The 7th Guest

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US DOS cover.

The 7th Guest is a horror-themed multi-genre puzzle video game developed by Trilobyte and published by Virgin on 1993-04-01 for DOS and CD-i, and later ported to Macintosh, and Windows. It's the first game in The 7th Guest series. You play an 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 which often include clues to the puzzles.

Personal

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, 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 it on 2021-04-24. I was a bit disappointed after all those years that, microscope puzzle aside, I was only two simple puzzles away from victory.

Status

I own the Windows port of this game, I beat it (though I needed to skip the microscope puzzle).

Review

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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 state of the art at the time on consoles.
  • The story is quite insidious, and, as a teen, I found the game to be a bit scary. Several of the puzzles and animations made me feel uncomfortable.
  • 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 games organically fit the setting. Even a word puzzle 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 additional musical track that can be played on the CD is a nice addition.
  • 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 ending song, Skeletons in My Closet, is a great song for the credits.

Bad

  • A lot of the puzzles are just classic public domain puzzles: fitting 8 queens on a chessboard, 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. More variety would have been nice. There are also four puzzles based around chess.
  • 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 really taxes you every time. 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, its completely overpowers it.
  • Entering the menu and resuming play often places you in a different part of the mansion.
  • The game demanded very impressive hardware for the time preventing anyone who didn't have an impressive machine from playing it.
  • I don't like the fact that the left wall in the dungeon has the wrong lighting.
  • The ending is a bit disappointing. There isn't one last grand puzzle to solve, you just watch yet another cut-scene unfold.

Ugly

  • Nothing.

Media

Boxes

Documentation

Fan Art

Videos

Review - PushingUpRoses.
Longplay.
Speedrun.

Links

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