Woah. That was some drugging, I think, sitting up from my daze. I remember the EARL saying something about this continuing “next week” – I guess the dosage that Franklins the butler put in there was something else. 

My head “spinning”, I realize that my hands and feet are bound. Well, crap. But they were at least kind enough to leave me alive? Maybe they didn’t want me driving when I was under the influence. I come up with a plan – or rather, the book tells me I come up with a plan and I have no choice but to follow through with it. “You will hop over to the window, break the glass, and use it to cut yourself free.” Sounds like an interesting plan given that I have nothing to smash the glass with except my bare hands (or my head)? Regardless, HORROR GAME ANALYSIS is obstinate enough that the prospect of smashing glass with my bare hands doesn’t deter me (him? I am struck by the fleeting beauty of roleplaying and what it means to insert oneself into another person’s shoes, and to even just guide them through one of two choices, feeling as though you have made a decision – right before I decide this gonna hurt) and I neglect to attempt to TEST MY LUCK, instead plunging my hands through the glass.

It takes me two blows to smash the glass open and I lose 2 STAMINA for my trouble. Still, I’m free, even after gashing my wrist(!) open on the jagged glass.

“Well, some service,” I quip lamely as I head to the door. The door is unlocked! Either the EARL and Franklins thought I was dead by the amount of time that has passed and they happened to unlock the door so that my corpse might be disposed of by the local ghoul manservant, or they have incredibly low expectations of their captives.

I am standing on a landing – here, I elect to take a right and see what’s going on that way, where there are “two doors”.

I enter a door labelled “Azazel”, as in the infamous goat demon that has been the subject of non-scary horror games like DEVOUR, and find a strange laboratory. I discern that a bench full of glass vials looks like “antiques”. Is my character’s appointment that I was late for a meeting for some kind of scientist antique roadshow? Bleh. I guess that’s my backstory now. I am a dutiful roleplayer, after all. I decide to investigate the room further since I guess that’s who I am now.

The room is so shockingly lame on first glance I have a spontaneous heart attack and die. But seriously, this is the best the so-called “House of Hell” has got? Get drugged, left in an unlocked room, and allowed to peruse the EARL’s lame science experiments? I mean maybe this is why I’m allowed to walk around – this is all part of some elaborate social experiment. And hey, maybe you’re in on it too, since you’re reading my experience of replaying a gamebook from almost forty years ago. What does that say about us? Only good things!



I find a collection of rats in cages, “the squeaking noise makes you jump” but I don’t get any FEAR points for that terrifying encounter. I elect to then rifle through some cupboards, because hey, my antique roadshow leanings are a-hunting for a bargain. Unsurprisingly, the cupboard is unlocked (this whole deal seems pretty light on security, surprisingly) and as I throw the cupboard open, I see “hanging from hooks inside the cupboard two corpses which have obviously been used as experiments of some kind”. It’s no wonder this book left a lingering impression on me as a child, to disprove the relative lameness of some encounters as I was just speaking about before. While it certainly doesn’t approach scary now, the descriptions of two experimented-upon bodies certainly would have stayed with me as a child and the fact that the “blood has not dried and the corpses are still warm” is an ironically chilling detail that probably child-me didn’t need. It strikes me also that the book has the same performative rhythms as many horror works do – it creates an almost innocuous feeling at times and then allows for something creepy to happen in that innocuous space. It is, suffice to say, better than Outlast 2.

HORROR GAME ANALYSIS takes a minute to steady (my/him)self against the table, slamming the cupboard shut, and gains 2 FEAR POINTS for his trouble. I now have 16 STAMINA and 2 out of 8 FEAR POINTS. Off to a roaring start.

Suddenly, my ears “prick up at the sound of footsteps.” Oh no! I consider briefly leaping back into the cupboard with the corpses and playing dead, but alas, that is not an actual choice in the book, so I “nip (cute!) into the shadows and wait”. The footsteps stop outside the door. “Hadn’t we better ask the Master’s permission?” The first voice asks. “Hmm, maybe you’re right,” the second says. “We’d better get a light for the lamps too.” The footsteps recede and I am once again struck by the thought that the security in this place kind of sucks. Corpses are doing a better job scaring me than the actual cultists so far. Also, why would the cultists come all the way over here, then get cold feet? Are they like new initiates or something?

