Go into the dining room and eat slices of cake in the correct order. Walk into the kitchen and be faced with the task of stacking lettered cans to spell a phrase. These are puzzles that show up in the mansion rooms almost like asides. These aren't the puzzles that adventure games generally thrive on, where environmental conditions and odd tools meet some sort of Tim Schafer alternate reality to trick gamers into thinking they are using logic. Similarly, don't expect much of the puzzles. The game tries to push this confusion aside and flesh itself out with scenes of murder, occultism, and even a few sexual romps, but don’t be expecting much more than awkward kisses and projectile vomit added in via MS-Paint.

Still others are happening now to the illusions that were created years ago. For another, some of the events you witness are visions of what happened in the past, while others are illusions that the guests saw in the past, and others are happening to the ghosts now. For one thing, the story is told non-linearly, as you choose which rooms to explore and, to a certain degree, in what order. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, to be honest. As you go through the mansion, you recreate the steps of the hunt, and learn the fates of the guests as they succumb to Stauf’s wiles.Īt least, I think that’s the plot. The mansion is also haunted by six guests that he invited one night long ago to join him in a scavenger hunt through the mansion, promising money and power to the winner. In The 7th Guest, you take on the role of an unnamed stranger who has arrived at the Stauf mansion, a mansion long reputed to be haunted by the spirit of old man Stauf, a toy maker who supposedly trapped the souls of children in his toys. That’s a lot of impressive firsts, but it also places The 7th Guest as a pioneer trying a lot of new technology in the early 90’s.' 'It was one of the first CD-ROM games ever released, one of the first games to use live action video placed over pre-rendered graphics, and one of the first games to have an adult theme (not counting Atari’s vast library of lewd titles).

7th guest open house