Difference between revisions of "The 7th Guest"

From TheAlmightyGuru
Jump to: navigation, search
(Review)
 
(85 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
[[Image:7th Guest, The - DOS - USA.jpg|thumb|256x256px|US DOS cover.]]
+
{{Video Game
 +
| Title            = The 7th Guest
 +
| SortTitle        = 7th Guest, The
 +
| Image           = 7th Guest, The - DOS - USA.jpg
 +
| ImageDescription = DOS - USA - 1st edition.
 +
| Developer        = {{VideoGameDeveloper|Trilobyte}}
 +
| Publisher        = {{VideoGamePublisher|Virgin|Virgin Games}}
 +
| PublishedYear    = 1993
 +
| PublishedMonth  = 04
 +
| PublishedDay    = 01
 +
| Platforms        = {{Platform|CD-i}}, {{Platform|DOS}}, {{Platform|Macintosh Classic}}, {{Platform|Windows}}
 +
| Genres          = {{VideoGameGenre|Adventure video game|Adventure}}, {{VideoGameGenre|Full motion video|Full motion video}}, {{VideoGameGenre|Graphic adventure|Graphic adventure}}, {{VideoGameGenre|Multi-genre video game|Multi-genre}}, {{VideoGameGenre|Passive puzzle video game|Passive puzzle}}, {{VideoGameGenre|Puzzle video game|Puzzle}}
 +
| Themes          = {{MediaTheme|Horror}}, {{MediaTheme|Mystery}}
 +
| Series          = ''[[The 7th Guest (universe)|The 7th Guest]]''
 +
| Distributions    = {{VideoGameDistribution|Commercial}}
 +
}}
  
'''''The 7th Guest''''' is a horror-themed puzzle game developed by [[Trilobyte]] and published by [[Virgin]] in 1993 for [[DOS]] and [[CD-i]], and later ported to [[Macintosh]], and [[Windows]]. You play a character in an old abandoned mansion who, by solving various puzzles, uncovers the story of an evil toy maker who somehow used his toys to murder children. The story is told though ghostly vignettes which often include clues to the puzzles.
+
'''''The 7th Guest''''' is a [[horror]]-themed [[multi-genre video game|multi-genre]] [[puzzle video game]] developed by [[Trilobyte]] and published by [[Virgin]] on 1993-04-01 for [[MS-DOS]] and [[CD-i]], and later ported to [[Macintosh Classic|Macintosh]], and [[Windows]]. It's the first game in [[The 7th Guest (universe)|''The 7th Guest'' series]]. The game's 3D graphics were rendered in [[3D Studio]]. The game was also [[The 7th Guest (novel)|novelized]].
  
My first experience with this game was at a friend's house shortly after it was released. He had bought the game, but his computer wasn't powerful enough to run it, so, when he launched the program, it just changed DOS prompt foreground color to dark blue, and began playing the intro music, but didn't advance. After his father upgraded his computer, he was able to play, and, by the time I came over again, he had already solved a couple of the early puzzles. We loved how creepy the game was, but we weren't very good at it, so my friend bought ''The Official Strategy Guide'' and we used it to get though several of the harder puzzles. However, there must have been a bug in the game because, even with the hint book helping us solve all the puzzles, we were never able to get into the attic. I later played the game in a Windows port, alone in a basement at night, and got creeped out all over again. This time I had the Internet to help me with the more difficult puzzles, but I still failed to enter the attic after solving the all the other puzzles, and, to this day, I have never been able to enter the attic!
+
You play as a mysterious character in an old haunted mansion who, by solving various puzzles, uncovers the story of an evil toy maker who used his toys to murder children and capture their souls. The story is told though ghostly vignettes with horrific imagery which sometimes include clues to the puzzles.
  
==Status==
+
==Personal==
I own the Windows port of this game, but haven't beaten it.
+
{{VideoGameStatus
 +
| Own      = Yes, Windows with CDs only.
 +
| CantOwn  =
 +
| Won      = Yes, but I had to skip the microscope puzzle.
 +
| CantWin  =
 +
| Finished = 2021-04-24.
 +
}}
 +
 
 +
My first experience with this game was at a friend's house shortly after it was released. He had bought the game, but his computer wasn't powerful enough to run it, so, when he launched the program, it just changed DOS prompt foreground color to dark blue, and began playing the intro music, but didn't advance. After his father upgraded their computer's video card, he was able to play, and, by the time I came over again to see it, he had already solved a couple of the early puzzles. We loved how creepy the game was, but we weren't very good at it, so my friend bought the strategy guide and we used it to get through several of the harder puzzles. However, even with the hint book helping us solve all the puzzles, we were never able to get into the attic. I later played the game in a Windows port, alone in a basement of my cousin's house at night, and got creeped out all over again. This time I had the Internet to help me with the more difficult puzzles, but I still failed to enter the attic after solving the all the other puzzles. I later learned that the microscope puzzle, which I couldn't beat, could be "finished" by using the in-game hint book. After learning that, I replayed the game, skipped the microscope puzzle, and finally beat the game. I was a bit disappointed after all those years that, microscope puzzle aside, I was only two simple puzzles away from victory.
  
