Let's Play: HOUSE OF HELL

[Stark]

Whoa man, Island of the Undead SUXXX, it's one of those horrid 'convert this name into a numebr a=1 b=2 lol' and 'pick up 27 clues throughout adventure or you instantly die at this door'.

Nice art though.

I was thinking either 42 or 44, honestly, they're both awesome. One has pumpkinheads and the other has pseudo-chinese magic.

[Lusankya]

Yeah. Island of the Undead does have lots of "instantly die here" things. I failed at one of the convert into a number things, because I didn't read the bit where it said "and then multiply by two".

Oops.

Pseudo-Chinese magic sounds fun. Can we be Fu Manchu?

[Straha]

Go for the door. This is a store-room, not a laboratory. The liquids here can only kill you.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Nah. The white liquid has to be ok. This is a cupboard full of edibles and stuff. It can't be detergent or anything, because you keep that stuff under the sink, and definitely not in the pantry. If you did, that would be bad safety standards, and what if some kid came along and drank it all and died? You wouldn't be able to use them in your satanic ritual because they would have died from some stupid mundane problem!

Lus, It's white, it could be tinned milk!

gah, never drink tinned milk from the house from hell, hell never drink tinned milk Period!

[Lusankya]

Nah. The white liquid has to be ok. This is a cupboard full of edibles and stuff. It can't be detergent or anything, because you keep that stuff under the sink, and definitely not in the pantry. If you did, that would be bad safety standards, and what if some kid came along and drank it all and died? You wouldn't be able to use them in your satanic ritual because they would have died from some stupid mundane problem!

Lus, It's white, it could be tinned milk!

gah, never drink tinned milk from the house from hell, hell never drink tinned milk Period!

You're not thinking. It can't be tinned milk, because it's not in a tin.

[Rochey]

Go for the door. It's a well known fact that evil people in these games like to keep deadly poisons and stuff unlabeled and right next to food. You know, just to make life that little bit more interesting.

[Karrick]

I find myself reading this more for the interactions of the forum members than the actual story. This thread is comedy gold. That said... drink the liquid, nothing could possibly go wrong.

[Stark]

Well see it's a satire right (a let's play personal wankfest, forum-member insertion, eyecandy thread with an unnamed protaganist with no backstory in a text-only adventure = roffle) but it's additionally amusing due to how arbitrary the gamebook format is. Especially these early ones, you get choices like this - drink or not? There is NO OTHER INFORMATION, no way to balance the odds or make an informed decision. You might as well toss a coin - intelligence and decision-making counts for nothing. I mean fuck success is based on acquiring objects but looking in boxes is the surest way to die.

Thus, the great 'second-guessing RP stereotype' stuff that goes on, because there's seriously no better way to make the decision. There is no internal logic to crack, no clues to the right path; just trial and error.

[Stark]

So as of now we are one ahead on 'drink the liquid'. I'll update the thread when I get home.

[avatarxprime]

I hate to bring us back to 50-50, but I vote for the door. I say Stark just flips a coin when he gets home and updates the thread. I posit that heads should be "drink" and tails should be "door." Let's spend a page or so discussing whether that's a good idea or not. I think a page should bring about some really fruitful discussion.

[Lusankya]

I think that if that happens, then tails should be "drink" and heads should be "door". And he should use an Australian 20c coin when doing the coin toss.

[Stark]

OK I left this open until breakfast (om nom nom btw) to see if anything changed. The 20c piece has spoken; 2005 says 'drink'.


Excellent - white wine! Did we just eat some nice duck? Oh, no we missed dinner... still, can't complain. Unless it's German.


Egad! Stabbing stomach pain! Someone can't handle their piss!
Luckily our stomach has a chemical sequencer and can tell us 'we've been poisoned' and aren't just really soft.

But there is a real tragedy here.

Where will little Timmy and Mandy get their smack now? We've all failed them! Damn this House of some sort of Hell!

As a retrospective, our car broke down and we approached a mysterious mansion. We snuck around the back and tried to pass ourselves off as invited guests, and were clonked on the head. We then took to ransacking the rooms after our bloody escape, and found a Zombie in a curtain, a nasty letter opener, and a potion that did nothing. Then ... drank some poison and died.

---

Despite what I said before, if you enter the house differently you can pick up a clue that certain food-types are uniformly poisoned in the whole house (ie, white wine), although the identification of this as white wine is not clear. Still, the early books were very like this - item hunts, random deaths, strange structure. If there's interest, I'm interested in doing Black Vein Prophecy (mystery man in non-China experiences confucian ethics) or Legend of the Shadow Warriors (war veteran in post-hundred years war not-France saves the downtrodden from 30s horror villans). Thanks for playing, guys! I'd never have posted past the second bit if people hadn't been interested.

[Lusankya]

Aww. Why would anyone randomly poison certain food-types. Are they expecting adventurers or something?

Oh, yeah, and let's go to not-China.

[avatarxprime]

I agree with Lusankya about going to not-China. Prophecies always end well so we can't possibly die this time. Also, I knew I should have posted that a 20c couldn't be trusted and that Stark should have imported an American 50c for this very important coin flip moment. Darn you Lusankya, you doomed our brave but stupid zombie killer and drinker of things!

[Lusankya]

Australia has a 50c coin as well, but the 20c coin is traditional, especially when playing games like 2-up.

I want to go to not-China, because I like China, and not-China will be an interesting change. I wonder if there will be lots of peasants asking us how much money we earn. That would be a lovely touch of realism.

[Vendetta]

Totally go to not-China. Because at least then we'll have the excuse that Black Vein Prophecy is fucking impossible to win.

[Ford Prefect]

After brutally murdering a zombie with a letter opener, we were killed by our own stupidity! Excellent!

On to the next adventure!

[Stark]

Totally go to not-China. Because at least then we'll have the excuse that Black Vein Prophecy is fucking impossible to win.

Actually, while I was converting it I noticed that if you play it from the perspective of some sort of ethical paradigm, it's not that hard. Aside from the retarded 'need to fail at the start or you're doomed' thing, that is (which isn't really fixable mechanically).

[Twoyboy]

Gah... Black Vein Prophecy? Over Legend of the Shadow Warriors?! Sacrilege!

If you want one where options must be weighed up, go Vault of the Vampire (38?) - so long as you're honourable, yadda, yadda, yadda you can cruise through it.

Or we could just go Creature of Havoc and be here for the next 4 years...