I'm pretty sure this one is unsolvable.
April 9, 2015 11:48 AM   Subscribe

My sister and I are trying to find the name of a Mac shareware or freeware game from the early or mid 90s. It involved going to a spooky hotel and becoming trapped in the hotel room. You had to solve a series of puzzles to escape.

Here is what we remember:

In the 90s, my mom would download a lot of freeware games for us to play on our Mac. Usually these were VERY basic, no 3D, very pixely. This game would definitely be from no later than 1997, probably earlier.

All we remember is:

-It opens with a typical 'creepy house at night with lightning behind it" title screen
-Inside the hotel is a reception desk with no one behind it, and a hotel call bell which mysteriously appears from nowhere
-Once in the room, you are trapped and must solve some puzzles to escape. If you try to open the door, a deep spooky voice would say "Nooo Keeeeeeey! Hohohohohohoho!" This is the part we remember best.
-There was a puzzle involving a tune played on a piano that we never solved.

We know from it is NOT:
Castle of Dr. Brain
Seventh Guest
Maniac Mansion
Hugo's House of Horrors
Alone in the Dark
posted by showbiz_liz to Grab Bag (20 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Possibly The Hotel Caper Hypercard stack?
posted by jeffkramer at 11:53 AM on April 9, 2015


Response by poster: It was definitely in color.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:07 PM on April 9, 2015


Roberta Williams' Phantasmagoria?

I can't find a good link for it, but here's the wiki
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:27 PM on April 9, 2015


Have you taken a look at this list to see if there's a title you remember: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Macintosh_games
posted by vivzan at 12:28 PM on April 9, 2015


or her Mystery House (early 80s)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:30 PM on April 9, 2015


Response by poster: Phantasmagoria looks too advanced in its graphics. Also I don't think my mom would have let my 4 year old sister play it!
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:30 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't know what it's called, but I'm almost sure I played that game on one of the mid-90s BMUG PD-ROM shareware CDs that occupied my childhood. Two of them can be downloaded from the Internet Archive (here and here), but I'm not sure how you could extract those - it might be complicated now that Classic/Rosetta doesn't work anymore.
posted by theodolite at 12:37 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: one of the mid-90s BMUG PD-ROM shareware CDs that occupied my childhood

Aha! This, or something like this, has to be where it came from. It definitely didn't scream 'professional-quality gameplay.'
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:40 PM on April 9, 2015


Transylvania Adventure game sounds like this, but it's not a hotel but a castle. Just in case you remembered it wrong, does this look familiar to you?

I updated the link that shows a castle start page.
posted by vivzan at 12:44 PM on April 9, 2015


How about Uninvited? Here are some screenshots.
posted by vivzan at 12:50 PM on April 9, 2015


Response by poster: One of the few things we know for certain is, it's definitely a hotel rather than a mansion or castle. I remember the ghostly call bell very specifically.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:57 PM on April 9, 2015


I remember this game! No idea what it was called. Assuming it's the same game, it was a several-story hotel.
posted by aniola at 1:54 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think there may have been a pushcart involved....
posted by aniola at 2:09 PM on April 9, 2015


theodolite: "I don't know what it's called, but I'm almost sure I played that game on one of the mid-90s BMUG PD-ROM shareware CDs that occupied my childhood. Two of them can be downloaded from the Internet Archive (here and here), but I'm not sure how you could extract those - it might be complicated now that Classic/Rosetta doesn't work anymore."

It's not too hard to extract them. The Unarchiver can extract .sit files (as can the latest incarnation of StuffIt Expander). And the .toast file is just a raw disk image, so the emulator Basilisk II can read them just like any other disk.

Unfortunately, neither of these two disks looks like the right one. They're full of old goodies (Escape Velocity! After Dark modules! An APL interpreter!?) but the closest thing to your spooky hotel is "Haunted University". It's black-and-white, and I'm not hearing any sounds.

If you find any other similar CD-ROM images, I'd be happy to investigate them for you.
posted by vasi at 2:50 PM on April 9, 2015


I searched a bit on a site for Mac abandonware, Macintosh Garden. The thing that looks most similar is 9: The Last Resort. The description references a spooky hotel and music-based puzzles. But it sounds like it has high production values for the time.

There's also The 7th Guest. And someone asking in the forums there about a game in a deserted hotel, but getting no answer—hopefully that's not you!
posted by vasi at 3:05 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I searched a bit on a site for Mac abandonware, Macintosh Garden.


I also spent quite a ridiculous amount of time there today. In addition to what vasi suggested, the only other game I found that had a key, puzzles, and "trapped in a room", was Masterpiece Mansion which isn't a hotel or spooky at all.

What we know:
* Game was in color
* Game had you trapped in a room where you had to solve puzzles.
* Spooky hotel

Do you remember what kind of puzzles? Was this a "point and click" game, or did you have to enter text to solve puzzles? Did you have to give commands to open things, etc?
posted by vivzan at 3:13 PM on April 9, 2015


OMG it totally has to be The 7th Guest. I LOVED that game so much.
posted by greta simone at 5:39 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I swear it sounds like the 7th Guest.
posted by heathrowga at 5:55 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sorry, didn't preview.

Can I piggyback and see if anyone remembers a game from the same era where you had to do puzzles with pendulums and stuff and the game always started with the phrase 'every journey begins with a single step' and there was a mountain and sometimes weird card game puzzles? I remember rainbows. Weird and vague, I know.
posted by greta simone at 5:56 PM on April 9, 2015


Response by poster: Holy shit, my sister actually found it!

Sorry to say, it wasn't any of the ones suggested here. It was called Eternity Inn! See what I mean when I say the graphics were... not advanced?

Oh my god this is so great. We've been wondering this for almost ten years.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:36 AM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


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