 
==Review==
 
==Review==
{{Video Game Review|6|4|9|9|3|62%|Windows}}
+
{{Video Game Review|6|4|9|9|3|Windows}}
  
 
{{Spoilers}}
 
{{Spoilers}}
  
 
===Good===
 
===Good===
* For the time, the game was state of the art. The graphics, sound, music, video, and 3D animation were all extremely impressive. To give you an idea of how far ahead it was, one of the most impressive games on the SNES at the time was [[Secret of Mana]].
+
* For the time, the game was state of the art. The graphics, sound, music, video, and 3D animation were all extremely impressive. To give you an idea of how far ahead it was, ''[[Secret of Mana]]'' was the technological apex of consoles at the time.
* The story is quite insidious, and, as a child, I found the game to be a bit scary. Several of the puzzles and animations made me feel uncomfortable.
+
* The story, written by [[Matthew Costello]], is quite insidious, and, as a young teen, I found the game to be sufficiently scary. Several of the puzzles, animations, and vignettes are unsettling.
* There is a pretty good assortment of puzzles that tax different areas of your mind including pattern recognition, lateral thinking, memorization, even the occasional word problems.
+
* There is a pretty good assortment of puzzles that tax different areas of your mind including pattern recognition, lateral thinking, memorization, and more. Also, a good amount of effort has been put toward ensuring the puzzles organically fit the setting. They even incorporated a couple [[Video word game|word puzzles]] in a way that doesn't seem out of place.
* [[George Sanger]]'s soundtrack is wonderfully haunting, and the additional audio track on the game CD is a nice addition.
+
* [[Robert Stein III]] created wonderful art for the game designing a properly creepy mansion, and the modelers created 3D objects that were way ahead of their time.
 +
* [[George Sanger]] and Team Fat composed a wonderfully haunting soundtrack, and the fact that you could put the game into a CD and hear much of the soundtrack, as well as a special track, was a wonderful addition. The ending song, ''[[Skeletons in My Closet]]'', is a great song for the credits.
 +
* Using a [[Ouija]] board for the menu was clever, and the cursors (skeleton hands, eyes, chattering teeth, throbbing brain, drama mask) are all perfectly fitting.
 +
* The included crime scrapbook was an in-game universe document which adds verisimilitude to the game.
 +
* I like that the game reactivates all the puzzles after you win so you can replay any puzzle you want.
  
 
===Bad===
 
===Bad===
* A lot of the puzzles are just fancy graphics placed over a classic puzzle: fitting 8 queens on a chessboard, coin flipping mazes, copycat on the piano, etc. Others were derivative of existing games like Lights Out and slider games.
+
* A lot of the puzzles are just old public domain puzzles: [[eight queens puzzle]], [[peg solitaire]], coin flipping mazes, follow the leader on the piano, etc. Others were derivative of existing games like Lights Out and slider games.
* Puzzles end up taking about ten times longer to solve because the animation is so slow, and you can't turn it off.
+
* Navigation through the house and puzzles themselves ends up taking about ten times longer than they need to because the animation is so slow, and you can't speed it up or turn it off. Also, there is no way to end it prematurely, even if you've already seen it.
* There were four puzzles that were variations on a theme: the coffin puzzle, Stauff's painting, the mansion puzzle, and the block puzzle. More variety would have been nice.
+
* There were four puzzles that were variations on a theme: the coffin puzzle, Stauff's portrait, the mansion puzzle, and the block puzzle. There are also four puzzles based around [[chess]]. More variety would have been nice.
* The acting is pretty bad.
+
* The acting is pretty terrible.
* The game required you to have very impressive hardware for the time.
+
* Like most puzzle games, once you discern the trick needed to win the puzzle, it's over, and you'll have to wait until you forget the solution before it's a challenge again. Only the microscope puzzle taxes you every time, but that one goes overboard. This hurts the replay value.
 +
* Some of the audio is poorly engineered. Dialogue is sometimes quieter than the music and you can barely hear it, and, at other times, it completely overpowers it. The lip-sync is often badly off as well.
 +
* Entering the menu and resuming play often places you in a different part of the mansion which is annoying. You also can't load a game without first quitting the game and restarting it, which is even more annoying.
 +
* The game demanded very impressive hardware for the time preventing anyone who didn't have an impressive PC from playing it. However, I have to give the developers props for including a huge assortment of display drivers.
 +
* I don't like the fact that the left wall in the dungeon has the wrong lighting. Same with the bricks in the fireplace. That's just lazy design.
 +
* I wish they had kept in aspects of the bad ending for players who used to hint book too much. However, since the microscope puzzle is so difficult, it's best that they didn't.
  
