Hugo's House of Horrors
Hugo's House of Horrors | ||||||||||||||||
MS-DOS - USA - Reprint. |
||||||||||||||||
|
Hugo's House of Horrors is graphic adventure puzzle video game developed and published by David Gray and released for MS-DOS on 1990-01-01 and later ported to Windows. It uses a game engine similar to those used by Sierra On-Line years earlier. It is the first game in the Hugo series of games and followed up by Hugo II: Whodunit?. David Gray began programming Hugo's House of Horrors in 1989 writing in Quick C, and drawing graphics in PC Paintbrush.
The story is rather typical: the girlfriend of Hugo has been kidnapped and taken into a mansion. The game uses a haunted house theme with various Halloween and horror movie tropes.
Contents
Personal
Own? | No. |
---|---|
Won? | Yes. Perfect score, no hints. |
Finished | Mid 1990s. |
I believe my mother got me this game at a shareware game swap. I played the game so much that I not only beat it, but made a hand-written full-score walk-though, complete game script, and documented various game bugs.
Review
3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Best Version: MS-DOS
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The game is trope-heavy, but that makes it rather charming.
- There is a decent variety of puzzles and none of them are unfair.
- I like the trivia section which includes references to The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Bad
- All of the puzzles are pretty straight-forward and there aren't really any alternate methods of defeating them.
- The developer used a silly excuse for having the player drop the mask before entering the lab so it wouldn't cause problems with the animation. A much better solution would have been to lock the wardrobe and give the player the key only after they solved the puzzle in the lab.
- There are a couple bugs in the game that can be exploited, but they're minor.
- It's possible to put the game in an unwinnable state, but it's pretty obvious when you do.
Ugly
- The story is lacking, the theme is tired, the game is too short, and the ending is unfulfilling.
- The graphic and sound fidelity was very dated (King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! came out only months later!). The art and music production is also clearly amateur with poorly drawn graphics with pixels often left uncolored and jumpy animation. The exterior of the house, which is clearly in a different style, looks like it was stolen from a clip art collection.
Media
Maps
Screenshots
Design Notes
Videos
Play Online
Representation
Strong female character? | Fail | There is a female in the dining room and Penelope at the end. Neither is anything more than a static drawing. |
---|---|---|
Bechdel test? | Fail | No woman speaks in the game. |
Strong person of color character? | Fail | Every human is white. |
Queer character? | Fail | There are no queer characters. |
Download
This is all of the shareware versions of the Hugo games I could find including Hugo's House of Horrors for DOS and Windows. You can still buy the game from the author.
Links
- Video Games
- 1990 Video Games
- Video games developed by David Gray
- Video games published by David Gray
- DOS Games
- Windows 3 Games
- Video Game Genre - Adventure
- Video Game Genre - Graphic adventure
- Video Game Genre - Passive puzzle
- Video Game Genre - Puzzle
- Media Theme - Adventure
- Media Theme - Cartoon
- Media Theme - Halloween
- Media Theme - Horror
- Software Distribution Model - Shareware
- Video Games I Don't Own
- Video Games I've Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 3
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 3
- Video Game Sound Rating - 2
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Adventure, Strategy, Action
- Game Mechanic - Unwinnable State
- Trope - Damsel In Distress
- Trope - Women As Reward
- 4-bit Color Graphics