Game 36: Hugo's House of Horrors - Final Rating
I’m super keen to move onto Loom. It’s a game I’ve never played but always wanted to. Before I can begin that new adventure though, I need to tie things up for Hugo’s House of Horrors. I know it’s not going to rate highly. The only question is how low will it go?!
Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles in Hugo’s House of Horrors are of the more traditional variety, with the player in most cases having to find the right item to be able to progress past each obstacle towards an ultimate goal. The problem is that these traditional puzzles are way too easy. It doesn’t help that there is such a limited environment, with only a handful of collectible items to be discovered, but I don’t think it would have mattered anyway. There’s not really any point in having a door secured with a combination lock, if the code is going to be written in giant red letters on the bathroom mirror. The bung is obviously going to fix the hole in the boat, and the meat is clearly going to distract the hungry dog. There were a couple of parts in the game that can cause head scratching, but neither of those were puzzles in the truest sense. Making the player walk between two rocks (which hardly look like two rocks at all) to reach a completely unapparent underground area is not very fair, and don’t get me started on the Roy Rogers trivia question. That was clearly inserted to make the player go outside the game for the answer, and while there’s no rule that says a game developer should never do that, it sure ended up being expensive for me!
Rating: 2
Interface and Inventory
I have to mention straight up that I played the game through SCUMMVM and really wish I hadn’t. Yes, I know Laukku has been telling me not to use it for ages, but now I finally understand why! In this game’s case, SCUMMVM added a mouse interface that originally wasn’t there, and it also changed the dialogue boxes and made it so items in the game were labelled when the cursor was moved across them. If I’m completely honest with myself, I think the improved interface helped me quite a bit with one particular part of the game, being the discovery of the mask in the closet. A lot of players struggled to guess what it was, as it really didn’t look like a mask at all for anyone that wasn’t specifically looking for one. I was able to find out exactly what it was by simply putting the cursor on it, so who knows how long it would have taken otherwise. Even with the improvements though, the interface was pretty bad. The collision detection was crap and the parser nowhere near what the competition were using at the time. I was misled numerous times, especially with all the “you are not close enough” messages, and the exactness required for certain complex commands were harsh. Overall the game didn’t feel very professional, because it wasn’t!
Rating: 2
Story and Setting
The story of Hugo’s plight may have been similar in premise to that of Maniac Mansion, but while that classic had twists and turns, warped yet interesting characters, and an evolving storyline, the same can’t be said for Hugo’s House of Horrors. Characters are introduced and then never seen again, and as the game goes on each new section feels completely separate to the whole, being both random and unsatisfying. The fisherman by the lake is a perfect example. He asked me a series of trivia-style questions to make sure that I was experienced and wise enough to handle what was to come around the next corner. It turned out there was nothing around the corner, and I saved Penelope literally less than a minute later! Perhaps he knew something about the rocky marriage ahead for the two lovers! The setting is clearly a good one for this sort of game, as is testament to the fact two completely separate game developers used it for adventure games with no apparent awareness of each other, but here it is massively under-utilised. For an adventure game to be over in an hour and half, it would have to have a pretty incredible and tense storyline to seem even remotely worthwhile. That’s not the case here at all.
Rating: 2
Sound and Graphics
On the one hand, what David Gray managed to do with a bunch of non-suitable bits of software in his spare time is impressive, but on the other hand, Hugo’s House of Horrors was technically primitive the day it came out. There are a few cases where music kicks in, but it was grating enough that I couldn’t wait for it to stop each time. The PC speaker quality is the main issue, but what I heard in the windows version of the game didn’t sound like it would change my opinion. As for sound, I honestly can’t remember hearing any in the entire game. There may be a few blips and blops here or there, but the game is completely silent for its vast majority. The graphics are quite inconsistent, with the external shot of the house and the more populated areas inside having adequate detail and a kookiness that you have to smile at. The rest of it is downright ugly though, with the kitchen being the most horrible example. The animation is also way below average; although I must say watching the dog chase me around without even standing up was enjoyable in its ludicrousness.