 
===Ugly===
 
===Ugly===
* Nothing.
+
* The microscope puzzle is way too hard. The AI looks three turns ahead, meaning it will beat all but the most expert human players. The designers really should have added a way to dial back the difficulty to allow casual gamers a fighting chance because the completionist in me hates that I have to use the library hint book to skip it. Even the game's official hint book can't help you, and suggests skipping it.
 +
* Due to the random initialization of the mansion flipper puzzle, it frequently creates unwinnable puzzles. I spent a fair amount of time fiddling with this one until I finally realized that there was just no way to solve it. After restarting several times for a better initial random state, I finally beat it. Had the program started with a proper board, then randomly flipped it behind the scenes, and gave you the scrambled result, this problem wouldn't exist.
 +
* The ending is disappointing. There isn't one last grand complex puzzle to solve, just the window puzzle, which isn't too difficult, and then you just sit there and watch yet another cut-scene unfold. It felt very underwhelming.
  
 
==Media==
 
==Media==
Line 34: Line 68:
 
7th Guest, The - DOS - USA.jpg|This art was used for nearly every release, though different platforms cropped it and added platform-specific graphics. The art is impressive (though the mansion is a bit small), the lettering is fantastic, and little touches like the wrought iron gate, moss on the dead tree, and strange silhouette in the attic window make it clear you're going to play a horror game.
 
7th Guest, The - DOS - USA.jpg|This art was used for nearly every release, though different platforms cropped it and added platform-specific graphics. The art is impressive (though the mansion is a bit small), the lettering is fantastic, and little touches like the wrought iron gate, moss on the dead tree, and strange silhouette in the attic window make it clear you're going to play a horror game.
 
7th Guest, The - W32 - USA.jpg|This art was used on a later run of the Windows port. It uses elements of the original art, along with various other pieces with a gold palette. It's nice, but it's not as good as the original, and the "For Windows 95" box is distracting.
 
7th Guest, The - W32 - USA.jpg|This art was used on a later run of the Windows port. It uses elements of the original art, along with various other pieces with a gold palette. It's nice, but it's not as good as the original, and the "For Windows 95" box is distracting.
 +
7th Guest, The - Logo.png|Logo from the box.
 
</gallery>
 
</gallery>
  
 
===Documentation===
 
===Documentation===
 +
The game also included a "crime scrapbook," of which I have yet to find a digital copy.
 +
 
<gallery>
 
<gallery>
 +
7th Guest, The - DOS - USA - Manual.pdf|US DOS manual.
 +
7th Guest, The - WIN - USA - Manual.pdf|US Windows manual.
 
7th Guest, The - DOS - EU - Manual.pdf|Manual (Europe)
 
7th Guest, The - DOS - EU - Manual.pdf|Manual (Europe)
 
7th Guest, The - Official Strategy Guide, The.pdf|The Official Strategy Guide.
 
7th Guest, The - Official Strategy Guide, The.pdf|The Official Strategy Guide.
 +
7th Guest, The - Novel, A - Hardcover - USA.jpg|[[The 7th Guest (novel)|Novelization]].
 +
7th Guest, The - ADAT Project Documentation.pdf|An article about the preservation of the game's audio.
 
