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The 7th Guest
Developer: Trilobyte
Publisher: Virgin Interactive
Very different from Alone in the Dark--but no less original--was Trilobyte's The 7th Guest, also released in 1993. This compact-disc-only adventure game was one of the year's top sellers, a true phenomenon in the tradition of Myst and Rebel Assault. Sales figures climbed into the hundreds of thousands seemingly overnight and garnered the game a great deal of mainstream media coverage. Such attention even helped drive the sale of CD-ROM drives, which were still a frill for most computer users. Some manufacturers reported a surge in demand of more than 300 percent shortly after The 7th Guest arrived on store shelves. When the dust cleared, more than 2 million copies of the game had been sold worldwide, and Trilobyte was established as one of the industry's top development houses.
 A guest arrives at the Stauf mansion. |
What caused so much commotion? High production values, first and foremost. Though many gamers were attracted to the spooky storyline concerning the haunted mansion once owned by an insane child-killing toy manufacturer (points for originality) named Stauf, more wanted a pretty showcase with which to justify the purchase of their expensive computers and CD-ROM drives. They couldn't have made a better choice, for The 7th Guest was a stunning game by the standards of the time. Visuals were rendered in full SVGA, accompanied by numerous full-motion video cutscenes of ghostly occurrences and an original orchestral score. Even the menu system was packed with frills--the cursor was an animated skeletal hand, the puzzle icon was a skull complete with bulging eyes and throbbing brains, and even the save-game screen was dominated by a Ouija board. For the first time, a game was as entertaining to watch as it was to play.
 The famous cake puzzle. |
That wasn't entirely an endorsement. Gameplay didn't rate very high with the average buyer. Much like Myst, The 7th Guest consists of trooping from one static location to another and solving isolated puzzles as you go. And though some of these puzzles remain memorable--who could forget the possessed cake with skulls and gravestones topping the icing or having to close the coffin lids in the basement--all seem like hopelessly dated relics today. Like most games of the early 1990s, which relied on video sequences, The 7th Guest has not aged well. One aspect that still looks good, however, is the help system. If you're stumped, all you need to do is walk to the library for a clue or direct instruction. It's a shame that more adventure game designers didn't pick up on this invaluable feature.
 The 11th Hour failed to repeat its predecessor's success. |
Like all such phenomena, this one didn't last. Still, The 7th Guest remained a top seller for a year while new CD-ROM-drive buyers were looking for something to show off. A sequel, The 11th Hour, was released after considerable delay (its video scenes were shot in early 1993 before the release of The 7th Guest) in late 1995. By that time, however, the magic had faded. Sales and reviews were respectable, but good presentation and the newness of the media were no longer enough to sell a game.
Trilobyte itself became a casualty of its runaway success with The 7th Guest. Financial issues and poor management forced the firm to close its doors in January of 1999 (for a detailed look at the history of Trilobyte, read Geoff Keighley's thorough Behind the Games feature, Haunted Glory). The company's place in history is assured, though. The 7th Guest was vital in the development of computer gaming, serving as concrete assurance that CD-ROM would be the publishing media of the future. It also demonstrated that full-motion video could be effectively used to tell a good story.
This lesson wasn't lost with horror game developers--though some of the quality was--in cheap knockoffs such as Interplay's Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster and Mummy: Tomb of the Pharaoh, Take 2's Ripper, EA's Psychic Detective, and so on. Thankfully, some design teams were still placing gameplay above the glitz...
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