House of Hell (Standalone)

Game rating Innovation: Specific Indulgement qualities: Specific Illustration: Above average Creativity and writing qualities: Average Overall size: Small

An excellent classic horror game where a shirtless old man is scarier than a vampire or a ghost.

É O JOGO DA MINHA VIDA !!!!!!!!

House of Hell is another video game adaptation of the popular Fighting Fantasy book series, and one that I used to play when I was younger. I actually remember this particular one for two reasons. Instead of a more traditional fantasy/medieval setting, it’s a horror story where you’re trying to escape from a haunted mansion. And it’s hard. It doesn’t have a lot of combat, since it’s more focused on exploring the mansion, but there are a lot of traps, and a Fear stat that can’t get too high. You can’t deviate too much from the correct path if you want to succeed. Being a video game, it tracks your stats and items, and it rolls the dice for you. A map of the mansion would’ve been nice, but it’s absent. It’s not as fun as playing with the physical book, but it gets the job done. There’s also artwork and achievements to unlock that require you to explore the mansion, even if it means failing. I think this is one of the better Fighting Fantasy titles available, so I can recommend it on sale.

Nostalgic creepy delight.

My first ever fighting fantasy book. One day in primary school a friend brought this book in to class and was showing the pictures to me, i remember the mummy. I was hooked and asked my mother to buy a copy for me. This is a faithful, digital version of that book

House of Hell was the only gamebook in the original series which didn't have a fancy hero as main character: no dashing swashbuckler, hardboiled detective or daring astronaut, but rather a non-descript Average Joe driving his car during a storm in the british countryside. After an accident he finds himself lost, soaked and looking for shelter at a nearby mansion, owned by Lord Kelnor, Earl of Drumer (who coincidentally has more than a passing resemblance with Christopher Lee). Unebknown to him, the noble man is the leader of a satanic sect, too. That's where things get ugly for our hapless traveler. This book uses the same mechanics of the other FF, with the addition of a Fear score (1d6+6): every scary event grants the player an amount o Fear point and when they exceed the original value, he dies of fright. That's probably the weakest part of the book, because it follows a "true path", where the player inevitably has to gather a few points along the way; long story short, the book cannot be finished with a starting score of 7 or 8 (which means that roughly 33% of they playthroughs are doomed since the beginning). Apart from this flaw, the book is a masterpiece of atmosphere, probably one of the most immersive. Every room in the huge mansion (including of course a cellar) could be the fatal one and more than once the player has to hesitate in front of a closed door. The artwork is ok and tends to be somewhat cartoonish (we're still talking about PG-13 content). I liked it very much and I invite you to try it!

There is a bug here that is almost game-breaking, and it's not in UK-Steve Jackson's gamebook but in the unbelievably sloppy implementation: Depending on what font size and window size you use (I used the minimum font size and one above it, same problem), the hit spots of the choices don't match up. So what happens frequently is that you end up with exactly the choice you didn't pick, with no way back. The only workaround is to carefully approach the awfully designed button of your choice from the side that is furthest from the invisibly overlapping other buttons and press and hold the mouse instead of clicking, so you can move away and release in case the wrong one is highlighted. Astounding really, that when the whole gameplay consists of a single, simple mouse click, someone can f that up. Diabolic, really.

Hiç sevmedim, hiç oynayamadım. Hikaye belki enteresandır, bielmiyorum ama... Harita bile olmadan, rastgele şekillerde "korku" kazanarak oradan oraya savrulmak ve bir çıkış aramak bana göre değil. Oturup zaman harcanırsa o çaresizlik ve kaybolmuşluk hissi muhtemelen yaşanabilir ama benim boş vaktim çok yok ve artık uğraşmak istemiyorum böyle şeylerle. Serideki diğer gamebooklar arasında çok "ham" duruyor bu zira çok ilkel.

This was made for a certain kind of person. Basically, if you've never read an interactive adventure book before. You read the story as it progresses and you make decisions. Most of the decisions you make will end up in the protagonist getting killed. The goal is to make it out alive, which sure as ♥♥♥♥ isn't easy. It's a lot of trial and error, but also a lot of interactivity. More so than your average "interactive" novel. Most of the time you play, you'll get your ass fried or eaten. There are also old school D&D RPG elements; rolling for stats to determine how effective you are. This can also be seen as a drawback, since bad rolls will literally ♥♥♥♥ your ability to advance at times. You also get an adventure sheet with the inventory of stuff you've collected along with information and clues that will help you advance, or unlock other options. If you like D&D and horror literature, then I strongly recommend, otherwise, this might be the wrong genre for you.