</gallery>
 
</gallery>
  
Line 48: Line 89:
  
 
===Videos===
 
===Videos===
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z-Q5KVTyI youtube.com/watch?v=45Z-Q5KVTyI] - Longplay.
+
{{YouTube|W-izG5_fQ84|Review - PushingUpRoses.}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-izG5_fQ84 youtube.com/watch?v=W-izG5_fQ84] - Pushing Up Roses.
+
{{YouTube|45Z-Q5KVTyI|Longplay.}}
 +
{{YouTube|BXUGJDpVkXE|Speedrun.}}
 +
 
 +
==Play Online==
 +
{{PlayOnline|https://classicreload.com/the-7th-guest.html|MS-DOS}}
 +
 
 +
==Representation==
 +
{{Representation
 +
| Media                      = Video games
 +
| StrongFemaleCharacterStatus = Pass
 +
| StrongFemaleCharacterNotes  = Elinor Knox has a strong desire to fix her old life and help Tad. The other two don't show growth, but are still both willing to do what it takes to achieve their dreams.
 +
| BechdelTestStatus          = Fail
 +
| BechdelTestNotes            = The women never really talk to each other.
 +
| StrongPOCCharacterStatus    = Fail
 +
| StrongPOCCharacterNotes    = Everyone is white.
 +
| QueerCharacterStatus        = Fail
 +
| QueerCharacterNotes        = There are no queer characters.
 +
}}
  
 
==Links==
 
==Links==
Line 55: Line 113:
 
{{Link|Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest}}
 
{{Link|Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest}}
 
{{Link|StrategyWiki|https://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest}}
 
{{Link|StrategyWiki|https://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest}}
 +
{{Link|GameFAQs|https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/524290-the-7th-guest}}
 
{{Link|TCRF|https://tcrf.net/The_7th_Guest}}
 
{{Link|TCRF|https://tcrf.net/The_7th_Guest}}
 +
{{Link|TVTropes|https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest}}
  
 
* [http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/T7G/Index.html thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/T7G/Index.html] - My old shrine, "The Doll House."
 
* [http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/T7G/Index.html thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/T7G/Index.html] - My old shrine, "The Doll House."
  
  
[[Category: Games|7th Guest, The]]
+
[[Category: Video Game Prime Order - Strategy, Adventure, Action]]
[[Category: Video Games|7th Guest, The]]
+
[[Category: Favorite]]
[[Category: CD-i Games|7th Guest, The]]
+
[[Category: Favorite Games]]
[[Category: DOS Games|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Macintosh Games|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Windows Games|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Puzzle|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Horror|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Favorite|7th Guest, The]]
 
[[Category: Favorite Games|7th Guest, The]]
 

Latest revision as of 14:46, 7 March 2024

The 7th Guest

7th Guest, The - DOS - USA.jpg

DOS - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Trilobyte
Publisher Virgin Games
Published 1993-04-01
Platforms CD-i, DOS, Macintosh Classic, Windows
Genres Adventure, Full motion video, Graphic adventure, Multi-genre, Passive puzzle, Puzzle
Themes Horror, Mystery
Series The 7th Guest
Distribution Commercial

The 7th Guest is a horror-themed multi-genre puzzle video game developed by Trilobyte and published by Virgin on 1993-04-01 for MS-DOS and CD-i, and later ported to Macintosh, and Windows. It's the first game in The 7th Guest series. The game's 3D graphics were rendered in 3D Studio. The game was also novelized.

You play as a mysterious character in an old haunted mansion who, by solving various puzzles, uncovers the story of an evil toy maker who used his toys to murder children and capture their souls. The story is told though ghostly vignettes with horrific imagery which sometimes include clues to the puzzles.

Personal

Own?Yes, Windows with CDs only.
Won?Yes, but I had to skip the microscope puzzle.
Finished2021-04-24.

My first experience with this game was at a friend's house shortly after it was released. He had bought the game, but his computer wasn't powerful enough to run it, so, when he launched the program, it just changed DOS prompt foreground color to dark blue, and began playing the intro music, but didn't advance. After his father upgraded their computer's video card, he was able to play, and, by the time I came over again to see it, he had already solved a couple of the early puzzles. We loved how creepy the game was, but we weren't very good at it, so my friend bought the strategy guide and we used it to get through several of the harder puzzles. However, even with the hint book helping us solve all the puzzles, we were never able to get into the attic. I later played the game in a Windows port, alone in a basement of my cousin's house at night, and got creeped out all over again. This time I had the Internet to help me with the more difficult puzzles, but I still failed to enter the attic after solving the all the other puzzles. I later learned that the microscope puzzle, which I couldn't beat, could be "finished" by using the in-game hint book. After learning that, I replayed the game, skipped the microscope puzzle, and finally beat the game. I was a bit disappointed after all those years that, microscope puzzle aside, I was only two simple puzzles away from victory.

