IFReviewed by
Jacqueline A. Lott on 2006-07-21 07:14
Okay. Well, I’m immediately frightened by the title of this game, but not in the way that the author probably intended. Anticipating a less-than-spectacular experience, I open the game file to find... that the author agrees with me. The first words on the screen are: "Scary House Amulet! A tacky interactive icky haunted houseness." The penname "Shrimpenstein" should have probably clued me in as well. At any rate, this is a parody of haunted house IF, full of spooky settings, disgusting descriptions, and sudden, unexpected death (thankfully, the >UNDO and >SAVE commands both work in this game). I like how the author uses bold text to put stress on particularly scary words, as well as to point out the directions you can walk; such a use of bold text in other games would probably be distracting but it works quite well here, given the mood. It’s just your basic, fun spoof game - oddly reminiscent of those scary, low budget IF games that came out in the mid-80s. I wonder if we’ll discover the secret identity of this scary author by Halloween.