Rating: 2
Environment and Atmosphere
When I first walked into the House of Horrors, I thought perhaps this category might get an ok score. The first two screens showed some promise, particularly when the scientist walked along the upper hall and into the room beyond, apparently oblivious to my presence. Things went downhill from there though, and the game environment ended up being too small to be effective. There were around eight rooms in the house proper, and only a few sections to the caverns beneath. Most of these screens were sparsely detailed, with many of them serving a single, undemanding purpose (the mirror in the bathroom, the mask in the bedroom, the chop in the dining room). The atmosphere is also pretty lacking, despite the horror cliché setting. It’s all just a bit too silly, despite a couple of gory death scenes, and the aforementioned lack of sound and disconnectedness of the “events” make it pretty underwhelming.
Rating: 3
Dialogue and Acting
David was clearly trying to replicate the style of Sierra adventure games like Leisure Suit Larry when it came to dialogue and descriptions. In some ways he succeeded, with a mix of required information and humour pervading pretty much all of it. Some of the humour hits the mark, although a lot of it is awkwardly implemented. There were a lot of grammar and spelling issues throughout, despite the short running time, but that’s to be expected for a shareware game that was produced with no real play testing or quality control. The thing that was most disconcerting for me though was that the messages often switched perspectives, occasionally within the same “conversation”. One minute the scene was being described to me (“You are in front of the house where Penelope was last seen”), before suddenly switching to first person (“I don’t see anything much in here”). At first I wasn’t certain why the dialogue felt so odd, but eventually I figured out that the above was subconsciously messing with me. Overall the dialogue in the game is not terrible, but like everything else, it’s hard to get excited about it.
Rating: 3
2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 3 = 14, divided by 60 = 23.33, which is 23 when rounded down. That puts Hugo's House of Horrors down towards the bottom of the board, yet nowhere close to the insanely bad Psycho. It does put it below both Mortville Manor and Captain Blood though, which is probably fair when you consider the years they were released, but feels a bit harsh. Perhaps I'm being generous because it was only a shareware game and didn't waste very much of my time, but I'm going to use my discretionary point to move it up to 24.
I'm pretty sure a lot of the predictions were in the 20s, but I'll have to go check to see whether anyone nailed 24. Yep, TBD got it exactly! Once again it was the lowest predictor that got it right. Congratulations, you've won yourself 10 CAPs and a copy of Loom! Speaking of which...
185 CAPs for Laukku
• Tricky Smack Down Jackpot – 150 CAPs – For successfully predicting a puzzle that would defeat me
• 300th Post Award – 20 CAPs – For figuring out why the number 300 was relevant
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
• Quotation Fail Award – 5 CAPs – For informing me of my misplaced quotation mark
65 CAPs for Lars-Erik
• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games
• Moby Games Investigation Award – 10 CAPs – For investigating the changes made to Moby Games
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
• Echolocation Disturbance Award – 10 CAPs – For informing me of the real use for the whistle
• Kickstarter Award – 10 CAPs – For announcing a new adventure game project on Kickstarter
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on GOG
30 CAPs for Canageek
• Genre Support Award – 10 CAPs – For announcing numerous adventure game releases / sales on Steam
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
• Flying Squirrel Award – 5 CAPs – For discovering the real answer to the fisherman’s riddle
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game release on Steam
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
30 CAPs for Ilmari
• Prisoner of Ice Award – 20 CAPs – For solving my Prisoner of Ice riddle
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for TBD
• Psychic Prediction Award – 10 CAPs – For predicting what score I would give Hugo’s House of Horrors
10 CAPs for Charles
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for Deimar
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for Corey Cole
• Roy Rogers Defence Award – 10 CAPs – For convincingly defending Roy Rogers, and his dog
5 CAPs for Tymoguin
• Companion Award – 5 CAPs – For playing the game with me
5 CAPs for Aperama
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
1 CAP for Draconius
• Shameful Grab for CAPs Award – 1 CAP – For announcing the most obvious Star Wars reference imaginable
Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles in Hugo’s House of Horrors are of the more traditional variety, with the player in most cases having to find the right item to be able to progress past each obstacle towards an ultimate goal. The problem is that these traditional puzzles are way too easy. It doesn’t help that there is such a limited environment, with only a handful of collectible items to be discovered, but I don’t think it would have mattered anyway. There’s not really any point in having a door secured with a combination lock, if the code is going to be written in giant red letters on the bathroom mirror. The bung is obviously going to fix the hole in the boat, and the meat is clearly going to distract the hungry dog. There were a couple of parts in the game that can cause head scratching, but neither of those were puzzles in the truest sense. Making the player walk between two rocks (which hardly look like two rocks at all) to reach a completely unapparent underground area is not very fair, and don’t get me started on the Roy Rogers trivia question. That was clearly inserted to make the player go outside the game for the answer, and while there’s no rule that says a game developer should never do that, it sure ended up being expensive for me!