Review

Video Game Review Icon - Enjoyment.png Video Game Review Icon - Control.png Video Game Review Icon - Appearance.png Video Game Review Icon - Sound.png Video Game Review Icon - Replayability.png
6 4 9 9 3

Best Version: Windows

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • For the time, the game was state of the art. The graphics, sound, music, video, and 3D animation were all extremely impressive. To give you an idea of how far ahead it was, Secret of Mana was the technological apex of consoles at the time.
  • The story, written by Matthew Costello, is quite insidious, and, as a young teen, I found the game to be sufficiently scary. Several of the puzzles, animations, and vignettes are unsettling.
  • There is a pretty good assortment of puzzles that tax different areas of your mind including pattern recognition, lateral thinking, memorization, and more. Also, a good amount of effort has been put toward ensuring the puzzles organically fit the setting. They even incorporated a couple word puzzles in a way that doesn't seem out of place.
  • Robert Stein III created wonderful art for the game designing a properly creepy mansion, and the modelers created 3D objects that were way ahead of their time.
  • George Sanger and Team Fat composed a wonderfully haunting soundtrack, and the fact that you could put the game into a CD and hear much of the soundtrack, as well as a special track, was a wonderful addition. The ending song, Skeletons in My Closet, is a great song for the credits.
  • Using a Ouija board for the menu was clever, and the cursors (skeleton hands, eyes, chattering teeth, throbbing brain, drama mask) are all perfectly fitting.
  • The included crime scrapbook was an in-game universe document which adds verisimilitude to the game.
  • I like that the game reactivates all the puzzles after you win so you can replay any puzzle you want.

Bad

  • A lot of the puzzles are just old public domain puzzles: eight queens puzzle, peg solitaire, coin flipping mazes, follow the leader on the piano, etc. Others were derivative of existing games like Lights Out and slider games.
  • Navigation through the house and puzzles themselves ends up taking about ten times longer than they need to because the animation is so slow, and you can't speed it up or turn it off. Also, there is no way to end it prematurely, even if you've already seen it.
  • There were four puzzles that were variations on a theme: the coffin puzzle, Stauff's portrait, the mansion puzzle, and the block puzzle. There are also four puzzles based around chess. More variety would have been nice.
  • The acting is pretty terrible.
  • Like most puzzle games, once you discern the trick needed to win the puzzle, it's over, and you'll have to wait until you forget the solution before it's a challenge again. Only the microscope puzzle taxes you every time, but that one goes overboard. This hurts the replay value.
  • Some of the audio is poorly engineered. Dialogue is sometimes quieter than the music and you can barely hear it, and, at other times, it completely overpowers it. The lip-sync is often badly off as well.
  • Entering the menu and resuming play often places you in a different part of the mansion which is annoying. You also can't load a game without first quitting the game and restarting it, which is even more annoying.
  • The game demanded very impressive hardware for the time preventing anyone who didn't have an impressive PC from playing it. However, I have to give the developers props for including a huge assortment of display drivers.
  • I don't like the fact that the left wall in the dungeon has the wrong lighting. Same with the bricks in the fireplace. That's just lazy design.
  • I wish they had kept in aspects of the bad ending for players who used to hint book too much. However, since the microscope puzzle is so difficult, it's best that they didn't.

Ugly

  • The microscope puzzle is way too hard. The AI looks three turns ahead, meaning it will beat all but the most expert human players. The designers really should have added a way to dial back the difficulty to allow casual gamers a fighting chance because the completionist in me hates that I have to use the library hint book to skip it. Even the game's official hint book can't help you, and suggests skipping it.
  • Due to the random initialization of the mansion flipper puzzle, it frequently creates unwinnable puzzles. I spent a fair amount of time fiddling with this one until I finally realized that there was just no way to solve it. After restarting several times for a better initial random state, I finally beat it. Had the program started with a proper board, then randomly flipped it behind the scenes, and gave you the scrambled result, this problem wouldn't exist.
  • The ending is disappointing. There isn't one last grand complex puzzle to solve, just the window puzzle, which isn't too difficult, and then you just sit there and watch yet another cut-scene unfold. It felt very underwhelming.

Media

Boxes

Documentation

The game also included a "crime scrapbook," of which I have yet to find a digital copy.

Fan Art

Videos

Review - PushingUpRoses.
Longplay.
Speedrun.

Play Online

MS-DOS

Representation

Strong female character?PassElinor Knox has a strong desire to fix her old life and help Tad. The other two don't show growth, but are still both willing to do what it takes to achieve their dreams.
Bechdel test?FailThe women never really talk to each other.
Strong person of color character?FailEveryone is white.
Queer character?FailThere are no queer characters.

Links

Link-MobyGames.png  Link-Wikipedia.png  Link-StrategyWiki.png  Link-GameFAQs.png  Link-TCRF.png  Link-TVTropes.png