Software:Uncle Henry's Playhouse

From HandWiki
Uncle Henry's Playhouse
Developer(s)Trilobyte
Publisher(s)Trilobyte
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows[1]
ReleaseNovember 18, 1996[2]
Genre(s)Puzzle
Mode(s)Single-player

Uncle Henry's Playhouse (released in the UK as Uncle Henry's MindBlower) is the third game in The 7th Guest series. Functionally the game is a compilation game mostly composed of the puzzles from Trilobyte's games The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, and Clandestiny, but featuring little plot. The game has been noted for its low sales figures (27 in the US) and its rarity/obscurity relative to its blockbuster predecessors, The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. The game is primarily intended as a means of presenting puzzles from the previous titles in the 7th Guest series and consequently it has a rather simplistic plot that has been criticized by reviewers for its thinness in comparison to the previous games.[3] The game also includes previews for two then-upcoming Trilobyte games, Tender Loving Care (eventually released by Aftermath Media) and Dog Eat Dog (never released).[4]

Plot

Henry Stauf, the main antagonist from The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour is a toymaker with a dark and disturbed imagination inclined toward the macabre and the deadly. In Uncle Henry's Playhouse Stauf has created a twisted dollhouse, the 12 rooms of which he has furnished with miniaturized puzzles from his previous mansions. In the attic of the dollhouse Stauf has placed a thirteenth puzzle that can only be accessed once the player has satisfactorily completed the other 12 puzzles.[5] As the player progresses through the game, Stauf observes the proceedings and offers commentary in the form of gleeful taunts for the player's failures and sounds of unhappiness for the player's successes.

Gameplay

Uncle Henry's Playhouse plays like the other two games in the series employing a simple point-and-click interface for 13 puzzles. The dollhouse that serves as the setting of the game includes 12 main rooms featuring puzzles from The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, and Clandestiny (an unrelated title not in the 7th Guest series), an attic featuring an all-new 13th puzzle, and the foyer from which the player may access the guest book.[5] Completing each puzzle in Uncle Henry's Playhouse automatically saves the game for the player, allowing the player to quit at any time and resume from the same point by signing in through the guestbook. Unlike the previous 11th Hour, there is no option to skip puzzles that the player finds too challenging although tips are available from the foyer.[4] In addition to the new 13th puzzle, the game also features new graphics and sound effects,[6] however the underlying concept of the 12 main puzzles are all reused from previous games.[2]

Games included

The puzzles are split between ten logic puzzles and three games versus the computer with four games from The 7th Guest, four games from The 11th Hour, four puzzles originally released in Clandestiny, and one all-new puzzle created specifically for Uncle Henry's Playhouse.[2] Although all puzzles are accessible from the outset, the new 13th puzzle is only accessible after all 12 of the other puzzles have been overcome.[4]

From The 7th Guest[2]

  • Crypts in the Basement - A Lights Out-style tile-flipping puzzle where all caskets must be closed.[7]
  • Pieces of Cake - A division puzzle in which a cake must be divided into pentominos with the same number of toppings.[7]
  • Spiders - A point-filling puzzle where as many points of an 8-pointed star as possible must be filled.[7]
  • High Lights - A logic maze where the player must reach the top of a dollhouse.[7]

From The 11th Hour[2]

  • Blood and Honey - An Infection-style game in which the player must cover more territory than the computer.[7]
  • The Amazing Labyrinth - A Labyrinth-style tile-pushing game played against the computer.[7]
  • Book Checkers - A sorting puzzle in which the player must segregate red from green.[7]
  • Switchboard - A chess permutation problem in which the positions of 4 bishops must be swapped.[7]

From Clandestiny[2]

  • Cursed Coins - A game of Reversi in which the player must cover more territory than the computer.[7]
  • Trade Winds - A logic maze where the player must navigate a ship to the opposite corner of a board.[7]
  • Statue Paths - A chess-based maze in which a knight must be moved to attack a rook without placing itself in jeopardy.[7]
  • Leap Frogs - A permutation puzzle wherein the positions of two groups of frogs must be swapped.[7]

Original to Uncle Henry's Playhouse

  • A logic maze where the player must travel from the attic to the front door of a dollhouse.[7]

