Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator


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Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator is the main title of a planned series of eight amateur adventure games made by Francisco "Grundislav" Gonzalez with freeware adventure game engine Adventure Game Studio. To date, there have been seven games released in the series, each game being a separate "case" investigated by Ben Jordan, the protagonist and player character. Each game features the main title and a subtitle, usually relating to the plot of the case. The series distinguishes itself from other games about paranormal investigation in that many of the paranormal phenomena are taken from real-life legends and folklore.

There were originally nine games planned, but one was dropped because of a weak plot.

Case 1: In search of the skunk ape
In Jordan’s first case, he is called to the Everglades, where he investigates the murder of a ranger who was another victim of a serial killer who rips the liver out of his victims’ bodies, and the murders are connected to the local legend of the skunk ape. The game was re-released in a deluxe version containing new puzzles and a speech pack and new graphics.

Case 2: Lost galleon of the Salton Sea
Jordan goes to southern California to a small desert town called Dunesberg near the Salton Sea. There he is called by a woman to look for her disappeared husband who went to the Salton Sea in search of a lost Spanish galleon that carried gold and drowned in there. The game was re-released in a deluxe version containing new puzzles and a speech pack and new graphics.

Case 3: The Sorceress of Smailholm
In his first case out of US, Jordan goes to a small village called Smailholm in Scotland, to investigate the death of two little girls and prove the innocence of young woman named Mary Blaine. But he discovers secrets in witchcraft about the village. In this case he meets a detective and an Oxford professor named Percival Quentin Jones who helps him in later cases.

Case 4: Horror at number 50
Jordan goes to London as he is called by a house owner with a group of different paranormal investigators to look into weird events in the house that is connected to a horrific incident that happened in the house about 150 years ago. In the case, he meets Alice Wilkins and Simon Booth, who became his friends and accompanied him in later cases.

Case 5: Land of the rising dead
Jordan, accompanied by Wilkins and Booth, goes to Osaka, Japan to investigate the mysterious deaths of important company managers, while there are leads that indicate that they were murdered by zombies.

Case 6: Scourge of the sea people
Ben, Alice and Simon go to Greece for their vacation. In the airport, Ben learns from a woman about the sea people and the turmoil they’re causing in a place called Agia Anna. So Ben agrees with the taxi driver to take him there without telling his true intentions to his friends. There he investigates incidents connected to the ancient Greek mythology.

Case 7: The cardinal sins
After spending the Christmas with his family in Philadelphia, Ben is called to Rome by an actor who killed a priest and claims that he was possessed by a demon, and on the way discovers a secret organization called the knights of St Anthony. The game was added with a speech pack and maker commentaries by Francisco Gonzalez.

Ben Jordan Unofficial Movie
Shortly after the creation of case 7, Grundislav teamed up with filmmaker Mark Lovegrove at the AGS meeting known as Mittens to make a Ben Jordan film called Le Chateaux Macabre. Although the pattern of paranormal investigation follows suit, the movie was much more bleak than the original Ben Jordan games. It is unofficial and able to be watched on Youtube.

The Plot:

Ben Jordan is in France, after the events of the series. By chance, he meets a man staying in a hotel haunted by a ghost that makes people commit suicide (falling into the swamp, falling off a balcony, etc.). He decides to investigate it and has a few suspects, like the Janitor, the Manager, and several people who die throughout the film.

Trivia:

There was a reference to AGS Forums, referring to the program that designed the games, but AGS in the movie stood for Abnormal Ghost Society.

The sequel "Ben Jordan: Must Die" has been in production since August 2010. It stars Grundislav as Ben Jordan and takes place in two main locations in Italy and England.

A spinoff movie, tentatively titled "Das Banshee" was filmed in Rosslare, Ireland during the last week of August, 2011. It is expected to be released shortly after the final game.

Critical reception
Games of the series have been reviewed by specialized websites      as well as a mainstream magazine.

It was a runner up in the adventuregamers.com 2004 underground awards.