The Uninvited: MacVenture Series

If you were alive and well in the 1980's, and you owned an Apple IIGS or Macintosh computer, chances are you remember the MacVenture games. They were a series of excruciatingly punishing point and click titles released throughout the mid-to-late 80's, with The Uninvited being the second in the line-up; coming out originally in 1986 for Mac, and 1988 for the IIGS, the two versions included in this Steam release. Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Famicom, NES, and Windows 3.x were all completed between 1986 and 1993 as well. Needless to say, this was a game that got around. In a time before elaborate cutscenes and thrilling plotlines, the MacVenture series relied on reading like an old, yellowed book. You know, the kind that has been sitting in an attic for a while, and therefore each turn of a page fills your nostrils with a very familiar musty smell. The text is intricate, and it serves as a compelling reminder and sustainable source that atmosphere can sometimes come purely from exceptional, immersive writing. The story itself is very basic, you play as an unnamed adventurer who is travelling with their brother. You see an object in the road, swerve to avoid it, and end up in a wreck. When you wake, your brother is nowhere to be found, but you spot an old Victorian mansion in the distance; he must be there, and thus you set out on your adventure. The real challenge to this game is its hidden, unforgiving time limit that will brutally beat you down no matter how many save files you decide to make. This concealed mechanic only ticks down when you perform actions; whether that be using an item, opening a door, looking at objects, travelling to a different screen, or speaking. Every single action has the consequence of eating up precious time, and once all of the time has been used then the mansion possesses you and it's game over. New for its time and still cruel some 34 years later, the time limit mechanic forces the game into the corner of trial-and-error exploration, and may even reduce some people to pulling out old fashioned pen and paper to map their right and wrong interaction routes. The puzzles are easy enough to solve, as all of their solutions are found plainly somewhere in the game, but actually finding and using them before time depletes completely is the biggest obstacle, as there are so many elements that can be interacted with. Despite its punishing nature, aged gameplay, cheesy sound effects, and lack of an actual soundtrack, The Uninvited manages to still hold up over three decades later. The atmosphere is truly compelling, propelled by Choose Your Own Adventure style graphics, and poetic storytelling; surprisingly, the black and white Macintosh version is actually offers more ambience than its color counterpart, so it's nice that it was included in this re-release. Although it doesn't look like much by today's standards, the game was actually praised for its innovative mouse-based gameplay, complex puzzles, and user-friendly interface back upon initial release. Of course, all of that, with exception of the puzzles, is now inordinately dated and those who were born closer to the turn of the century will probably not find much novelty in going back and attempting to solve the mystery of the mansion. In essence, that's really what these re-releases are at this point; a novelty, whether it be for nostalgia, or for the sake of saying that you played it. [h1]Rating: [b]4.0/5.0[/b] - Excellent, highly worth playing.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore

