The game begins with you, the nameless adventurer, experiencing a sudden mechanical failure with your car and being forced to flee, chased by wolves, into an old, seemingly abandoned house. Needless to say, the house isn't abandoned as you'll soon discover when you begin exploring it.

There's a lot to like about House of the Damned. It's well written for a start and has some interesting puzzles. Guess-the-verb hits in a couple of places (placing the ladder against the window instead of simply climbing the ladder was a pain) but, minor quibbles aside, there's very little to actually dislike here. One of the game's few weaknesses is that it's never really explained just what you're supposed to be doing in the house and you generally end up performing tasks because it's the only logical step forward.

Difficulty-wise, House of the Damned isn't a particularly hard game. Once you figure out some of the guess-the-verb hassles, solving the game isn't too complicated and shouldn't present that many problems provided you save your game often and make a point of being careful. There's one unfair instance where you seem die pretty much at random and this was the only point in the game that I felt could have done with improving on (leaving the house at one time is perfectly safe whereas at another time you end up eaten by wolves. Maybe there's some kind of way of figuring out when the wolves appear and therefore you can avoid them but I was never able to work out what it was.)

Getting the maximum score requires more than simply finishing the game and for some reason score points seem to be given out for accomplishing some strange tasks: drinking from the toilet being, perhaps, the most unusual of these, and kissing one of the characters a close second. Admittedly these sorts of things add a touch of much needed humour to what is essentially a dark game (assuming you think to try them) but quite why you get awarded score points for doing them is more of a mystery.

Considering the length of time that has gone by since House of the Damned was written, it's doubtful the writer will ever get around to writing another game. A pity, because this is a first rate horror game and it's a shame there won't be any more where it came from.

Logic: 8 out of 10
For the majority of the game, logic held up pretty well. The few times it didn't were for score points not really related to completing the game.

Problems: 7 out of 10 (10 = no problems)
Maybe not a problem as such (there may be a way to figure it out and thus avoid dying) but leaving the house and being eaten by the wolves half a dozen times in a row did kind of leave me tearing my hair out in frustration.

Story: 6 out of 10
There's no real background or story to the game which is a shame although the game manages more than well without one.

Characters: 5 out of 10
Several characters. Conversation with them is awkward and only the Oracle can really be questioned. A little fleshing out with the dialogue would have helped considerably.

Writing: 8 out of 10
Above average and quite creepy in places.

Game: 7 out of 10
Probably the only game the writer will ever produce so make the most of it because it's certainly worth playing.

Overall: 41 out of 60