Originally released in 1990, Gray Design Associates’ Hugo’s House of Horrors is now 30 years old. Coming from an era when point-and-click adventure games were at the peak of their popularity, the game might be most appreciated by those whose introduction to gaming included this classic title. As an early gamer, I can recall many fun times playing through various DOS games, and as a big horror fan, Hugo’s House of Horrors was easily among my favorites.
Like any good scary story, Hugo’s House of Horrors has a simplistic horror premise. In the game, players take on the role of Hugo, a young man with an affinity for dressing himself in mismatched pastel colors. After his girlfriend vanishes, Hugo heads to the creepy mansion nearby where she was last seen, only to find the house to be filled with… well… all kinds of horrors, from a mad scientist’s lab to a mummy-inhabited cellar. You can even dine with Count Dracula, the Grim Reaper, and other monsters in the dining room, though doing so requires first finding a mask.
Hugo’s House of Horrors has some plot similarities with Maniac Mansion, which is about a teenager and his friends breaking into a creepy mansion to save his girlfriend from a mad scientist. According to designer David Gray, this is a coincidence, and he’d never even played the Lucasfilm title. “Unbelievable as it may seem, when I wrote Hugo’s House of Horrors in 1989 I was completely unaware of Maniac Mansion and to this day have never played it,” Gray said in a 2011 interview. He added: “Why? So I can truthfully say I’ve never played it!”
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As far as the gameplay mechanics and art style, Gray credits the classic Sierra adventure game Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards for inspiration. That raunchy game also influenced some of the tongue-in-cheek humor you’ll find in Hugo’s House of Horrors, though obviously not as dirty. The horror elements of the story, according to Gray, were also inspired by the British television series Hammer House of Horror, which is also why the game’s antagonist was named Dr. Hammerstein.
One key difference from Maniac Mansion is that Hugo’s House of Horrors doesn’t have pre-set commands. Though you can move Hugo with the arrow keys, the only thing else you’re given is a text box for you to manually type in what you want the character to do. This must be done for everything in the game, whether you’re telling Hugo to “get pumpkin” or “use key in door.” Because I played this as a kid, I also happen know that if you swear at Hugo, the game hilariously responds with, “Same to you, loser!”
After his ordeal at the “House of Horrors,” Hugo and Penelope would return in multiple sequels. The first sequel, Hugo 2, Whodunit?, lets players control Penelope as she investigates her uncle’s murder and Hugo’s disappearance. Hugo 3, Jungle of Doom! would let players assume the role of Hugo again, this time tasked with finding spider venom antidote to save Penelope after a crash landing in a South American jungle. Both of these games featured the same gameplay mechanics and art style of the original and were fun follow-ups for Hugo fans.
A fourth and final installment, Nitemare 3D, completely abandons the adventure format seen in the original trilogy. A first-person shooter in the vein of Wolfenstein 3D, the sequel now has Hugo shooting his way through Dr. Hammerstein’s mansion to save Penelope once again. Guns were never really his thing in the previous installments, but perhaps by the third time Penelope was kidnapped, Hugo had decided he just wasn’t screwing around anymore. Gameplay differences aside, the sequel at least managed to bring Hugo back home to horror before the franchise tapered off.
Hugo’s House of Horrors is still being sold by its developer, Gray Design Associates. You can read more about the game and its sequels, check out more screenshots, and even buy them at the official website. Of course, if you’d rather just watch someone else play the game, you can check out a playthrough video from YouTube below. If you’re like me and remember playing this as a kid, expect to be hit with a tremendous wave of nostalgia as soon as you hear that distinct horror tune at the very start of the game.
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