Anyone who knows their horror games, particularly those in the good old days of consoles we now fondly refer to as 'retro', will likely have heard of or even seen someone play the Macventure games back when they were either new or some decades later in the early years of YouTube during the times when the Let's Play scene was thriving and introducing many young gamers of the 2000s like myself to various games of the past. Whilst many will likely be picturing the NES versions of these games in their mind, this Steam port goes a bit further back with the original releases of these charming point-and-click adventure games as Uninvited is the second of the three games in a trilogy released by ICOM Simulations in 1986. Given that the first game, Deja Vu, was going for a 50s detective-styled adventure set in Chicago, this second entry instead takes place in then-modern 80s with the player taking control of an older sister who is searching for their younger brother after a sudden car crash leads her into a foreboding and ominous mansion filled with all manners of dangerous threats, be they normal or supernatural! (Interestingly enough, the NES version has you take control of the younger brother instead whilst the older sister is the one in need of rescuing) It's hard to argue that a classic mystery exploration of places where evil takes residence doesn't make for a good and compelling story, be as it may it is something of a cliché these days in games and movies alike, however Uninvited works particularly well with whichever version of the game you choose as this gives players the option of going with either the ancient Macintosh 1986 release in all of its black-and-white vintage glory or letting you opt for a more colourful and visually-pleasing Apple II port that came out two years later. Seeing as one key aspect of these point-and-click games is being able to clearly see and interact with the environment, something that I struggled with more when trying out the Mac version as opposed to Apple II where the visuals felt more approachable alongside generally being more fun to look at for extended periods of gameplay. Although I should note that one issue I have with the Steam release here is the fairly small screen that makes interacting with tiny objects quite difficult to accomplish, thankfully you can adjust the screen or maximize it to fix this at the cost of losing the crispness of the pixelated visuals. Now before going any further in this review, I should make note that I have played the Deja Vu Macventure release on Steam and found it to be somewhat disappointing, especially when you consider that there is a trilogy of the NES games already available for purchase. However, compared to that title, I feel that the Mac/Apple II version of Uninvited is good enough at what it sets to accomplish that it comes fairly close to the NES version and, in a couple of niche cases, actually surpasses it as I will discuss later on. So to get into what makes Uninvited stand out as a classic retro horror game, first I will touch on the atmosphere itself which, alongside the visuals crafting such a tense and spooky adventure for first-timers, truly adds to the overall experience. Little details that can be noticed including periodic thunder storms that are almost harmless and vary in strength depending on where you are in the mansion with the sounds and flashing visuals reflecting this plus various hidden details when examining letters or obscure/hidden parts of specific objects that give more substance and depth to the world as this is one aspect the Mac original has over the NES port due to limited text size on their version. Something else I should make note of is this series' usage of time limits, given how Deja Vu will eventually catch you off-guard by one too many visits from a mugger that stalks you across the streets who is eager to rob you of your money that's needed to progress whilst Shadowgate has the torch system whereby running out of light from both torches without replacing one of them will force a game over on you. Uninvited, meanwhile, has a rather obscure method of doing this whereby, right from the very moment you step outside of the car that you begin the game in, your character begins a lengthy process of having their slowly being overtaken by the evil forces through psychological means before eventually succumbing to them, should the player take too long to cleanse the place of its evil. I make particular mention of this as the NES version did away with it by making it a subtle 'game over' via a new particular item that triggers this effect only if it's acquired, thus making it the only game across all ports to not have this time limit effect. Personally I find its absence to be a negative for this version due to how cryptic most of the puzzles are compared to Deja Vu and Shadowgate since some of the solutions are either more convoluted (spells aren't memorized and need to be typed in manually via the 'Speak' command or using tiny items with other objects/monsters during time-sensitive moments) or just flat-out come down to pure experimentation done in the old style without much of any guidance to point players towards solutions. Obviously it helps that Uninvited is the one game that delves the most into horror of the three, seeing as it is something of a personal favourite of mines even though I do wager there are those who fancy a good D&D-inspired journey with Shadowgate set in the Medieval era whilst Deja Vu is for those who love a good noir tale told in Chicago set in the fifties, but it is crafted so well and in such a manner that it reduces potential backtracking for those familiar with the mansion on repeat visits alongside other such tricks to help out on the gameplay side of things! Despite all of my praise of this port, I am still in conflict as to whether this is the superior version to play as there are those who much prefer revisiting the Nintendo collection that they perhaps may have played themselves back as a young gamer. If that is the case, then I am happy to inform you that the 8-bit Adventure Anthology exists to satisfy players who would prefer to try out the NES trilogy instead: https://store.steampowered.com/app/664850/8bit_Adventure_Anthology_Volume_I/ Though even with that being said, the fact that Uninvited in the MacVenture series proved to be not just a better gaming experience than Deja Vu but also more engaging and easier to immerse yourself into is something that I was pleasantly surprised by. In short, grab this game when that particular mood strikes you whenever you fancy going back to the 80s and playing a classic in the genre of point-and-click adventure games as well as retro gaming itself! TLDR Version: • A return to old-fashioned horror via point-and-click gameplay by solving puzzles and avoiding the many perils and evil residents of the mansion (+) • Offers two different versions in which players can either choose the 1986 classic black-and-white Macintosh original or stick with the visually-improved 1988 Apple II port (+) • Many fun interactions and details that are not seen or censored in the NES version that most are familiar with (+) • Uninvited's horror focus does this game justice compared to the other two entries as it is especially easy to enjoy and immerse yourself into the world of horror with the graphics and sounds complimenting this (+) • The graphics are appealing through the lens of a retro gamer but will likely not be visually pleasing to fans of the NES port or more modern and 3D-inclinded gamers (-) • Uninvited's puzzles are more cryptic than the other two games, an issue avoided with the NES port's lack of a time limit but is exacerbated with working against the hidden clock (-) • Some QOL updates present in the NES version are missing, including needing to memorize and type out spells or clicking on tiny objects to use during timed events made unnecessarily difficult (-)

