Dr. Death's House of Horrors

Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors is the largest game in John R. Olsen's trilogy of horror games collectively entitled Nightmare From The Crypt. It has all the usual hallmarks of his genre: compact size; timer; many puzzles; two word parser and excellent presentation both grammatically and typographically.

The aim of the game is to collect the ten keys of virtue and escape from the Doctor's horror museum intact. Many of the rooms contain a waxwork interpretation of a gruesome scene from history (for example there is an Americana Wing featuring a Wild West hanging and a Louisiana Bayou monster). There is the odd real horror element thrown into the mix which works rather well and tends to shake you out of your "it's all made of wax" lethargy.

The starting puzzle in the cell with the closing walls is of course a well-worn trope; I can remember it being used in Will Hay's wonderful film The Ghost Of St. Michael's back in 1941.

Several of the keys are very easy to come across but four or five are more tricky and procuring the lead key in particular is quite a hard chaining conundrum.

The two word parser is adequate as the game doesn't really need to push the lexicographical envelope. There is no "oops" or "take all" and no score neither. There are no bugs here as such and scarcely any misspellings although as an Englishman I had to remember the U.S. spellings (aluminum instead of aluminium for example).

I like the green on black display that is the default for DOSBox-X. Synonyms are sometimes available ("axe" as well as "battleaxe" for example).

The room descriptions are generally of short to perhaps medium length and fairly evocative. John has essayed a wide variety of clichéd horror tropes from a guillotining (sadly without the old lady tricoteuses) in revolutionary France to an extra-terrestrial tentacled monster. Blood, skulls, other mementos mori and the usual panoply of grand guignol impedementa abound.

Occasional random messages flash up such as "a soft giggling emanates from somewhere" and "you hear a creaking floorboard nearby. Is there someone else in here?" These are quite effective in augmenting the spooky feel of your surroundings.

Soft locks are I think completely absent. There are various ways to kill yourself but none are unfair. If you choose to enter a pit filled with live scorpions then you can probably guess your fate. The inventory limit is a bit of a pain but given the compact size of the game a silo for dumping all your objects is never far away, even on the peripheries of the map.

There is no light source but a thirst daemon is invoked; this only becomes a problem after many, many moves. One drink and it never reappears. You initially have no idea how to escape from the museum but an NPC will appear and fill you in about halfway through your odyssey.

Some puzzles consist of nothing more layered than "pull lever" while a few are quite clever. The puzzle(s) pertaining to the acquisition of the lead key are the hardest I think. There is one wanton act of vandalism which I originally eschewed trying as an act of Luddism being the solution seemed too unlikely; you will recognise this when you confront it. I liked the old fashioned moviola machine in which you can insert quarters and watch films containing clues to the game.

This is a game of easy to medium difficulty and would be a good choice for an adventuring newcomer.