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dkirschner's The 7th Guest (PC)

[December 27, 2014 03:09:58 PM]

I know I had written something about 7th Guest before, but I can’t find it! Oh well. My girlfriend and I played this together. We were regular about it 3 months ago, then got to the end and became stuck.

7th Guest is a cheesy murder mystery type game about a haunted house. Six or seven people get invited to a mansion a la A House on Haunted Hill. You play as one of those people. You’re trapped in the house and everyone else is gone. You must solve puzzles to progress the story and unlock more puzzles. When you beat a puzzle, you usually get some (often times hilarious) scene with actors (who were probably the developers’ and their families) depicting events at the house. There were some murders, a sexy time in a bedroom, someone suffocating a baby, characters plotting together, bleeding walls, wailing paintings, etc.

I love that this was made in 1993 and that it was such a big deal. I have learned that this was one of the first games exclusively available on CD-ROM, that it was responsible for accelerating the sale of CD-ROM drives, that it sold millions of copies, and that it was quite risqué for its time! Also, Bill Gates called it “the future of interactive entertainment.” Ha. Hahahaha. Yes, you remember back when FMV in video games was the pinnacle of awesomenesss? Greg Costikyan was in the credits. I don’t remember what for, but it’s cool that people involved with this are still working.

Some puzzles are easy and others are very difficult. Most involve finding patterns and tons of trial and error. I hated a few. First was the crypt maze. It’s a giant labyrinth, and this is where we thought we were stuck and quit playing months ago. The other was the microscope game, where you have to play a Go-like game against the AI, which must be impossible. Everyone online said this puzzle was optional, but it turns out you do have to beat it to finish the game. That’s where A and I were stuck. We’d done all the puzzles, even the prerequisites to unlock the final two. After much googling and way, way too much backtracking and double-checking each room and puzzle to make sure we’d done them, we finally followed a tip that said the microscope puzzle was mandatory! But these tips also said it was impossible and you had to use the hint book to beat it.

Long story short, we finished using walkthroughs because we were over it. Long game, some interesting puzzles, many frustrating ones, no map, very old and slow, amusing nonetheless. Horrible FMV scenes were funny. Recommended for nostalgia.