[Discussion] Is this storyline too corny?

[Acies]

You put up a good background story but then let it fall with the ultimate goal of the story: "You must remain alive." It might be me, but I imagine you setting up the background story you have written in your first post and after that start tossing grunts at the player. Hopefully you'll keep your imagination flowing throughout the custom story (and include further story!), because you seem to have a good imagination.

One idea I have - changes things around a lot:

Set up the main character to be one of the "movie-stubborn-I-do-not-believe-in-ghosts". He's there to do some sort of duty etc. evaluate a house for sale. You start throwing a few physche scares at the player (warnings of sorts), but the main character dismisses them as nothing and sets goals to explore the scary cellar (for example). The player will be scared and possibly angry at the main character for being such an ignorant moron. Could possibly be something interesting to explore in addition to your main story :]