CULTIST INITIATE: “Sweet! We’re finally in!”

CULTIST LIEUTENANT: “You are indeed. But there are a set of rules you must adhere to.”

CULTIST INITIATE: “And they are?”

CULTIST LIEUTENANT: “The first rule: you must ask the Master’s permission before you go into rooms.”

CULTIST INITIATE: “What rooms?”

Cultist Lieutenant nods sagely, walking away. “Yes. Ask his permission.”

Shaking my head out of the daydream, I decide to leave the room before those two dummies come back and I decide to head into the Mephisto room. I do appreciate how literate and well-read the cultists here are – literary allusions within horror are always welcome. Just like sci-fi projects naming themselves “PROJECT ICARUS” or something similar. Shows a real engagement with their own material, y’know? They’re passionate, even if they’re not street smart.

The door appears locked (a first), but I try to force it. I succeed instantly (even if they lock the door, apparently they are made of wet paper) and I enter into a “cold, damp, bare room.” Exciting. I do manage to find “a frayed length of knotted rope”, which I decide to take with me.

I encounter a new choice – enter the Balthus room (an allusion to FIGHTING FANTASY #2: Citadel of Chaos, whose main antagonist was the awesomely named BALTHUS DIRE) or an “unnamed room”. Maybe the cultists were running out of ideas here. I decide to poke my head into the Balthus room.

Yay, another bare room. Curtains “bulge awkwardly” on one wall and I decide that’s a definite no. If I’ve learned anything from being an amateur scientist antiquarian person, it’s to “stay away from suspicious bulging curtains”. A weekend at an expo in Romania taught me that. There’s a box on the mantlepiece though so I decide to check that out. I pick up the box. Damn, locked. A first time for everything, I suppose. I can’t force it – but the plot instead forces me!

“A rustling from the window attracts your attention.” Oh no it doesn’t! I scream impotently from inside the House of Hell HGA’s head. “Something is happening!” the text proclaims excitedly as I drag my heels against the inevitable stupidity that is about to unfold. “You place the box back on the mantlepiece [like a total moron] and walk over to the curtains [like a clod].”


There’s no denying what an awesome illustration that is – I can see why the gamebook wanted to force this encounter. Yet I still feel the frustration of the simulation bending against the force of my will – or the desire to exert it, nonetheless.

I suffer a heavy blow as the ZOMBIE strikes me from behind the curtain and I lose 2 STAMINA and gain 2 FEAR. I’m halfway to being scared to death already! I’ve only gone into a few rooms!

Another great description here: the prose seems to actually pick up when it has something scary to describe, beyond bland descriptions of “blank / bare rooms”. “Its skin is a dirty green colour. Its wide eyes stare at you, yet through you. Its jaw gapes open to reveal a mouth of rotting teeth.” Okay, not the world’s best prose – but you can imagine the kind of effect it would have on a small child, reading this as they pick their way through a strange and unknown environment.

I pick myself up from the ground, staring forlornly at the ragged creature. Brushing a hand through my hair which is slick with sweat, I spit on the ground, heaving in lungfuls of air to regain my composure. It moans forlornly as I raise my fists a couple of meters away from the creature, and I desperately try to remember self-defense training given at the Romanian Scientist Antiques Expo. (Would have been useful before the previous curtain incident, not after). Time for my first real fight!

I take the initiative, plunging hands into its meaty, decaying torso, yanking out bits of bone and slimy innards even as I strike at it, the blows making my hands come away wet with gore and viscera. It retaliates, clubbing me hard around the head with a grotesquely rotten arm, and I stagger, almost hitting the ground. As it closes in for the kill, I stand back to my feet and, summoning the remainder of my strength, plunge my fist directly into its face. I shatter the creature’s nose and cause its neck to distend itself. It shudders for a few horrible moments and dies wretchedly on the floor in front of me. I pant, nursing the several bruises I sustained fighting the terrible creature, wondering at the poor fate of the man who once lived, but who was turned into a member of the awful undead! I then realize – the House of Hell ensnared him too! He would just have wanted to investigate the box, but then, the curtains compelled him.

