Software:Hugo's House of Horrors

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Hugo's House of Horrors
DOS cover art
Developer(s)Gray Design Associates
Publisher(s)Gray Design Associates
Designer(s)David P. Gray
Platform(s)DOS, Microsoft Windows
Release
  • NA: January 1, 1990
[citation needed]
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

Hugo's House of Horrors (named Hugo's Horrific Adventure in the Hugo Trilogy re-release)[1] is a parser-based adventure game designed by independent software developer David P. Gray and published as shareware by Gray Design Associates in 1990. The game follows the character Hugo as he searches for his girlfriend Penelope in a haunted house. The player inputs text commands to solve puzzles and progress through the house. It was inspired by Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, and it was followed by Hugo II, Whodunit? in 1991.

Plot

Hugo's girlfriend Penelope has been imprisoned in a haunted house, and Hugo must search the house to find her. He enters the house, gets help from a mad scientist, disguises himself as a monster to avoid detection, escapes an angry dog, and finds his way into the caverns underneath the building. He evades deadly bats and a mummy and reaches a lake with an old man blocking the way. Hugo answers the man's questions and goes into the next room to find Penelope. After finding her, the two escape and they wed.

Gameplay

Hugo's movement is controlled by the arrow keys on the keyboard. All other actions are input through the text parser at the bottom of the screen in which the player types commands for Hugo. The instruction manual recommends "simple English" with commands such as "look at door" or "pick up gold", allowing many basic synonyms of a command. Through these commands, Hugo can describe what he sees to the player, interact with the environment, and solve puzzles to progress through the game.

Actions that help solve puzzles provide the player points, and the player can achieve the maximum score by completing all such actions. Upon picking up an item, it is added to the inventory, which the player can view at any time. Hugo can then be commanded to use items in the inventory or to apply them to something in the environment. The game also provides a save/load function and a boss key to hide the program. In the Hugo Trilogy release, the text parser is supplemented by a point and click interface.[1]

Development

Gray founded Gray Design Associates as a "backup plan" to his job as a writer for air traffic control software, creating the company after meeting a gynecologist at a party that also wrote computer programs. While he initially produced business oriented software, he also had experience designing video games by practicing with the vector graphics system provided to him while he worked for the UK Ministry of Defence.[2]

The haunted house premise arose from a cartoon image of a haunted house that Gray had purchased, choosing to design the game around this image. He also cites Hammer House of Horror as an inspiration for the game's theme. Following the game's completion, Gray uploaded it to CompuServe forums before it saw success as shareware and as a retail game.[2] The original DOS game was written in Microsoft Quick C, and the port to Windows was written in Visual C++.[3]

Hugo's House of Horrors was inspired by Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, which uses a similar text-parsing format. Gray noted the long list of credits for the game and sought to produce a similar game entirely on his own. The title was also chosen to imitate Leisure Suit Larry, as it allowed the executable file to be titled HHH.exe, similar Leisure Suit Larry's LLL.exe.[2] Other major inspirations cited by Gray include the use of sprites and animation by Captain Comic and the atmosphere of Colossal Cave Adventure.[2][4] He has also said that the Windows point-and-click port was inspired by Beneath a Steel Sky.[citation needed]

Reception

Meghann O'Neill of PC Gamer praises the game's focus on exploration and puzzles without excessive exposition.[4] Richard Cobbett of PC Gamer criticizes the game for its poor art design, its limited puzzles, its lack of narrative, and its short length.[5] Jenny Hanlon of Adventure Classic Gaming praises the game's "refreshing" challenges as well as its accessibility and replayability, though she criticizes the game for its dead ends and sudden endings as well as its limited parser.[6]

Hugo's House of Horrors has been compared to the point-and-click adventure game Maniac Mansion, which features a similar premise. Gray has responded that he had never played Maniac Mansion and was only aware of the game's similarities after it was released.[2] Two direct sequels have been released: Hugo II, Whodunit? in 1991 and Hugo III, Jungle of Doom! in 1992. The first person shooter Nitemare 3D was released in 1994 featuring the characters of Hugo and Penelope. All three of the main Hugo games were re-released for Windows as the Hugo Trilogy in 1995.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gray, David. "Hugo's House of Horrors". Gray Design Associates. http://www.dgray.com/hwpage.htm. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "David Gray Interview". Adventure Classic Gaming. 2011-07-23. http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/655/. 
  3. ↑ "Interview with David P. Gray". March 31, 2008. https://www.classicdosgames.com/interviews/davidpgray.html. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 O'Neill, Meghann (2017-11-01). "Looking back at Hugo's House of Horrors" (in en). PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/looking-back-at-hugos-house-of-horrors/. 
  5. ↑ Cobbett, Richard (2022-03-12). "There are bad adventure games, and then there's Hugo 2: Whodunit?" (in en). PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-hugos-house-of-horrors-whodunnit/. 
  6. ↑ Hanlon, Jenny (September 10, 2013). "Hugo's House of Horrors". http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/reviews/650/. 
  • Official site
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.[18]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
  18. ↑ "An update on MobyGames leadership". 2025-02-13. https://www.mobygames.com/forum/3/thread/269628/an-update-on-mobygames-leadership/#post-269628. 
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