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Actual Game
The 7th Guest
1-Click Install
Windows
11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP
(Virgin Games 1992)
MY PROMISE
My games are genuine, install in one step, look, sound and play in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP like they did in the old days, or your money back. This is my unconditional guarantee for three years.
WHAT IS INCLUDEDThis listing includes the original game CDs. An electronic manual is also included. The box is pictured for reference and not included.
I will also provide a compatibility CD that will allow the game to run under ALL VERSIONS of Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.
INSTALLATIONOne step: Insert my CD and the game will automatically work on your computer. Done. Yes, it's that simple.
Want to play? Click the icon. Want the game off your computer? Click Uninstall. Zero hassle.
TECH SUPPORT Rapid response technical support for three years is always an e-mail or phone call away.
In the extremely rare event I cannot get this title to work on your system I will take it back for a full refund. All I ask is minimal assistance from you during the troubleshooting process.
The Game
Even before Myst there was a CD-ROM game that first showcased the power of a true multimedia title. That game iscalled The Seventh Guest.
The setting of The Seventh Guest is an old spooky mansion. The preamble to the story starts with a strange andmysterious toymaker, Stauf, who becomes very successful and rich in the town of Harley. Then one day the children inthe town start dying and soon after Stauf closes his business and secludes himself in an enormous and strange mansionhe has built. Thegame begins with the telling of the above synopsis using full motion video, speech and music combined with computergraphics and animation. After that you learn that Stauf has invited 6 guests to the house...and that is where you startthe actual gameplay, in the foyer of the house.
It is impossible to do justice to The Seventh Guest with screenshots. The game must be experienced first hand toappreciate the momumental affect it had on the gaming world back in the multimedia Stone Age of 1992. The Seventh Guestwas the first game to require a CD-ROM drive, mouse, and soundcard. This pushed the limits of the high-endmachines of the day. A single-speed drive, the common among CD-ROM owners in the early 90s, was inadequate to runGuest. The then new double-speed drive was all but a requirement to experience the game in its glory. Considering thatdouble-speed drives cost around $350 at the time this was not a small investment!
If I had to describe Guest in relation to other titles on the shelves in the early 90s, I would liken The Seventh Guestto Alone in the Dark, but with full graphical modelling, speech and video instead of chunky polygons. The result isvery much like a movie production: Video, soundtrack, sound effects, computer animation and graphics all combined intoan interactive movie-like multimedia presentation.
The rooms inside Stauf's mansion have been realistically modelledwith raytracing and realistic multiple textures. Guest is the result of Autodesk 3D Studio, a state-of-the-art designtool at the time. The game sports shadows, reflections, textured objects, such as wood, carpet, etc, all of which givethe graphics a sense of realism and submerges you into a more believable virtual reality. The screen shots should givean idea of the graphical level of detail. Keep in mind nothing, and I mean nothing, like this existed in othercomputer games of the time. The Seventh Guest was more than groundbreaking. It demonstrated an entire paradigm shift inboth appearance and and style.
Some computer animation sequences of the modelled objects also occur occasionally; for example, in the dining room theplates, glasses and utensils rise up from the table and do a ghostly dance. Incorporated into the computer graphics areanimation sequences using real actors which are intended to have a ghostly effect (the ghosts are translucent). Thisworks very well and is used to tell much of the story and plot.
Similarly, on the audio side, Guest has a good musical soundtrack (done by the Fatman). There is no text in the gameat all; all information is communicated using speech. Sound effects are used extensively to heighten therealism; for example, echoes give a sense of the dimension of the rooms and corridors.
The Seventh Guest brings all the above elements together and integrates it dynamically into a single virtual reality.The graphics are always from a first-person perspective, out of your own eyes. You can move and turn around in thehouse and the graphics are animated to change to accommodate your changing view. In fact, it is only when you movearound that you can see the detailed modelling which has gone into creating the rooms. Occasionally you can zoom intoobjects smaller than yourself, for example entering a doll's house. In this case, you zero in on the house with thedoor becoming bigger and bigger and suddenly you are past the door into the tiny house!
So The Seventh Guest gives us beautiful graphics, animation, video and sound. What's the gameplay like? Basically youget to explore the house and within various rooms you find various puzzles. These are not problems in the typicaladventure sense but puzzles such as logic puzzles, chess puzzles, card puzzles, etc. For example, one of these is theclassic 8queens puzzle. Solving a puzzle will unlock some other part of the game and also present you with a video/animationsequence. The game is entirely mouse controlled and you can either move around or select an object which may reveal ananimation, a video sequence or a puzzle.
Despite the appearance The Seventh Guest is actually a puzzle game at heart. Theplot, virtual reality modelling with visual and audio effects make an extremely strong impression but advancement inthe game lies mainly in the puzzles. These puzzles, the creations of the warped genius of Stauf are interesting aswell as difficult. They can be quite challenging to solve because part of the puzzle is to figure out what the objectof it is! Fortunately you can use the library to get hints to the puzzles and if all else fails the library can beused to bypass the puzzle. The downside is that you miss out on the animationand video effects.
Overall I found The Seventh Guest to be quite enjoyable. The ending promised a sequel as it finishes with "Volume 1".Some folks might not realize that a sequel was in fact released, some years later, called The 11th Hour. TheSeventh Guest set the measurment benchmark for graphics and sound in CD-ROM titles for several years after its release.Anyone interested in classic genre-forming games should look at The Seventh My compatibility CD does not alter the retail game or bypass copy protection. It allows the original media to install and run correctly on any recent version of Windows.
