External Links


shamulet.z5
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Walkthrough and maps
by David Welbourn

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

Scary House Amulet!

by Ricardo Dague

Humor, Haunted House
2002

(based on 10 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

You have green hair! Your name is Britney!! Legend says there is a valuable, powerful Amulet in the house, which may be retrieved by anyone who is daring! Do you dare?


Game Details


Awards

31st Place - 8th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2002)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


This one makes quite an effort to look like an amateurish work, but honestly, I don't believe it is; it rather appears to be a very competently done parody on a badly implemented horror story. Thus, it features a set of puzzles one might expect to encounter in this kind of game (including a maze, which, however, isn't too cruel), oh-so-frightful characters, and exaggeratedly tasteless text formatting. You may (and almost certainly will) have ambiguous feelings about The Scary House Amulet; in any case, don't take it too seriously - it doesn't seem as it was meant to be; in fact, I think it represents one big joke.

-- Valentine Kopteltsev

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

There were a couple of areas where the writing felt a bit adolescent (particularly in its excoriation of Pepsi), but generally the over-the-top horror bit was pulled off with cleverness and panache. So at the end I was left scratching my head, and not just because the ending doesn't really make any sense. Why would such a skilled implementor create this game, with its aggressively clichéd setting and puzzles, and no particular virtue except its entertaining writing? I don't know. I laughed many times while I played SHA, but now that it's over, I still feel like I didn't get the joke.
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:
(2)
3 star:
(6)
2 star:
(1)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
Write a review


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A Goofy Little Game, September 10, 2021

I did enjoy this game as a warm-up to more difficult puzzles. This game can be finished in 20-30 minutes if you're a slow learner like me. Love the campy horror elements!

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

 | Add a comment 

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A joke game that is well-put together, April 19, 2015
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

This is essentially a good, though short, "creepy" game with purposefully silly descriptions. The puzzles are hard enough to be fun and easy enough to not ruin the goofy atmosphere. Puzzles are essentially "collect everything and try it all one by one in each room".

I supposed the reason I most enjoyed the game was the pacing. There is always something to do to move the game forward. I used hints on the very last puzzle, but I didn't really need to.

Game can be finished in under a hour. One or two simple mazes with no tricks (people who hate mazes might even like these mazes).

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

 | Add a comment 

Scary House Amulet! on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Scary House Amulet! appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Great "white hat" horror games by genre by MathBrush
This list does not include games intended to disgust or to make you personally feel evil. The focus is on games where good overcomes evil, or that just make you think. That is what I mean by "white hat" games. Games like Vespers or...

Silly/goofy/purposely bad games by MathBrush
These are games that are funny because they are ridiculous or completely absurd. This does not include games like Tex Bonaventure or Rogue of the Multiverse which have developed plot lines and long stretches of non absurdity.

Polls

The following polls include votes for Scary House Amulet!:

Misunderstood games by MathBrush
I'm interested in games where the reviewers 'just don't get it', where part of the game that is essential or hidden got overlooked. I'm thinking of Scary House Amulet as a prime example, where a solid parody game is passed off as poorly...

Hilariously Bad IF games by american00b
Earlier today, I felt like playing an Interactive Fiction game that is the literary and stylistic equivalent of such masterpieces as Birdemic and The Room. I still have that feeling, so if you find anything like Plan 9 from Outer Space...




This is version 5 of this page, edited by Paul O'Brian on 8 May 2022 at 2:38am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page