This is the second in a series of text adventures published by Mad Hatter Software and written by the 12 year old Greg Hassett. We played and reviewed Greg’s first game, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and while I found it enjoyable I felt that it needed to be fleshed out a bit more with a bit more polish added.
Hassett’s sophomore effort, House of Seven Gables, is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book; The House of Seven Gables. The novel is a gothic romance focusing on a New England family and their gothic home. There are suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft throughout the book. The House of Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.
The publishing company or Hassett must have felt a need to commercially tie two of his games to published books. The relationship between the Journey to the Center of the Earth game with Verne’s work is tenuous at best. The same can be said for the House of Seven Gables. The supernatural and witchcraft elements are only presented as undertones in Hawthorne’s work but in Hassett’s text adventure they are very real.
Greg Hassett’s second effort is a much more concise and enjoyable game. The game provides a first for us as I believe this is the first commercial game to feature a haunted house theme.
The game begins with you outside of the house. You can see a shiny compass which you can pick up. Once you enter the house you are effectively trapped inside of it. You cannot escape the house until you have killed the witch responsible for locking you inside.
There are several horror movie themes scattered throughout the game. You’ll encounter ghouls, ghosts, a vampire, a mad scientist’s laboratory and eventually the wicked witch.
The House of Seven Gables contains a couple of characteristics which seem to have become common place in text adventures during this time period. There is a maze which you have to traverse and figure out in order to claim your “reward” at the end and the game also involves a treasure hunt.
There are eight different objects for you to collect and you get points for depositing these objects in the living room. This was not clear nor were there any instructions telling you to collect these treasures but I found that once I started dropping them in the living room I started to accrue points. The number of points that you receive for finding these treasures is secondary to the ultimate goal of defeating the witch and escaping the house. Once you have slain the witch and you leave the house you then win the game regardless of the points you have or the number of treasures that you have collected.
The ghoul and the ghost are two supernatural opponents who keep appearing randomly throughout the game. There is a way to deal with the ghoul and a disembodied voice in the hall closet will give you a hint to help with that endeavor. I never could find a way to deal with the ghost other than to give it a treasure. It demands treasure and once you give it one of the eight valuable objects it will go away for awhile. Perhaps there is another way to deal with the ghost but I did not find it.
I am not going to list the eight treasures that you can collect as I do not want to spoil it for anyone who wants to experience the game for themselves. I have always been a fan of the supernatural and haunted house themes so this checked a couple of boxes for me and was a refreshing change of pace from the Colossal Cave fantasy treasure hunt clones.
There are a few spelling errors in the game which should really be unforgivable. I am surprised that neither Hassett or the publisher caught these and allowed them to exist in a commercial product. I am not sure that Greg Hassett actually knew what a gable is or perhaps I don’t because architecturally they did not seem to make sense where they were located in the house.
There were also a few things in the game that left me confused. I am not sure if these were merely red herrings, or if they existed to provide some background color, or if I failed to find a use for them or connect them properly within the game. One example of this is the black cat in the game. When you attempt to interact with the cat it disappears in a puff of smoke but threatens that it will return later. The black cat never does return in a different way nor have any other integral part of the plot that I could find. There are a couple of other things like this but they did not ruin the game but only served to add to the mystery of being trapped within a haunted house.
I was able to defeat the witch and make my way out of the house. It took me a bit of exploring to realize that a new exit direction was created out of the living room after defeating the witch. I did not score the maximum 160 points because I held back a couple of the valuables in my possession in case I ran into the ghost while trying to get out.
I really had a positive experience with this game. I think it was the refreshing change away from the fantasy genre and the fact that this was the first commercial game to make use of a supernatural or haunted house theme. The game was tighter and I actually enjoyed my time with it.
I have decided to play Treasure Hunt as the next game in my challenge as I continue to work my way through the 1978 offerings.