The 7th Guest

The 7th Guest, published in 1992 by Virgin Games, is a video-based puzzle computer game, not unlike The Fool's Errand and predating Myst. It was one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. Seventh Guest is a horror story told from the unfolding perspective of the player, as an amnesiac. The game received a great amount of press attention for making live action video clips a core part of its gameplay, for its unprecedentedly large amount of pre-rendered 3D graphics, and for its adult content.

The game is played by wandering the mansion, solving logic puzzles and watching videos that further the story. The main antagonist, Stauf, is an ever-present menace, taunting the player with clues, mocking the player as they fail his puzzles ("We'll all be dead by the time you solve this!"), and expressing displeasure when the player succeeds ("Don't think you'll be so lucky next time!").

A moderately complex plot of manipulation and sin is played out by actors through film clips as you progress between rooms by solving twenty-one puzzles of shifting nature and increasing difficulty. The first puzzles most players encounter is either one where players must select the right interconnected letters inside the lens of a telescope to form a coherent sentence; or a relatively simple cake puzzle, where the player has to divide the cake evenly into six pieces, each containing the same number of decorations. Other puzzles include mazes, chess problems, logical deductions, Simon-style pattern-matching, word manipulations, and even an extremely difficult game of Othello that utilizes an AI (and would later go on to make an encore appearance in the sequel). For players who need help or simply can't solve a particular puzzle, there is a hint book in one room of the house. The first two times it is consulted about a puzzle it gives clues about how to solve it, the third time it simply completes the puzzle for the player so that they can go on with the game. Although the game's manual states that there may be consequences for using the hint book, the hint book can be used without penalty for all but the final puzzle.

The 7th Guest was the first game for the PC platform to be available only on CD-ROM, since it was too large to be distributed on floppy disks: it came on 2 CDs. Removing some of the large movies and videos wasn't an option as they were essential to the gameplay. This game, along with LucasArts' Star Wars: Rebel Assault and Brøderbund's Myst, helped promote the adoption of CD drives, which were not yet common.