Post by stevenish5 on Oct 12, 2023 21:19:00 GMT
I have been looking for a lost piece of my childhood for years now and I'm hoping someone here may at least remember playing it too. There was this computer game I remember playing with my older sisters back sometime between 1996-1999 and I can't find any trace of it today. Neither one of my sisters remember the name, but they remember playing it together and helped me remember some details I had forgotten. So I know it did exist at one point. My parents, who bought the game, vaguely remember us playing it too and have told me that they only got us educational, mainstream games (like the Jumpstart and Clue-finders games.) The best I can figure out is that this was a children's puzzle game inspired by games like 7th Guest or Myst, but simplified and dumbed down significantly for kids between the ages 6-10. So it was themed to be creepy/spooky, but nothing too intense.
The story that I remember is that you play as yourself (in the first person) and you've entered into a haunted house where you're informed (by some sort of ghoul host) that the inhabitants have been turned into monsters and that it's up to you to help them get back to their human form. However, you have to first solve all the puzzles and collect various gems scattered in the house before you can descend into the dungeon/basement where these people (monsters) can be found.
The great hall of the house/mansion acted as the main hub of the game. It had a staircase, a fireplace and various doors that lead to other parts of the game. Most everything in this room was clickable, each with a little animation like many other 90's kid games did back then. (The animations were 2d but the rest of the house was a 3d environment.) There are a few that I remember distinctly. One was a wedge of cheese on the floor that when clicked would show a mouse come out of a nearby mousehole and get eaten by the cheese. Another animation was from one of the many paintings on the wall. This one was the 'American Gothic' painting with the farmer and his daughter. When you clicked on it, there'd be a flash of lightning turning the farmer into a skeleton, causing the daughter to scream before returning to normal again. The last one I remember was the moose head hanging over the fireplace. Depending where you clicked the moose's eyes would bulge out really big or a huge snot bubble would emerge from its nose.
The doors in the great hall granted you access to different maze-like halls filled with doors which would each have a different puzzle to solve (I don't remember the doors actually opening up into rooms, but I remember the halls were really bright with white walls and floors.) Each section of the house had it's own theme of puzzles and after solving enough of them you'd be rewarded a gem or diamond needed to solved the final puzzle at the end of the game. I remember there was at least a red, blue, white, purple, green, orange, and sky blue gem you could collect in the game. Unfortunately I don't remember all the different kinds of puzzles, but I do remember one section was a series of tangram puzzles where you had to fit various shapes to fit certain silhouettes and another was an anatomy puzzle game where you had to essentially "build" a person. You'd start by correctly arranging sections of bones to form the skeleton, then you'd have to place the organs to their correct spots, then his muscles, then his skin, and finally his cloths. Funny enough the underwear was part of the skin phase to keep things PG. I remember placing the organs was the most finnicky part. If it wasn't in the exact right spot the organ would go back to the side of the screen.
The way you navigated through these hallways was very similar to how you moved around in the Titanic: Adventure Out of Time game. (The 3d graphics are actually very comparable to this game.) You could only turn left or right 90 degrees at a time and move forward (and I think backwards) one space at a time. Anytime you moved, you could hear your footstep echo and scuff the ground. In fact, your footsteps and the sounds from the animations in the great hall were really the only things to be heard throughout this game since there was no music.
The last section of the game is the part I remember most, because I was too young to understand or solve most of the puzzles. (My sisters were the ones who solved most of them.) This was when you've collected all the gems and could enter the basement. There you'd have to navigate a dark maze, again all in the first person, which was very disorienting. At the end of the maze was this dungeon door with a puzzle lock you'd have to solve to open it. For this puzzle you had to place the gems in certain spots on a wall plate to reflect a beam of light to the right spot. Each gem reflected the light at a different angle, so it was tricky figuring out where each one had to go. Once you've opened the door you can finally see the monsters in the room, who would then turn back into humans one by one. The one that turns into a little girl thanks you for saving them and the game ends.
It's annoying I can remember so much of this game, but not it's name. Does anyone else remember playing this game or know a better way I can search for it?
The story that I remember is that you play as yourself (in the first person) and you've entered into a haunted house where you're informed (by some sort of ghoul host) that the inhabitants have been turned into monsters and that it's up to you to help them get back to their human form. However, you have to first solve all the puzzles and collect various gems scattered in the house before you can descend into the dungeon/basement where these people (monsters) can be found.
The great hall of the house/mansion acted as the main hub of the game. It had a staircase, a fireplace and various doors that lead to other parts of the game. Most everything in this room was clickable, each with a little animation like many other 90's kid games did back then. (The animations were 2d but the rest of the house was a 3d environment.) There are a few that I remember distinctly. One was a wedge of cheese on the floor that when clicked would show a mouse come out of a nearby mousehole and get eaten by the cheese. Another animation was from one of the many paintings on the wall. This one was the 'American Gothic' painting with the farmer and his daughter. When you clicked on it, there'd be a flash of lightning turning the farmer into a skeleton, causing the daughter to scream before returning to normal again. The last one I remember was the moose head hanging over the fireplace. Depending where you clicked the moose's eyes would bulge out really big or a huge snot bubble would emerge from its nose.
The doors in the great hall granted you access to different maze-like halls filled with doors which would each have a different puzzle to solve (I don't remember the doors actually opening up into rooms, but I remember the halls were really bright with white walls and floors.) Each section of the house had it's own theme of puzzles and after solving enough of them you'd be rewarded a gem or diamond needed to solved the final puzzle at the end of the game. I remember there was at least a red, blue, white, purple, green, orange, and sky blue gem you could collect in the game. Unfortunately I don't remember all the different kinds of puzzles, but I do remember one section was a series of tangram puzzles where you had to fit various shapes to fit certain silhouettes and another was an anatomy puzzle game where you had to essentially "build" a person. You'd start by correctly arranging sections of bones to form the skeleton, then you'd have to place the organs to their correct spots, then his muscles, then his skin, and finally his cloths. Funny enough the underwear was part of the skin phase to keep things PG. I remember placing the organs was the most finnicky part. If it wasn't in the exact right spot the organ would go back to the side of the screen.
The way you navigated through these hallways was very similar to how you moved around in the Titanic: Adventure Out of Time game. (The 3d graphics are actually very comparable to this game.) You could only turn left or right 90 degrees at a time and move forward (and I think backwards) one space at a time. Anytime you moved, you could hear your footstep echo and scuff the ground. In fact, your footsteps and the sounds from the animations in the great hall were really the only things to be heard throughout this game since there was no music.
The last section of the game is the part I remember most, because I was too young to understand or solve most of the puzzles. (My sisters were the ones who solved most of them.) This was when you've collected all the gems and could enter the basement. There you'd have to navigate a dark maze, again all in the first person, which was very disorienting. At the end of the maze was this dungeon door with a puzzle lock you'd have to solve to open it. For this puzzle you had to place the gems in certain spots on a wall plate to reflect a beam of light to the right spot. Each gem reflected the light at a different angle, so it was tricky figuring out where each one had to go. Once you've opened the door you can finally see the monsters in the room, who would then turn back into humans one by one. The one that turns into a little girl thanks you for saving them and the game ends.
It's annoying I can remember so much of this game, but not it's name. Does anyone else remember playing this game or know a better way I can search for it?
