Years ago, I was privy to experiencing the game The 7th Guest on my very early DOS computer with a new and shiny CD-ROM add-on. The game featured live video mixed with CGI environments and puzzles that told a creepy-ass story of a man who trapped kids and guests within his mansion. While the game was mostly just a puzzle-driven experience, the introduction to CD-ROM-based gaming created a new path for the industry to go and set forth a new medium standard for where the industry should be heading. As with the changing times of the industry, my expectations of what gaming should be changed dramatically as well.
As for the gameplay in that old game, the puzzles were pieces of the main story that once solved, slowly and surely unlocked more of the tale. The unlocked narrative revealed a more sinister underbelly for the main character, Henry Stauf, who developed toys for children that somehow made them sick and eventually led them to his mansion where they disappeared. When I say ‘disappeared’, you probably know what I mean. The puzzles were amazingly complex as they were creative, and the desire to hear more of the tale of Stauf was undeniable motivation to keep pushing forward in the game. The atmosphere was creepy and unsettling as much as it was beautifully woven for a CD-ROM-based gaming experience. In short, it was a classic for multiple reasons.
Now, 30 years removed from the original, Vertigo Games has decided to develop and publish a new version of the experience. While still maintaining the puzzle portion of gameplay, the story has been revamped and still holds the creepy and unsettling vibes of the original. The big difference between the two games by the same name? This one is set in virtual reality. And oh, does it work well.
Strap on that headset and get that space in your VR room cleared because this one is a doozy.
Complete re-telling
I haven’t the slightest clue how this game slipped under my release radar this past month, but it did. Releasing on October 19th, The 7th Guest VR is a creepy wonder to behold. My expectation going into the gameplay is that Vertigo adjusted the original title just enough to make it VR. To their credit, there were some perceived 3D rooms and puzzles from the original that would have done just fine with the current VR medium. In other words, the devs didn’t have to do much to bring the same gameplay to the VR field. They just basically would have needed to put together some additional VR environments and remake them from the ground up, as the puzzles presented in the original would have worked just fine in this encapsulating VR experience.
But they did none of that. Nope.
Instead, Vertigo Games remade the entire experience for the VR platform. They recreated the tale, the puzzles, how the game functions, and how the user interacts with the puzzles and environment completely from scratch. In addition, they used every ounce of VR to make sure that not a moment of the medium was wasted during the experience. Again, my expectations were far exceeded, and this was the first VR game that I was anxious to get back to as soon as possible. There has never been a VR experience like that before in my VR gaming life.
Story
While I won’t give away too many details of the story, let me just say that the essence of the original tale is firmly intact. The story still has Stauf as the main villainous character who invites guests over to his homestead, has them ‘disappear’, and then invites a 7th guest to figure out the mystery of the house and the aforementioned occupants. Spirits are everywhere in the house, even before the guests possibly become them, and the story still unfolds as puzzles are solved. The story is wildly fantastic, and nothing was wasted in its multi-act narrative, as the original six guests who entered the house show who they are, what nastiness exists in their past, and why they relate to Stauf and his haunted mansion. Your presence as the 7th guest shows your role in this play and your job in the story is to find out what happened to the previous visitors and what else is going on that makes the house so unsettled and haunted.
The remade VR version tells a more sinister story and brings better writing and acting to the fold. In addition, the full-motion capture of actors lies somewhere between ‘those are real actors’ and ‘those are great motion captures’ emphasizing the unfortunate ends of each of the characters’ stories. The entire story is a treat, especially during the spooky season of the year. The fact that Vertigo Games felt the need to sharpen the original up, get in some talented actors, and bring the story up to date with the times is a great primer to how much they passionately cared about the project. They did a superb job on the narrative side, and it all translated well to the platform.
Actual Gameplay
This is the part of the game that surprised me the most. It’s easy to put together a story using the groundwork laid out 30 years ago. The difficult part of a VR experience is translating the original gameplay that people hold near and dear to their hearts and doing it justice on a new medium. Vertigo Games knocked this out of the ballpark in many ways.
Starting with movement, which is key to a good VR experience, Vertigo Games allows the user to jump around with spots and/or move around using thumbsticks. The latter of the bunch will most certainly make you motion sick, which isn’t uncommon for VR experiences these days, but the former is a great choice to avoid that result. Either movement types you choose, you’re still in for a treat and nothing feels like it gets short-changed thanks to how the environment is constructed, and colored, and what ambiance comes with those combinations. These are basic starters for any good VR experience but the devs seemed as if they weren’t just going to let you get away with avoiding taking in the environments, rather they made certain you felt what they were trying to create within their environments.
No matter how you move within the game, you’re going to get a healthy dose of story-reinforced environments all around you. Right out of the gate, you’ll row your way to the shores of the mansion. Sitting, standing, or moving, you will have to grab an oar and get yourself to the shores. That first moment sets the tone for establishing how beautiful the rest of the game is going to be and what type of interactivity you are going to get delivered in the devs’ quest to get you in the mood to play The 7th Guest VR. The developers seemed focused on making sure that you were never taken out of the experience of the story, a key factor in getting players hooked on any game. By forcing the player to function within this creepy VR environment and by making nearly every action taken harken back to the story Vertigo Games was trying to tell, The 7th Guest VR guarantees that nothing is wasted. And that is a sentiment that is reiterated again and again through interactive environments and how the gameplay works. And make no mistake, Vertigo Games’ efforts to bring that haunting Stauf story to life begin with the environments.
