Mansion of Crossed Destinies (2007)

A two player cooperative game where one player, in the role of Sarah Winchester in the early 1900s, built what would become the Winchester Mystery House, while another player encounters ghosts in the house a hundred years later.

In 1884, Sarah Winchester, haunted by the victims of her family’s rifles, was cursed to build a house for the rest of her life. The whole family died shortly thereafter. But one hundred years later, a tarot dealer is told that to bring the girl he was destined to love into existence, he must rewrite the family’s past, saving Winchester and her descendents from their untimely fates. One builds a house, the other weaves a story. They meet in The Mansion of Crossed Destinies, a cooperative two-player game where you build your level as you play in it.

Two players share the same screen; one uses the keyboard, the other uses the mouse (one player can play, but shouldn’t expect to do so well!). Mrs. Winchester, in the past, carefully directs her squad of builders in the construction of the house, at the pleasure of the occupying spirits. If she ever stops building, she dies, and both players lose.

The other player plays in that house as it would look if Winchester lived to the present day — a constantly changing extrapolation. This player must find the ghosts of the Winchester family, and, using a special deck of tarot cards, help them avoid their untimely deaths in the past. By doing so, he allows them to continue building the house, and ensures that Mrs. Winchester can evade her curse.

Both players win if the Winchester family survives to 2006, when the future player will find his true love alive and well, and Mrs. Winchester will be relieved of her curse.