Uninvited

North American NES box art.

Uninvited is a puzzle adventure game with a horror theme created by ICOM Simulations and first released on Macintosh in 1986, and then ported to a bunch of different platforms.

I bought Uninvited because it appeared to be the same type of game as one of my favorites, Shadowgate. I got it as a used rental cartridge from Kroger along with Shadowgate and Deja Vu. I got really far into the game when I first played it, but got bored of it. Around 2010, I decided to try and beat it properly, and did.

Status

I own this game on the NES and have beaten it.

Review

• Overall: 4/10
• Best Version: NES

Good

• The game's artwork is pretty good in most of the ports, and the NES port has great music.
• The interface is nicely intuitive.

Bad

• For a horror game, it's not very scary.
• The maze in the back yard is a bit dull.

Ugly

• The red skull that drives you crazy and slowly kills you every couple dozen moves is very obnoxious. Only years later did I learn that starts when you pick up the ruby, and can be avoided all together if you just leave the item where is lies. I wish the game would indicate this in some way.

Box Art

• 

  This box art was used for the Mac, Amiga, Apple II GS, Atari ST, and DOS. It's a pretty nice creepy looking house and gives you a good idea about what kind of game you're going to play. The layout is awfully boring, but I think this is my favorite cover art.

• 

  The Japanese box art continues with the haunted house motif. The lightning looks kind of lame, but the entrance of the house looks like a giant spiked-tooth maw. Unfortunately, there is a giant red box around the title.

• 

  This North American NES box art makes it clear that this game is going to feature creepy skeletons dressed in drag.

• Uninvited - W16 - USA.jpg

  This box art was used exclusively for the Windows 3 port. While it features the haunted house with lightning in the background. I think the skeleton in the window actually hurts the overall experience, as it is unable to live up to what people can imagine. Also, while the typeface is good, why does the lettering use an Easter color palette?

Gallery

• Uninvited - NES - Manual.pdf

  Game manual.

There is also an official hint guide to this game, which I haven't been able to find.

Links

• mobygames.com/game/uninvited - MobyGames.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninvited_(video_game) - Wikipedia.
• vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Uninvited_(NES) - Music.
• thealmightyguru.com/Games/Hacking/Wiki/index.php/Uninvited - NES Hacker Database.