Hugo’s House of Horrors Impressions

[Mike]

#5067

I guess this will be a thread to discuss the first part of the trilogy. Warning that this contains spoiler discussion.

What a bizarre game. The game feels like a random mishmash of various things the author was into. Like the Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and other creatures hanging out at the dinner table. One of the final puzzles is just an old man asking you trivia questions that have nothing to do with the game, like about The Hobbit and Narnia!

Going into the game I thought it was silly that he never heard of Maniac Mansion but I believe it now. It definitely plays like a Sierra game, including possible dead ends.

[TigerQuoll]

#5083

I’m still not sure if the dead-ends and save-ruining moves are deliberate or just oversights by the developer!

As a kid I thought this game was really long and difficult, but I was surprised to find on a recent replay that it took me less than an hour to beat.

Still, I have a huge soft spot for it. Probably the first adventure game I ever played, and it’s charming as heck.

[rnlf]

#5099

How can you ruin your safe? Anyway, the game is super weird, haha. Quick to finish, no real hard puzzles. The one that took me the longest was the mummy. Unless there’s a real solution to that other than abusing its path finding to get it stuck, it’s really a bad one.

Everything else is just random small puzzles. Also the combination lock code for the shed? WHY is it where it is? Super crazy.

The trivia question were either easy enough or at least easy to google (who on earth is Roy Rogers?), but the riddle took me two guesses, it didn’t like “human”. Ah well.

I ended the game with 188/190 points, I wonder where the remaining two are. Maybe you have to somehow get out of the lab while small and enter the small door under the stairs? Anyway.

[Pix]

#5103

I’m missing 2 points also – curious to know where. I think I played these games back when we did Nitemare 3D some years ago. Can’t say I remember them all that well but enough to know about that ridiculous hidden path to nowhere between the two rocks in the cellar.

The biggest problem I had this time around was figuring out what the hell was in the bedroom cupboard on the 1st floor. The game refused to tell me and I’m supposed to know it’s a mask for some reason. I thought it was some sort of bag for a while, then maybe a severed head, took ages before I guessed the right word.

I’m struggling to see the love for Hugo myself. I mean it’s passably good fun for what it is but this was essentially a very poor Sierra clone that lasts about 30 minutes. At $40 to register the 3 games, it’s about as expensive as those Sierra games. The worst SCI game I can think of (Codename Iceman) would be way better value.

That said the opening screen outside the house is kind of iconic. I remember seeing that all over shareware publications even if I didn’t play the game back then. The fact that one (presumably young and inexperienced) guy did all this on his own from scratch is somewhat impressive but ignoring that aspect it’s a bit naff overall. I could forgive it, if the price was less but there were a myriad of better adventure games on offer at the same time. Maybe if parts 2 & 3 are much longer it might be justifiable.

I did think for a minute this had to be the worst DGC game so far but then I remembered we did Rise Of The Robots so it’s not even close.

[TigerQuoll]

#5104

If I hadn’t played this game as a kid and had all sorts of rose tinted glasses on for it I would probably agree with you, pix.
One mitigating factor, though, is that this is one of those shareware games where the registered version is practically identical to the free one, so if you wanted to pay $40 then that was entirely your fault haha!

[gn0me]

#5137

Pretty sure I’ve ruined my save in a couple ways. Tough to do on such a short game.

As it stands I’ve made it to the boat only to find I left the lab without the plug. I can’t go back because the dog will kill me as soon as I go back up the trap door. I tried loading the save before I went down and because of what I assume is another bug, when I try to pick the chop back up that good boy eats me instantly.

I then loaded all the way back to the lab and somehow managed to get shrunk, get the plug and then have igor decide he was done pushing buttons. So I stayed small and could leave the lab but then I could walk all over the screen in the main hall. It looked pretty funny but isn’t helping my enjoyment of this timeless classic 😛

It would seem I broke it all real good.

[Mr Creosote]

#5162

Objectively speaking, it’s pretty awful, isn’t it? But, yes, it has a sort of anarchic charme and the tiny size mitigates most of the worst impacts of the dead ends, the random deaths, the bugs etc. My main gripe after today’s playthrough remains that there was not even a single imaginative puzzle inside.

[rnlf]

#5219

Okay, apparently you only get full score if you pick up the pumpkin before breaking it.