The environments are very much alive here. The girth of the mansion is present, and the old broken-down feel of the mansion is everywhere from cobwebs to dust that is ever-present in the air around the player. Whether you’re jumping or moving smoothly, you’re feeling every aspect of the old house and the coldness of the ghosts that present their woeful tales. Everything feels alive as much as it feels dead, and if you’re trying to pull the player into a VR-based story, that is what you want, and that is what this game delivers visually, audibly, and everything in between. If the PSVR2 had a smell option, you would certainly think that Vertigo Games would emulate a moldy, dusty home to punch up your nose to reinforce what your quest is on this journey. Again, nothing is wasted.
The movement, story, and environments complement each other in such a delightful way. You don’t feel like you’re playing a VR game, rather you feel like you’re trying to solve some Poirot mystery that has twisty turns all around. The VR completeness of the game delivered with this trio of delights helps to sell its purpose and as stated previously, hooks the player in and engages them. That’s before the player even discovers the bells and whistles of the actual gameplay. I cannot state enough that Vertigo Games found a way to deliver a complete movement and environment package that pulls the player in. This is the first VR game that I’m wowed by and that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. The gameplay is perfectly structured and set up, especially for when the actual ‘interactive’ part of the game begins.
Interactive Parts
There are two ways for you to look at this portion of the game. The first is that you’re only getting puzzles and nothing else in the VR experience. You wouldn’t be wrong, but thanks to the previous jibber-jabber, it’s hard to avoid feeling like you’re a part of the story and creepy environment. It’s impossible to avoid it, so when you get to the actual interactive portion of the game, it’s just another piece that adds to the rest. And that’s the second way of seeing it, another layer of icing on top of an already sweet experience.
The puzzles play within the story, as was the case with the original. They attach to the previous six guests and bring a variety of cleverness to the gameplay experience. For example, the first set of puzzles you will encounter is based in a dining room. The dining room is introduced by the story, in which the previous guest entities enter and lay out their confusion about why they have all arrived at Stauf’s manor, while also laying out clues. The puzzle revolves around finding plates, unlocking more puzzle pieces on the dining room table, and then ultimately unlocking a very difficult centerpiece that reveals the next step in the story. Outside of the chitter-chatter that the previous guests provide, the gameplay invites you to explore and take in the environment while also asking you to find a starting point. The room itself is gorgeously crafted, where paintings are hanging around, cabinets lie accessible around you, and everything tempts the player to truly open their eyes and explore. Nothing is ugly or undercooked, rather everything is built with devious and beautiful intentions in mind. And this is how the entire game goes with all its puzzles. The game wants you to pay attention to the effort given to the environment. It wants you to feel like you’re there trying to solve a mystery. And when you run into a roadblock in the form of a puzzle, it wants you to get involved and find the solution. It’s the perfect VR exploration package.
As for the puzzles, they were tough, a sentiment that the original always carried, as did the sequel The 11th Hour, which was just an impossible game. Anyway, The 7th Guest VR makes puzzles visually appealing and well-designed for a VR environment. For example, there was a puzzle where I had to move a figure from one end of a game board to another while avoiding touching or repeating lines that I had created. The puzzle was kept firmly in the range of where I could comfortably reach and didn’t require too much physical effort to get involved with. Most VR experiences want to put your arms and muscles to the test, as if you need a reminder that reality is simulated, but with The 7th Guest VR the devs seemed to understand there are a lot of puzzles for you to traverse, so tiring you out may not be the best bet with bringing a good gaming experience. The puzzles were more tricky than strenuous, which made for a better time, as I had to use my big muscle brain instead of my muscle arms.
Now, to enhance the interactivity of the game, the player gets tools to work with along the way. The biggest and coolest tool is a lantern that does two things: 1) turns back time to fix a broken item 2) shows off the past form of whatever it shines upon. This tool is impressive as it shows off how much detail Vertigo Games put into The 7th Guest VR game. For example, one puzzle had my character exploring a bedroom that held several paintings, a marble floor, and other furniture items. When I shined the lantern light on an item, say the floor, all the dust and faded-out colors of the marble cleaned up instantly. In real-time, you were able to see what an object looked like before its aging. That was visually cool. To emphasize that cleaning even more, when I pointed the lantern at the paintings in the room, the images on the paintings instantly changed to something unnerving. While this tool was more than just a way to show off how cool the devs’ creative talents were, the fact that you get this cleaned instantaneous version of anything was just another reason to search an already interesting VR set of environments. The lantern had practical uses as well, such as the previously mentioned fixing tool, and served as a black light in a sense to show off additional puzzle clues all around that may not have been previously seen. Regardless of function, tools like the lantern were great examples of gorgeous stuff that works well with the VR experience.
As a whole, the gameplay is engaging and enjoyable. While the game might be a once-through that you revisit sometime down the road, the initial experience presented with The 7th Guest VR is one of the best VR gameplay experiences I have had to date on the VR medium. Generally, I don’t want to quickly return to a VR game once I get tired of it. With games like Beat Saber or BoxVR, those are wonderful ways to have short experiences, and most of what I have played in VR has been based on short experiences. With The 7th Guest VR, I walked away with a different perspective. This feels like a game that was well thought out and that had a firm grasp on how to deliver a solid VR experience to the player that they would want to revisit for narrative and interaction reasons. It’s just a different experience than any other VR game that I have run into, and at the very least, it gave me hope that VR is more than just a gimmick, which has been my feeling for the last decade with the medium. I want games like this, and I want encouragement to revisit and replay VR games later down the road. Again, this is the first game that gave me that feeling.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
The 7th Guest VR is a homage to a classic game from 1993. Developer Vertigo Games delivers a unique and remade vision of the original title and still includes the ambiance and puzzles that made the first game so memorable. The additional retelling of the narrative and how that narrative is presented in VR format makes this one of the best virtual reality experiences to date.
