The Lurking Horror is a neat little text adventure chiller by Infocom. A homage to the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, the eccentric grandfather of modern horror and sci fi it features many elements of the Cthulhu mythos – rife with terrifying forces of cosmic horror and such. You play a neurotic young student trapped after-hours in a university due to a mysterious blizzard that quickly realizes that something is horribly amiss in his distinguished institute of higher learning.
This game is definitely one of the more creepy text adventures of it’s time.
The premise starts out as a very mundane and normal one – who among us has not had to pull an all-nighter at school in order to complete an assignment? Or perhaps have had to deal with an irritating hacker while attempting to finish said paper? And certainly we have all had to deal with lunatic cultists and invisible monsters and horrible specters stalking us at every turn….well, it would be more common if one grew up in Arkham, MA. The Lurking Horror receives full marks for having a very mysterious and atmosphere, with the sense of impending doom at each corner (along with the many bloodcurdlingly unexpected deaths). An especially fun – and scary! – touch is the insane music or monstrous howl that will suddenly blare from
your speakers to dramatic effect whenever the player comes across something particularly eldritch or nefarious.
For all the style imbued in the game, it has been rather poorly designed in some areas. The game is extremely vague in as to what your character should be doing next – which can be disastrous as there is only a limited amount of turns that the player can take. Also, given the Lovecraftian elements of this game - be prepared to die a lot while playing it. Without a walkthrough in hand, multiple deaths and restoring are needed in order to progress through the action. On a more annoying note, you will most definitely require a map for navigating some subterranean parts of the university. Fortunately, most of the puzzles are on the logical side – although one or two is a little bit mind-binding in its execution. Many in-game ‘hints’ are to be taken with a grain of salt – many are in fact maddening red herrings that will send you on a wild goose chase.
The Lurking Horror is a difficult game to finish unaided, to be sure, but for thrills and chills it ranks among the highest of its kind.
