Haunted House

1982 | James Andreasen | Atari 2600, Evercade

Imagine yourself standing in a pitch black room, and the silence, though palpable, is occasionally interrupted by flashes of lightning revealing the dilapidated walls of an old mansion. Spiders and other creepy crawlers inch their way closer with each passing flash of the ongoing thunder storm. Then, a piercing wail can be heard from the attic, causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. Another flash and now the spiders are in the room with you. The only way to ward off the unknown is centered around a box of matches you happened to bring along. The matches only provide a brief moment of respite as the cracks and seams of the house work against you, providing a passing breeze that snuffs out your only source of comfort.

In 1982, Atari released what many considered to be one of the earliest examples of, what we now know as, a survival horror game. The game presents the player as a pair of eyes and your goal is simple; collect three pieces of an urn and book it to the exit as fast as you can. Each of the three pieces is scattered throughout the rooms of the mansion’s four floors. Along the way you’ll find various other types of items, such as a scepter to ward off ghosts and ghouls and a key to open the locked doors of the labyrinthine chambers. You can only hold one item at a time or the pieces of the urn, so strategizing around the use of these items is a core part of the game. To ward off the ever encroaching darkness you can press the action button to light a match and reveal a small part around you. This also causes the items scattered through the mansion to light up, so the only way to find the urn is by lighting a match and exploring the rooms.

While the first difficulty level is rather simple, with the walls and enemies clearly visible. The other 8 will introduce new challenges for the player to tackle on their quest for the urn. From the second difficulty onward, the entire mansion is shrouded in total darkness, only occasionally lighting up as the thunderstorm rages outside. This small change alone makes the game feel so much more tense as it somewhat accurately feels like stumbling in the dark. There have been multiple moments where I lit a match right in the face of a spider and nearly panicked. Throughout the later difficulties more challenges are introduced; The monsters and ghosts become more aggressive and can steal items, or the rooms become locked and the mansion becomes a twisted and disorienting maze. It’s deviously effective in disorienting the player and causing tension as you tiptoe from room to room.

Haunted House is an incredibly fascinating look at the earliest days of horror video games. It manages to turn its rather simple graphics into a horrifically tense journey through the winding stairs, floors and rooms. The individual runs are relatively short and some of the earlier difficulties can be easily cleared in as little as 4 minutes, but that doesn’t make it less effective. Each time you enter a new room there is this brief moment of uncertainty what you’re going to find there and using the match light to find items as well as attract monsters was a deviously brilliant move. It’s not much to look at when compared to games that provide more graphical capabilities, but despite the Atari 2600’s limited abilities it still manages to create something tense and wonderful. The technical limitations don’t stop this game from being intensely atmospheric and addictive. If you’re a fan of horror games and want to delve a bit deeper into the roots of the genre, this is a must play.

Monster in the closet/10