghost, trying desperately to save Matt. Fortunately, he is NotTooDeadToSaveTheDay.

* FeaturelessProtagonist: Starting with ''Eclipse'', unless the player character is James (who appears in cutscenes), the most we see of our avatar is their hands.

* OccultDetective: James is shown to be this; his particular expertise is in helping ghosts with their UnfinishedBusiness by solving mysteries related to the locations they haunt.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Once James's surname of Blackthorne is revealed, the games become inconsistent as to whether or not it has an E on the end. It even gets misspelled as "Blackthrone" a couple of times, though this is probably a typo.

* TriangRelations: As the story progresses, the detective finds evidence that Steven was in love with Amanda, who was in love with Duke, who was using them both for his own ends.

* DeadToBeginWith: The game ''begins'' with the protagonist, Dave Barlow, being murdered and his son Matt being kidnapped. Dave then spends the rest of the main game as a ghost, trying desperately to save Matt. Fortunately, he is NotTooDeadToSaveTheDay.

* AssholeVictim: With the exception of [[spoiler:the fortune teller]], all of the murder victims are eventually revealed to have unsavory pasts. The pianist was charged with sexual assault, the hotel owners committed tax fraud, and the maid was sleeping with her married boss.

* VigilanteMan: The BigBad is seeking vengeance against everyone who ever hurt his murdered girlfriend. The player (a professional detective) and James weren't among his intended targets, but they happen to be there, so his plan is to pin the murders on them.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fortune teller has a cat. What becomes of the cat after the end of the game is unknown.

* VigilanteMan: The BigBad is seeking vengeance for the death of his girlfriend during the reign of terror by the original Axiom Butcher. The player (a professional detective) and James weren't among his intended targets, but they happen to be there and he can't afford to leave witnesses...

* VigilanteMan: The BigBad is seeking vengeance for the death of his girlfriend during the original reign of terror by the Axiom Butcher. The player (a professional detective) and James weren't among his intended targets, but they happen to be there and he can't afford to leave witnesses...

* OddballInTheSeries: It's one of the only two ''Haunted Hotel'' games from Elephant which don't include James Blackthorne as a character.

* HostageForMacGuffin: Maurice's ghost offers to save Maggie if Clark will bring him someone to possess.

* OddballInTheSeries: It's one of the only two ''Haunted Hotel'' games from Elephant which don't include James Blackthorne as a character.

* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Maggie, Clark, and Bobby, the three students whose mishap starts the plot.

* OddballInTheSeries: It's the only ''Haunted Hotel'' game from Elephant which doesn't include James Blackthorne as a character.