Rating: 2
Solving puzzles is pretty straight forward when there are only a handful of items available in the whole game.
Interface and Inventory
I have to mention straight up that I played the game through SCUMMVM and really wish I hadn’t. Yes, I know Laukku has been telling me not to use it for ages, but now I finally understand why! In this game’s case, SCUMMVM added a mouse interface that originally wasn’t there, and it also changed the dialogue boxes and made it so items in the game were labelled when the cursor was moved across them. If I’m completely honest with myself, I think the improved interface helped me quite a bit with one particular part of the game, being the discovery of the mask in the closet. A lot of players struggled to guess what it was, as it really didn’t look like a mask at all for anyone that wasn’t specifically looking for one. I was able to find out exactly what it was by simply putting the cursor on it, so who knows how long it would have taken otherwise. Even with the improvements though, the interface was pretty bad. The collision detection was crap and the parser nowhere near what the competition were using at the time. I was misled numerous times, especially with all the “you are not close enough” messages, and the exactness required for certain complex commands were harsh. Overall the game didn’t feel very professional, because it wasn’t!
Rating: 2
Oh, and the inventory is supposed to look like this (this is in DOSBox). It's just a list, with no way to investigate or interact with anything from within.
Story and Setting
The story of Hugo’s plight may have been similar in premise to that of Maniac Mansion, but while that classic had twists and turns, warped yet interesting characters, and an evolving storyline, the same can’t be said for Hugo’s House of Horrors. Characters are introduced and then never seen again, and as the game goes on each new section feels completely separate to the whole, being both random and unsatisfying. The fisherman by the lake is a perfect example. He asked me a series of trivia-style questions to make sure that I was experienced and wise enough to handle what was to come around the next corner. It turned out there was nothing around the corner, and I saved Penelope literally less than a minute later! Perhaps he knew something about the rocky marriage ahead for the two lovers! The setting is clearly a good one for this sort of game, as is testament to the fact two completely separate game developers used it for adventure games with no apparent awareness of each other, but here it is massively under-utilised. For an adventure game to be over in an hour and half, it would have to have a pretty incredible and tense storyline to seem even remotely worthwhile. That’s not the case here at all.
Rating: 2
The game doesn't even bother to explain the motivations of the house's occupants. Why did they kidnap Penelope?
Sound and Graphics
On the one hand, what David Gray managed to do with a bunch of non-suitable bits of software in his spare time is impressive, but on the other hand, Hugo’s House of Horrors was technically primitive the day it came out. There are a few cases where music kicks in, but it was grating enough that I couldn’t wait for it to stop each time. The PC speaker quality is the main issue, but what I heard in the windows version of the game didn’t sound like it would change my opinion. As for sound, I honestly can’t remember hearing any in the entire game. There may be a few blips and blops here or there, but the game is completely silent for its vast majority. The graphics are quite inconsistent, with the external shot of the house and the more populated areas inside having adequate detail and a kookiness that you have to smile at. The rest of it is downright ugly though, with the kitchen being the most horrible example. The animation is also way below average; although I must say watching the dog chase me around without even standing up was enjoyable in its ludicrousness.
Rating: 2
Who needs a broom when you have a hoverdog (it's currently running in this image)?!