I stare with terror at the curtains with this new realisation. Are the curtains the true mastermind here? I dread to think of their incredible plot-shaping powers, and what the future holds for such diabolical draperies, such corpulent curtains, such blasphemous blinds, etc., etc.

After my long, intense staring contest with the drapes, I decide simply to get revenge by wiping my hands clean of the zombie innards on them, and I open the box this time. Wait. Are you serious? The box wasn’t actually locked? It literally just had a catch on it? AND I DECIDED TO GO INVESTIGATE THE “bulging curtains”? My god. This iteration of HGA really is not doing himself any favours here. His motives, much like the motives of Tasi Triannon, are inscrutable.

I leave the room and decide to head downstairs. “There is no-one about.” Really? After my karate battle with the zombie upstairs, no-one is interested? Terrible room service, too – Franklins doesn’t want to show off his world-class cooking skills again?
I try the door on the left first, and step into the drawing room. Looks familiar. I decide to investigate the ornaments on a corner shelf in the hopes I will find a weapon to defend myself with. Indeed, I find a small silver dagger! I can add 2 SKILL to my total (making my SKILL now a rousing 10). Pleased with myself, I also take a silver flask and fill it with brandy. I have no choice in the matter, apparently. I guess I just really want booze.

I have a look through the EARL’s letters that he just leaves in his unlocked drawing room and find that someone has sent him a helpful letter saying “change your password on your cache room from Goathead. Why not change it to something that will remind you of good advice from an old friend? Signed, Count Pravemi”. So, this game was the inspiration for Deus Ex and all those “change your email!!1!!!” emails, eh?

Also, Pravemi? Also, Drumer? Count Vampire and EARL Murder, huh? These are the kind of horror villains that were just forced into the role by fate. Their parents left them no choice. Either that or they are so terribly lame that they thought a change of name to an anagram of something evil was a cool move to make them more intimidating. 
I enter into the study next, and find a message “forming itself” on a piece of paper which is apparently cause to add one more FEAR point. I am getting dangerously close to having a spontaneous heart attack over some letters appearing magically on a bit of paper. The full message is “Find Shekou”.

I stare at the ceiling. “Shekou?” I proclaim. “Seriously? What the heck does that mean?” In response, the message disappears. Passive aggressive much, I think passive-aggressively, and decide to peruse the EARL’s book collection. He has a “disturbingly large collection on black magic and occult rituals”. Neat.

I look through a book on Hypnotism, but then the book’s optical illusions begin to conjure some spooky scenes in front of me: “Shapes start to appear and faint sounds can be heard. The sounds are screams of agony! The shapes are contorted human faces, racked with pain!” I gain 2 FEAR Points. I am one FEAR point away from an anticlimax. Realizing that I am being drawn into the terrifying world of the Hypnosis book, where I will be entrapped and tortured for eternity, I ROLL SKILL and succeed, putting the book down “and leaving without delay”. I guess picking up the book of black magic is too much to ask, huh?

I try the door across the hall, “but without success”. This door is actually locked (I promise this time), and I decide “to follow the hallway instead”. Okay, fine. The first door I try down the hallway is also locked. Fake choices abound, I think to myself, as I am forced to turn around and try the other door. I enter into a kitchen.

Crap, a distant memory pulses towards me. The kitchen is end-game.

HORROR GAME ANALYSIS blocks the thought from his mind and tries to open the back door that will lead outside and end this terrible ordeal. The door is locked – “or is it?” the text taunts. There is a set of keys on the stovetop.
I pick up the keys and begin to flick through them. AAAARGH, the text informs me eloquently. “You scream loudly and drop the keys on the floor. They are red hot, and you have severely burned your hand!” I have to TEST MY LUCK – luckily, I wasn’t using my weapon hand to pick them up, and lose 1 STAMINA. The keys make an awful noise, however, and my “fears are confirmed when the door opens. Four men enter the room, all dressed in gowns and wearing goats heads to conceal their faces. They are armed with knives and lengths of wood.”

I toss the keys to one side, and draw the dagger from my belt. The four cultists look at each other with their dead goat eyes, and then to me. The lead one says, with a dull, expressionless voice, “it is time for you to die.”

Despite the rising fear in my chest, I grip the dagger I found tightly. “You don’t scare me.”

