Written by  	 :   	Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe (1536)
Written on 	 :  	01 Mai 2001
Platform 	 :  	DOS
Rating 	 :  	1.4 / 5
	
Summary
Hilariously bad game!


The Good
--------
Well, there's lots of humor, though it's all unintentional. Based on the classic 
horror film by Alfred Hitchcock -- and by "based on" I mean that they both have 
the same title -- this gets my personal vote as the best bad game ever created.

Where oh where oh WHERE to begin? Well, for starters it's by Box Office 
Software, well-recognized in the industry for bringing lots of cheapies to 
market in the late 1980's. It's all CGA graphics... in 1988, mind you. Your 
detective character holds his magnifying glass constantly at arm's length and 
just shuffles his feet when he walks, making him look dorky in the extreme. 
Viewed from the front, he resembles like a monkey in a trenchcoat. The room 
descriptions are... well, let me just direct-quote a couple:

"I found this is a big living room."

"I found this is the same big room."

"Clues" you find along the way offer such helpful tips as, "Skeleton keys open 
doors, not skeletons." Exits are laid out so that at times it's practically 
impossible to tell which door leads where. Trying a locked door simply doesn't 
work until you find the right key, and gives no indication that it's locked. 
Nasties such as a dog, a ghost, and Norman's mother appear randomly and PUT YOU 
TO SLEEP (!) when they catch you.

There are bugs all over the game, the funniest being when you dig up a key in 
the coal bin. After you pick it up, it still shows up in the room, and you can 
keep taking it over and over and earning infinite points. And taking it 
repeatedly gives the message: "I found more keys just like the one I found 
before." Yes, they chose THAT as the alternative to adjusting the graphics so 
the key is no longer there.

I swear to God I am not making any of this up! Play it for yourself and see! It 
all adds up to a major, MAJOR laugh-fest.


The Bad
-------
Everything listed above, when taken from an actual gameplay standpoint. It 
astounds me that a game with such a complete lack of quality ever hit stores, 
even considering Box Office did it.


The Bottom Line
---------------
Adventure game legend Scott Adams must be hideously embarrassed about doing the 
programming on this travesty of a game. Play it only to laugh at its sheer 
ineptness (and there are some major hoots). An absolute must-play for all fans 
of truly TERRIBLE games. If you can chortle at inept design, buggy coding, 
sloppy graphics and unbelievably dopey text, the belly-laughs this game will 
induce are more than worth the brief time you'll spend solving it. 