Environment and Atmosphere
When I first walked into the House of Horrors, I thought perhaps this category might get an ok score. The first two screens showed some promise, particularly when the scientist walked along the upper hall and into the room beyond, apparently oblivious to my presence. Things went downhill from there though, and the game environment ended up being too small to be effective. There were around eight rooms in the house proper, and only a few sections to the caverns beneath. Most of these screens were sparsely detailed, with many of them serving a single, undemanding purpose (the mirror in the bathroom, the mask in the bedroom, the chop in the dining room). The atmosphere is also pretty lacking, despite the horror cliché setting. It’s all just a bit too silly, despite a couple of gory death scenes, and the aforementioned lack of sound and disconnectedness of the “events” make it pretty underwhelming.
Rating: 3
It's hard to feel concerned when an apparently nasty mummy can't find a way around a rock to reach me.
Dialogue and Acting
David was clearly trying to replicate the style of Sierra adventure games like Leisure Suit Larry when it came to dialogue and descriptions. In some ways he succeeded, with a mix of required information and humour pervading pretty much all of it. Some of the humour hits the mark, although a lot of it is awkwardly implemented. There were a lot of grammar and spelling issues throughout, despite the short running time, but that’s to be expected for a shareware game that was produced with no real play testing or quality control. The thing that was most disconcerting for me though was that the messages often switched perspectives, occasionally within the same “conversation”. One minute the scene was being described to me (“You are in front of the house where Penelope was last seen”), before suddenly switching to first person (“I don’t see anything much in here”). At first I wasn’t certain why the dialogue felt so odd, but eventually I figured out that the above was subconsciously messing with me. Overall the dialogue in the game is not terrible, but like everything else, it’s hard to get excited about it.
Rating: 3
The tone and language reminds me of the early King's Quest games, but it lacks the professionalism of even those primitive games.
2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 3 = 14, divided by 60 = 23.33, which is 23 when rounded down. That puts Hugo's House of Horrors down towards the bottom of the board, yet nowhere close to the insanely bad Psycho. It does put it below both Mortville Manor and Captain Blood though, which is probably fair when you consider the years they were released, but feels a bit harsh. Perhaps I'm being generous because it was only a shareware game and didn't waste very much of my time, but I'm going to use my discretionary point to move it up to 24.
I'm pretty sure a lot of the predictions were in the 20s, but I'll have to go check to see whether anyone nailed 24. Yep, TBD got it exactly! Once again it was the lowest predictor that got it right. Congratulations, you've won yourself 10 CAPs and a copy of Loom! Speaking of which...
185 CAPs for Laukku
• Tricky Smack Down Jackpot – 150 CAPs – For successfully predicting a puzzle that would defeat me
• 300th Post Award – 20 CAPs – For figuring out why the number 300 was relevant
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
• Quotation Fail Award – 5 CAPs – For informing me of my misplaced quotation mark
65 CAPs for Lars-Erik
• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games
• Moby Games Investigation Award – 10 CAPs – For investigating the changes made to Moby Games
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
• Echolocation Disturbance Award – 10 CAPs – For informing me of the real use for the whistle
• Kickstarter Award – 10 CAPs – For announcing a new adventure game project on Kickstarter
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on GOG
30 CAPs for Canageek
• Genre Support Award – 10 CAPs – For announcing numerous adventure game releases / sales on Steam
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
• Flying Squirrel Award – 5 CAPs – For discovering the real answer to the fisherman’s riddle
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game release on Steam
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
30 CAPs for Ilmari
• Prisoner of Ice Award – 20 CAPs – For solving my Prisoner of Ice riddle
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for TBD
• Psychic Prediction Award – 10 CAPs – For predicting what score I would give Hugo’s House of Horrors
10 CAPs for Charles
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for Deimar
• Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing the game with me and completing it
10 CAPs for Corey Cole
• Roy Rogers Defence Award – 10 CAPs – For convincingly defending Roy Rogers, and his dog
5 CAPs for Tymoguin
• Companion Award – 5 CAPs – For playing the game with me
5 CAPs for Aperama
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing an adventure game sale on Steam
1 CAP for Draconius
• Shameful Grab for CAPs Award – 1 CAP – For announcing the most obvious Star Wars reference imaginable
About Hương Lan
No hay comentarios