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Mystery House

Sierra On-Line info 1980

Language:
English
Authors:
Ken Williams, Roberta Williams
Platforms:
Apple II
Genres:
Crime, Treasure hunt
Related:
Hi-Res Adventures [1: Mystery House, 2: Wizard and the Princess, The, 3: Cranston Manor, 4: Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, 5: Time Zone, 6: Dark Crystal, The, 7: Mission Asteroid]
Entered by:
Gunness, Strident, THayes
Added:
10-05-2010
Edited:
13-07-2023

Synopsis

Plot

A group of people have been invited to an old house. As notes and bodies start to appear in the rooms it soon becomes clear that there is a murderer in the group. The aim in the game is to find the murderer and escape with a treasure from the house.

Notes

This was the first adventure for a home computer to feature graphics.

Also available in Japanese.

John Aycock and Katie Biittner's 2020 paper Inspecting the Foundation of Mystery House takes apart the game and analyses it in detail. John has supporting material, such as a detailed output of the game's code, on a linked GitHub page.

In 2023, Christopher Drum produced an unofficial version of the game, rebuilt for the Pico-8 platform. See here for the game and here for the source code.

[+] Users currently playing this game

Images

Image
Mystery_House.png

Rating

Average User Rating: 5 (4 ratings)

Your Rating: —

User Comments

Exemptus (22-04-2021 20:15)

Historically significant for the graphics, but graphics are designed to be more than dressing: they replace text, and this was not to everybody's liking. Too many times the player does not know what an object is and what word to use, and the parser's awfulness does not help. This, plus the thin plot, the instant deaths, and the annoying forest maze, makes for low playability, but there is something in the whole concept that makes the game special. Might be the Williams' secret sauce.