[h1]Interesting experience, but you will need a walkthrough[/h1] Old-school adventure gamers will like the style and feel of this game, which has colour pixel graphics and barebones sound effects, as well as plenty of easter eggs to discover. But many of the puzzles are not set up very well, and you'll most likely need to refer to a guide on how to solve them. This is coming from someone who's solved many an adventure game (including the original Monkey Island) without hints. Some puzzles just leave you frustrated with how asinine they are (e.g. you have to [i]open[/i] a bottle in order to effectively use it on something), while others simply don't make sense (e.g. ferocious, hungry-looking dogs not wanting meat but instead [spoiler]being afraid of lightning[/spoiler]?!) On top of all this, the game has a time limit, seriously limiting exploration. You can also die numerous times, simply because you do not have a particular inventory item on you when faced with a puzzle. As for the story, well, we do get bits 'n' pieces here 'n' there of what happened in the mansion you're trapped in, but it still doesn't explain a whole load of stuff that you actually encounter. [b]Long story short:[/b] The game punishes you in ways you shouldn't be, and wastes a lot of time via multiple permadeaths and/or having to redo things simply because you didn't have the right items at the right time. If you'd still like to experience this game, I'd suggest watching a playthrough instead.

It was probably good back in the day, but didn't age well. Feels more like designers having fun with the player, rather than players having fun with the game. Lots of arbitrary trial and error, little you can learn to outsmart the game beyond remembering what each screen/action does across retries. Not my idea of a good game by today's standards.

The Uninvited: MacVenture Series is an ancient game from 1988. It's a whopping 36 years old at the time of this review. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions (or widescreen monitors), hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware. It's a sequel to "Déjà Vu: MacVenture Series" and suffers from all the same defects, lack of modernisation and so on. Once more, gameplay is a matter of Zork style text adventuring, "enhanced" by the Apple Macintosh OS's ability to display multiple windows on the same desktop (wow, such technology, it really is the 1980's). It was never a great game even for the Apple Mac, which never had great games anyway. This is the third of these nostalgia gouges I've had the misfortune to try playing today and I can confirm without any doubt that it really is just too old to be enjoyable. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The game interface is mostly just text boxes/dialogs and features mostly static, barely animated 2D images, the kind of thing you expect to see in browser/HTML games from the 1990s. While that might be fine for the 1990s, gaming has evolved a lot since then, the ATI Rage became mainstream in 1996... it's 2024, and that kind of thing just won't fly anymore, it's just not visually up to scratch. The implementation here is of such poor quality, the developer couldn't work out how to make the game display in fullscreen, it only runs in a window. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The game never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this game every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it. So, should you buy this game? The Uninvited: MacVenture Series is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $3 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again. This is also competing with over 11,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.

Much like Shadowgate, I think The Uninvited is still worth trying out if you’re interested in seeing old adventure game roots. I think Shadowgate is slightly better and more interesting, though. This one also shows its age and it’s certainly not going to be something that everyone will enjoy.

I was actually underwhelmed by this game. I had heard a lot of great things about it and thought that despite it's age it would still hold up. It didn't really. I felt bored and not a bit of atmospheric horror got to me. It did't help that many of the puzzles are rather hard to wrap your head around. Some make sense after but most of the time I felt lost and unsure of how to proceed. I really wanted to like this game (I've liked other MacVenture games) but it was just not for me. If you have nostalgia for the original or NES version of the game then I think you'll enjoy yourself. I just didn't have that and felt nothing to enjoy. The art was good though.

Do you like classic games that are brutally hard by today's standards? Are you a masochist who enjoys dying over the slightest mistakes you make? Are you sick of games today holding your hand and telling you exactly what to do? Then look no further! Unless you have a walkthrough or you've played The Uninvited before, you're going to die. A lot. But that's a good thing, it builds character. Each time you try it again though, you'll progress a little bit more, find another item, and die again, until you eventually beat it. And beating a classic game like this where you have to figure things out for yourself (unless you're a cheater, you know who you are) feels so satisfying. 10/10 would recommend the nightmare fuel you'll see

All the MacVenture games are great retro point and click games! So if you like horror stories, retro games, and/or point and click games then absolutely pick this up. The inventory is a pain to deal with, though.

Not Recommended