Development

During development the game was to be titled "Castle", but was renamed Clandestiny and became the fourth title.[8] With tight timeline constraints, Uncle Henry's Playhouse would be designed to primarily focus on the previous games in the series, eventually becoming little more than a vehicle for collecting[2] and repackaging[9] puzzles from the previous titles in the 7th Guest series. A single all-new puzzle would be created for Uncle Henry's Playhouse by Rob Landeros,[2] and the design team led by Graeme Devine would be responsible for integrating the older puzzles into a cohesive whole.[10]

Reception

Critical reception

Originally intended by Trilobyte as a "collectible compilation",[2] the game was not well-received critically and sales capped at 27 copies in the US with only 176 copies worldwide.[11][12] Diehard GameFAN's Alex Lucard described the game as one of "the biggest flops in PC gaming history".[12] Amongst other problems, the game's plot has been singled out by reviewers as lacking.[3]

The few positive critical reviews tended to emphasize the game's connection to its parent series, the fact that new content had been added to further the story of Henry Stauf, and emphasis was placed on the quality of the puzzles in contrast to the game's low price.[4][13] Other more mixed reviews suggested that the game was decent for what it was - a compilation of puzzles from the 7th Guest series.[13] Comparing the game to the 1995 puzzle classic, Hodj 'n' Podj, Computer Games Magazine even went so far as to claim that the puzzles in Uncle Henry's Playhouse worked better in a compilation format than they did as show-stoppers in the original games.[14]

Commercial performance

Having achieved sales topping 1 million units for The 7th Guest and setting CD-ROM industry records with 500 thousand preorders for The 11th Hour by late 1995,[1][2] Trilobyte made the decision to switch from a development company to a publishing company. Fortunes reversed in 1996 and with millions of dollars tied up in development of the game Tender Loving Care, Trilobyte found itself running very low on finances by mid-1996. In light of this, the decision was made that a third member of the 7th Guest series should be released to generate much-needed funds.[15]

The game has become something of a collector's item due to its rarity on the secondary market.[16] The game has been re-released once as part of Encore's puzzle collection, Puzzle Madness.[17]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Trilobyte Unveils Uncle Henry's Playhouse. Coming Soon Magazine. Issue 19. 11 November 1996.
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Trilobyte Challenges Puzzle Lovers To Unlock The Mysteries Of Uncle Henry's Playhouse. Coming Soon Magazine. Issue 20. 18 November 1996.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Delgado, Tony. COLUMN: 'Beyond Tetris' - The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour: Fossilization . Game Set Watch. 26 September 2007.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Claude, Frederick. Uncle Henry's Playhouse. Coming Soon Magazine. Issue 20. 1996.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Uncle Henry's Playhouse instruction manual. Trilobyte. 1996.
  6. ↑ Uncle Henry's PlayHouse . CDAccess. 1996.
  7. ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 7.12 Trilobyte (18 November 1996). Uncle Henry's Playhouse. Windows 95. Trilobyte. Level/area: Foyer. 
  8. ↑ PC Review 43 - Castle Development. EMAP Images. May 1995. p. 46. 
  9. ↑ Trilobyte Games - About Us . Trilobyte games. 2011.
  10. ↑ Devine, Graeme. Graeme Devine Resume. GraemeDevine.com.
  11. ↑ Keighley, Geoff, Haunted Glory: The Rise and Fall of Trilobyte, Part 5, GameSpot, p. 19, http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-tri/part5.html, retrieved 2020-04-04 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lucard, Alex. The 7th Guest – Sequel, Spin-Off, Start Over, or Stay Dead?. Diehard GameFAN. 5 April 2010.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Uncle Henry's Playhouse review. Gamezilla. 17 Aug, 2000.
  14. ↑ Uncle Henry's Playhouse. Computer Games Strategy Plus Magazine. December 1996.
  15. ↑ Keighley, Geoff. "Haunted Glory: The Rise and Fall of Trilobyte" . Page 4. GameSpot.
  16. ↑ Playing Old Adventure Games: Part 6 in a series of articles by SirDave Featuring: 7th Guest . Adventure Lantern Magazine. 2006.
  17. ↑ Encore, Inc.. Puzzle Madness. Windows 98/Me/95. Encore, Inc.. 
  • 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 lengthy 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]

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. 
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