External Links

gothic.zip *
Contains GOTHIC.D$$
Requires an AGT interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
agtbig.zip *
Contains GOTHIC.DAT
"Big" version of AGT for MS-DOS, including Source Code for New England Gothic
MS-DOS Application
* Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

New England Gothic

by Simba

Haunted House, Historical, Mystery
1991

(based on 2 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

(From the Introduction)

Somewhere in New England, in the little village where I grew up, exists this very house and its immediate surroundings. When you play this game, you are a young woman in the year 1899 who lives and works in New York, supporting herself as a secretary after her mother passes on. Suddenly you receive word that your Great Aunt (your grandmother's sister) in New England has died and left you an old colonial house and a lot of debts. You will need luck and patience even more than money if you are to solve the mystery surrounding your Great Aunt's reclusive life, realize the full potential of your inheritance and (of course) find true love.


Game Details


Awards

Honorable Mention - Softworks AGT Competition 1991

Editorial Reviews

SynTax
The only redeeming features of this game, to my mind, are the descriptions of the locations that can be visited . Those inside the house in particular are extremely detailed and you can get a very good idea of what a colonial home of the period looked like as well as the way it would have been furnished and the kinds of historical objects it would have contained. As these are based on the village where Simba grew up and on an existing house and its surroundings, I think this must be one of her trips down Memory Lane. There were too many irrelevant objects that could be picked up but not used for my taste and the vocabulary is very limited. I also found the programming rather strange, where else could you become the world's strongest woman and pick up and lug round a carriage but not be able to enter it?
See the full review

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(0)
3 star:
(0)
2 star:
(1)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 1
Write a review


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A Beautifully Frustrating Adventure, October 20, 2018

I'm really conflicted about this game, so I've decided to defer rating it at this time. I first discovered this game as a young teen back in the mid 90's. On one hand, the writing is quite evocative and creates an amazing atmosphere that has stuck with me for over 20 years, but on the other hand, the implementation is so horrendously bad that it inspired me at the age of 15 to create my own game completely from scratch (which currently holds a higher rating than this game, incidentally). I've always wanted to complete this game but I can't say that I've ever gotten very far with it due to its lack of playability. In the spirit of Zork, this game is enormous and a nightmare to map. There are several locations where you will be insta-killed simply by going in a certain direction. When you die in this game, you don't just die; you get completely kicked out of the program, as if to say "You suck! Go home!". Not the strongest design decision. I feel like this could be a 3 star or even a 4 star game if it were to be ported to a modern development system, properly implemented, and redesigned with a bit of conventional wisdom. I feel like there might be a lot of value buried here, but I've yet to find a way to tap into it fully.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 




This is version 6 of this page, edited by Edward Lacey on 10 March 2013 at 4:12pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page