Need story ideas for mystery/ horror game

[Breeta]

Hiyas
   Awhile ago I started making a game. It will take place in an old mansion. I have quite a few rooms drawn allready. The idea is that you are a burgler, and you hear about a large amount of money in a safe in this mansion and you have 6 hours to find it.
  The thing is I can't think of a good story beyond that! It would be nice to have a mystery plot. Or something else going on, for you to discover as you are wandering about the house. A murder would be good (people love blood everywhere right?) but thinking within the constraints of a point n click adventure game. Anyhow I am not very creative so your suggestions would be much appreciated!!
  Thanks
  Bree

[12431]

how about this: the man that owned the house is guarding the treasure. he kills everyone even trying to enter.

or this: someone got tortured in the house, and the feelings and motives around it all created a poltergeist. I luuuuuuuv poltergeists.

(and if you didn't know, poltergeists are like ghosts. but they're made from strong feelings)

[Minimi]

or how about this : You find the owner of the mansion murdered, and you start searching the house. The man seemed to be obsessed by butterflies, and there are some notes that are telling something of the Yellow Inami Miato butterfly, and the posessor of this butterfly, has the ability to control time. He got murdered for this, but the murders couldn't find the butterfly, and you must search for the butterfly and the killers.

The butterfly seems to be burned and in the diary of the man, is a paper, that is empty. You have to put the paper under the candle because it's citrussap written words. Now the text appears, and he wrote that he destroyed the butterfly because it could be a great danger if it felt in bad hands. Now you only have to find evidents for the murders!

what do you think of it?

[Hobbes]

Mystery:
You're contracted by an anonymous person to rob the house. This person refers to him/herself by using a rather catchy nickname.
Later, near the end of the game, you learn who the contracter is. Possibly a family member of the old man who owns the mansion.

Or, possibly, you learn the truth from the old man and find that you're being used by this contractor.

Goal:
As you rob the house, you discover lots of weird things. This be demonic things, or just disturbing things (e.g. the money you stole is actually war-money or artifacts belonging to a minority group). So in a sense: Whatever you steal, it should lead to a morality conflict within the main character. He's bound to break his contract and "do the right thing". This gives the player an incredible chance to change the pace of the game and give it 2 fantastic ending!

[Esseb]

The mansion is owned by a centuries old confederate general. The house is a vortex of time. All time periods ever happen at once in the house, so you have old confederate soldiers dressed up to go to a ball in the house talking to the family of four who moved in in the early 1970s, a couple of electricians from the year 2000 walking around etc. The gold coins was burried with the body of a 10 year old slave girl who was murdered (by the general himself it turns out, she's actually his illegitimate child and the money is those her mother refused to accept to keep the girl's father a secret), you don't know when, where, how, why or by who she was murdered. You're only after the gold of course but can only find them by solving the murder. So you must talk to the people in the mansion and gather clues from the different time periods. The old grandfathers clock in the entrance actually controls what time period the house is, and you can adjust it as you wish, but you can only adjust the time by a 100 years 1800-1900-2000. A clue you hear about the girl's name being carved into a tree once which was chopped down before 1900 forces you to move the house to 1800 (before it was carved) and chop down the tree so she will carve it on another tree nearby which won't get chopped down.

Etc. Impossible to do a proper game like this of course :p.

[Breeta]

Thanks for all the spiffy suggestions. I am gonna combine them all, except the time-vortex thing (which was the best idea but a little much for a first game
thanks again AGS ROCKS! *kiss kiss*

[Migs]

Now THERE'S something I never thought of.  Someone should officially make a game by just gathering all the strange bizarre suggestions from others, and combine them all.  I think that'd be the best way to make the "most bizarre" game.