“Well, according to your CHARACTER SHEET…” one of them says.

“I’m ONE FEAR POINT AWAY, I know. But apparently four men wearing literal dead goat heads doesn’t bother me. I’m a badass now.” I watch as the two ones in the lead step towards me, testing my bravery. I bend my knees, dropping into fighting stance.

“It ends here, HORROR GAME ANALYSIS. The EARL OF EXPOSIT- I mean, the EARL OF DRUMER requests your presence… in HELL!”

I roar in defiance as the first cultist brings to bear his length of wood. I duck underneath the swing and strike upwards at the cultist, plunging my knife into his heart. He doesn’t let out a sound as he falls.

The second cultist is on me, driving his dagger into my shoulder. I cry out in pain and rage, pushing backwards against him, throwing him into the back door. Several goat teeth are dislodged and scatter like marbles on the floor as the next two cultists rush me together.

One slams his wooden stake into the side of my head, and I feel blood pour from the wound. The other raises his dagger to strike the killing blow – but I kick out at him, shattering his kneecap with a single, dramatic blow. He staggers backwards and puts a hand out to steady himself – on the hot cooktop. The villain gets a taste of his own medicine as he screams in pain, recoiling from the pain.

The wooden-stake cultist strikes me again, and I turn my attention fully to him. He was the one who spoke before.

“What do you want? What are your goals?”

“The destruction of mankind, HORROR GAME ANALYSIS. The rule of DEMONS is nigh… you cannot stop us!”

“I can,” I proclaim cheesily, drawing on the well of pulp 80s fiction that House of Hell was originally drawn from, “because you’re evil. You won’t win.”

The cultist behind me picks himself up off of the ground slowly.

“You know the thing,” the cultist says. “The epic fight scene you have just spent the page detailing, and these lines hyping up the conclusion to, is actually non-existent.”

“What?” I say.

“Yeah,” the cultist behind me says, brushing himself off. “The text actually says, and I quote –” I turn to see that the cultist is holding a battered copy of House of Hell – “‘It would be foolish to resist them.’ And I think ‘them’ is ‘us’? I think? Boss, is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So what? I burn myself on the hot keys that some moron left on the stove and then you guys sweep in here and just cart me away? That’s a pretty shitty ending.”

The cultist holding the copy of House of Hell shrugs. “It continues – it says you are held in the prison beneath the House ‘at the Earl’s pleasure’.”

“Ew,” I say. “Are you actually gonna sacrifice me?”

“Fuck knows,” the slack-jawed goat holding the dagger says. “All I know is that if there’s a blaze of glory to be gone out of in this book, you’re about as far from it as is possible.”

I drop the silver dagger to the ground. “So that’s it? My adventure has ended?”

“Guess so,” they both shrug in sync. “Sorry about that.”

–

So, upon a replay (as it were) of House of Hell, what do I think of it? Well, I seemed to miss quite a few scary things. And, I was particularly struck by the limitations of some of my choices. Of course, it’s a gamebook from 1984 and with a self-imposed limit of 400 paragraphs, of course choices can’t be infinite, and a certain amount of railroading is expected.

But I was disappointed particularly by the zombie encounter, which I was hoping to avoid. It’s not even that the zombie snuck up on me while I was investigating the box, it’s that I apparently deliberately went out of my way to investigate bulging curtains in a house that contained inhabitants that drugged me and tortured other people to death.

But what this reading did illuminate was that the book is still a lot of fun, despite these shortcomings. The Fighting Fantasy system was still fun to use, and feels like it could be remarkably versatile. I was reminded at a few points just how frightening the gamebook felt to young me, who was chilled by descriptions of tortured faces in a hypno-book or by corpses dangling from trees outside, or just from the illustrations of bones, zombies, ghouls, and goatheaded cultists.

A shame that the adventure had to end so ignominiously. But it does still have to be one of my favourite (if one of the most complex to actually map the winning route to) Fighting Fantasies, due to its lovely campy horror and classic mood. I hope you enjoyed this experimental playthrough – if you’d like to see more Fighting Fantasy playthroughs, leave a comment! I might write a longer reflection of the book in a subsequent post, but as for right now, it’s late as I write this, and I’m very tired!