Hugo's House of Horrors

I love a good Adventure game, be it text-only, graphical/text or point-and-click.  One of my favorites is the Hugo series, the first of which, Hugo’s House of Horror, was released in 1990 by Gray Design Associates.  The game is fairly short and not overly complex, although some of the puzzles can be real brain teasers.  It is possible to kill off your character, but although there are a few death traps they are not so common as to be detrimental to the gameplay.  The game has a charming graphical presentation and a solid dose of humor.

The objective is to lead Hugo on a quest to rescue his girlfriend Penelope, who hasn’t been seen since entering a creepy old house on a babysitting job.  The house, it turns out, is home to a mad doctor and a host of ghouls, and they have their own nefarious plans in mind for poor Penelope.

You control Hugo via the arrow buttons, and interact with your surroundings and communicate with the denizens of the house through a text prompt.  The text entry flows smoothly, and recognizes both full sentences as well as brief, keyword oriented commands.  The game recognizes commands outside of those required by the gameplay, so you can sometimes get humorous responses depending on how you choose to speak to Hugo.

The game was followed by two sequels, each following the same basic play mechanics.  The second, Hugo II: Whodunnit? is my personal favorite.  This time you take control of Penelope who is visiting her rich Uncle Horace.  Shortly after Penelope and Hugo arrive at her uncle’s country manor, Hugo disappears and Penelope discovers that her uncle has been murdered.

The game feels bigger and more open as you explore the manor, speak to the other guests and house staff and attempt to piece together what happened.  It’s not unlike a single-player game of Clue.  Following along with the quirky humor present in the first title, there is even a scene in which The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame) and a Dalek make a brief appearance.

The last title of the adventure trilogy, Hugo III: Jungle of Doom, while entertaining in its own right, feels small and stale next to its predecessors.  The humor and quirks are toned down as Hugo must quest through a jungle after a plane crash to find an antidote to the venom of a large spider that has bitten Penelope and left her in a coma.

It is not a bad title by any means, but after the quirky adventures of the previous two titles, it is a bit of a disappointment as a follow-up.

The final Hugo game was a huge departure.  Nitemare 3D retells the story of the first title, but instead of a comical adventure game, Nitemare 3D is a first-person shooter in the vein of Wolfenstein 3D, albeit stronger focus on puzzles.  Overall the level design is fairly solid and requires more thought than simply running and gunning.  Simple puzzles, secret areas and the occasional environmental curve-ball (such as having the power go out and needing to find a fuse box to turn the lights back on) keep things interesting.  There are also a variety of enemy types, some of which are more susceptible to certain forms of weaponry than others (witches against wands, human scientists against revolvers, etc.)

Although not the most polished presentation of an early 3D shooter, the gameplay was interesting and unique enough that I have fond memories of playing it, and also of being thoroughly creeped out by the first level’s dark and dreary organ music.