BACK OF THE BOX QUOTE: “BUT… the DETECTIVE must gather his clues in their proper order. (See illustration). lf the DETECTIVE lights a clue out of sequence, it is considered to be sloppy police work and he does not collect any of the clues he passed by. He continues his search for the Secret Treasure.” – Magnavox Odyssey Manual, 1972
Something interesting about the Odyssey is that it’s the Video Game At A Distance, novel and nonetheless inchoate; before it became an all-consuming force only interested in itself; a portal to a lost future, like those early 20th century film showings wherein someone employed by the theater had to read out critical plot information to accommodate the lack of embedded explanation. When the manual lists “GAME AIDS” to assist discerning players, the first one is always the Game Card, as if the cartridge was just a pair of dice or the little horse inside the Operation guy. The play itself is contained across three or four distinct meaning-making objects, unfolding more like a conventional board game. You have to physically apply meaning to the screen by sticking an overlay to the TV, since the Odyssey itself can only render two little squares controlled with that most tragic of all extinct digital control apparati, The Knob.
HAUNTED HOUSE pits a DETECTIVE against a GHOST in the EPONYMOUS LOCATION. He must search for CLUES in an occult mystery/treasure hunt for the ages. I love detective games that aren’t able to contain the mystery itself, which becomes an unruly textual object either too large, too undesirable, or too prescriptive to actually exist. It reminds me of playing Murder Mystery in Garry’s Mod and watching a gun materialize in my hands after I found enough CLUES in the form of Half-Life 2 props with glowing outlines, as if the mystery I’d solved had nothing to do with anything and just revealed a revolver under the floorboards. Here, all clues lead to SECRET TREASURE, like a reverse Scooby-Doo episode where the ghost helps you find money.
Ultimately, what I like the most about HAUNTED HOUSE – and the Odyssey itself – is what an anthropological nightmare it poses. Its submission to a humble existence carries it into a future where the Odyssey game is a kind of Roman dodecahedron or Senet board, one that lacks the requisite symbols by which a game’s rules can be divined. Imagine it made indecipherable by time as screen overlays and manuals alike crumble to dust, left with nothing but a weary world containing two floating squares suspended over a ceaseless ocean. Returned to its natural state as Game Card 4, so illegible that it becomes necessarily palimpsest.
And imagine if, in such a distant world, only one other element of its original form survives: a decaying marker label reading “Haunted House”… Eek!
Erudite scholars and discerning listicle writers alike tend to position this as the very first Horror Game. I would argue it merely builds on the foundation established by other frightful classics; to enumerate, Ouija boards, Thelema rituals, Russian Roulette, the Electric Chair, and Tennis for Two. It was nonetheless a watershed moment for the medium that proved, above all else, that the GHOST can hide inside a CLUE and DISAPPEAR.
Scariest Moment: When the GHOST catches the DETECTIVE, something scary is supposed to happen. These are the rules. But the Odyssey, incapable of producing aural or graphical expression, has to rely on the player piloting the ghost to shout “Boo!” in real life. Such theatrics are implied to ripple further: why not do anything in your power to unsettle the DETECTIVE? I can imagine one player sitting behind the other, passing CLUE CARDS while making strange noises like a ghastly visitant, ready to pounce at any moment.
HAUNTED HOUSE hangs heavy over the asymmetric horror games of the 21st century. It may be the only cure left for competitive Dead by Daylight players, who continue to trundle around like MOBA guys trapped in the body of Pyramid Head. Help them, please. There might still be time. (I fall to my knees as GHOST and DETECTIVE are added to the competitively priced Dead by Daylight – Haunted House: GAME CART 4 Pack.)