Note: I wrote this post way back in October 2020 and, up until recently, was under the impression that I published it around the same time as part of my Spooky Season series of posts. I have realised now that I did not do this, and in fact this post has been languishing in my drafts for about three months. Luckily for this review though, I have decided to publish it now for the world to see. So if you will excuse the seasonal anachronisms, I hope you can still find some enjoyment in it.
It's not very often that I can say I remember playing a game when it first came out, and I definitely can't say that in the case of The 7th Guest, a point-and-click horror puzzle game I completed earlier this month. Released in 1993, The 7th Guest came out a few years before I was even born, let alone able to use a computer. While 27 years isn't that old for something like a book or a movie, for a medium that advances technologically as quickly as video games do, something like The 7th Guest can seem extremely dated to modern players.
Paradoxically, the fact that The 7th Guest was on the cutting edge of video game development at the time of its release, particularly with regard to its graphics, means that it has in some ways aged even worse than other games produced at a similar or even earlier date. Unlike retro arcade games like Mario or Pac-Man, with distinctive but simplistic and ultimately unrealistic design styles, The 7th Guest leans more towards the realist end of things. It uses 3D graphics for most of the game, interspersed with live action video clips that are overlaid onto the CGI backgrounds to create cutscenes. While innovative at the time they were first used, it is these clips that stick out most as indicators of the game's age - for better or for worse.
I mention all of this not because I think the game should be discounted because of its graphics - on the contrary, I believe it's a mark of a good game if it can hold the player's attention without depending on flashy visuals - but because I know this is the first thing people are likely to notice when seeing this game. For some people, that will be enough to put them off entirely. Others may find a certain charm in the game's visuals, while many people might simply be indifferent. In short, I thought it was worth noting.
Apart from the graphics, for me the most famous part of The 7th Guest appeared to be its story. The game has the player character (who we do not see and who has no memory of how they came to be in the house) exploring the mansion of famed toymaker Henry Stauf, where they must solve puzzles and attempt to discover what strange and ghastly events took place there in the past. These events are slowly revealed to the player through the cutscenes I mentioned earlier, which show six guests arriving to the mansion. They have been invited for mysterious reasons, and it is only as the game progresses that we find out the true purpose of their visit. Don't let the video game setting of this story fool you into thinking this is a child-friendly tale - it's a full-blown horror story, complete with some decidedly adult themes. Even though the scariness of the cutscenes is occasionally mitigated by the graphics aging poorly or the acting veering into campy territory, the horror of the story itself has stood the test of time.
The player begins the game with only some of the rooms in the house unlocked, with the rest opening gradually as you solve the puzzles in each area. While I'm sure there are people out there who have had a totally different experience to me, I found these puzzles ranged in difficulty from pleasantly challenging to infuriatingly difficult. With one exception (which we will get to shortly), I managed to solve all of the puzzles without resorting to finding solutions on the internet, although I will admit I did have to do some research just to find out what I was meant to be aiming for in each puzzle, which seems to be part of the challenge. If you ever find these puzzles too difficult to move past, an in-game clue book will provide you with hints or (after checking it three times) eventually solve the puzzle for you. In-keeping with the theme of Stauf's toymaking, most of these puzzles (aside perhaps from the infamous "soup can" puzzle) are inspired by children's toys and classic puzzle games, which I thought was a nice touch and added to the game's immersiveness.
The one puzzle I had to get the clue book to solve for me was the so-called "Microscope Puzzle", which has apparently acquired a level of infamy undiminished by the decades that have passed since its creation. Unlike the other puzzles in the game, this one pits you against a hideously difficult AI in a game of something similar to Reversi. I spent much longer on this puzzle than I am willing to admit, and in fact I only gave up after I recruited a gaming expert friend to help me with it and found even she couldn't get close to solving the puzzle. Having looked up this particular puzzle more after finishing the game, I'm starting to think solving it without resorting to the clue book is so rare as to be almost an urban legend. That said, if anyone is able to beat the puzzle and can tell me what clip is shown after doing so, I would love to know.
As I mentioned before, The 7th Guest is an effectively immersive game, thanks in large part to its previously un-mentioned music. Composed by George Alistair Sanger, AKA The Fat Man, the soundtrack to The 7th Guest is so good that I would gleefully add it to my hallowed Halloween playlist if only it were available on Spotify (for now, we will have to content ourselves with YouTube). Featuring leitmotifs for different rooms as well as each major character, the music brings the setting of Stauf's eerie mansion to life - sinister, mysterious, and tauntingly playful by turns. It is a testament to the quality of the soundtrack that, even after spending over an hour on a single puzzle with the same song playing on repeat in the background, it never became annoying. I am listening to the soundtrack even as I write this now, proving that The Fat Man's score works in and out of the game.
In conclusion, The 7th Guest is considered a classic game for a reason, and it has a lot to offer if you go into it knowing what to expect. You might not get (modern-day) cutting edge graphics or a plot that answers all of your questions, but your sacrifice of those elements will be rewarded with brain-stretching puzzles, a frightening story, and a hauntingly good soundtrack.
***
PS: After writing this, I realised that the version of The 7th Guest I played is no longer available on Steam, although I believe it is likely the same as the "Legacy Edition" now being offered as downloadable content for The 7th Guest: Anniversary Edition. This is only an educated guess, though, and I can offer no guarantees as to their similarity.
