The Lurking Horror

aka: The Lurking Horror - An Interactive Horror
Moby ID: 475
Amiga Specs
Included in See Also

Description official descriptions

Despite a terrible snowstorm, a young G.U.E. Tech student travels to the school's computer lab to work on his grad paper. However, something strange has happened. The file containing the student's document has been partially overwritten by the Department of Alchemy's files. At first the student's only goal is to retrieve his lost document, but soon he realizes that something far more sinister is occurring in the depths of the school building.

The Lurking Horror is Infocom's only horror-themed text adventure game. The game is set in the haunted school building, in the midst of a blizzard that rendered escape impossible. The player explores the environments and has to solve puzzles to overcome obstacles. There are hostile creatures in the game, most of which must be defeated or outsmarted by using specific items.

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Screenshots

Credits (Amiga version)

Founder
Architect
Sound Engineer

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 48 ratings with 4 reviews)

Horror Text Adventure set in ‘M.I.T.’

The Good
You start the game in the computer center furiously working on an assignment. Your only companion is a hacker. You must figure out a way to get his keys which open all the doors in the college. You can take the elevator or stairs out of the computer center and begin to explore the vast expanses of the college.

One place you can visit is dead storage where all the old science equipment is kept. Another is the infinite corridor (based on a very long corridor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the games implementers studied). You must work out how to get past a cleaner with a cleaning machine. A ‘lurker’ also hangs about. Down the corridor you pass an office labeled ‘Department of Alchemy’ (the ancient study of making gold out of base metals which lead to chemistry). There is also a professor’s office that you work out how to enter with a mysterious pentagon drawn on its floor.

Sorry that’s about all I can remember, it was a long time ago. I did finish the game, but had to cheat using invisiclues a booklet with a magic pen that gradually revealed more and more specific clues.

The Bad
Not one of there best games. They did say they wanted to make it longer but were constrained by disk space, 330Kbytes for the parser and game I think.

The Bottom Line
Mildly interesting.

DOS · by David Ledgard (58) · 2005

Become the protagonist of a Lovecraft-like tale

The Good
It's a very highly atmospheric game; the writing is excellent and the puzzles are smart; the parser -as in every Infocom game- is great!

The Bad
I didn't like very much that you may be forced to restart the game if you've spent too much turns.

The Bottom Line
The only Infocom's horror title is a great incursion in the genre.

DOS · by jgdjgdg jsjgsgsjhfdj (1) · 2000

One of the last great text-only games ever made

The Good
By the time "The Lurking Horror" was published, Infocom had reached its peak of popularity. Computer graphics at the time were improving dramatically from the 300x200, 16-color graphics of the Commodore 64 (the standard for most of the 80s). The Apple IIgs had been around for a year or two, and the Amiga had been released, as had color Macintosh computers. All had significantly better graphics, both in terms of higher resolution and more colors in the palette, than the Commodore 64 or the Apple IIe. This spelled the death knell for text-only games, as the average gamer wanted some bang for his graphical buck -- a bang that text-only games simply couldn't provide no matter how good their gameplay was.

(It's interesting to note that this trend continues to this day. Game companies frequently put out games that are heavy on the latest graphics and sound technology, but light on actual gameplay. And the reason they keep doing this is because it seems to be a successful marketing strategy.)

(But I digress...)

But forget all that. This is 1987. Text-only games are still fairly popular for the home computers of the day, thanks to the absolutely outstanding quality of the text-only games released by Infocom. "The Lurking Horror," their first (and, as it happens, their last) entry into the Horror genre, carried on this fine tradition of quality.

You start off as a student at George Underwood Edwards (GUE) University, an MIT clone. You're working late one night in the computer lab, when suddenly you're thrust into a tale that would do H.P. Lovecraft proud. As with Lovecraft, the horror is rarely "in your face." The horror is subtle, and relies on atmosphere rather than monsters or "jump out and go 'BOO'" tactics. Indeed, given the limitations of the text-only genre, the writers were really prevented from using the less subtle tactics. It worked so well, it's a wonder Infocom hadn't done a horror game any earlier.

The Bad
Nothing to dislike. The story was well crafted, the puzzles were challenging without being absurdly difficult, and the text parser performed admirably.

The Bottom Line
If you've ever wanted to actually be in an H.P. Lovecraft tale, "The Lurking Horror" is the game for you.

(And if you've ever wanted to actually be in an H.P. Lovecraft tale, seek counselling.)

DOS · by Afterburner (486) · 2001

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Copy protection

Copy protection for the game required the user to input the correct Student ID number and password into a computer terminal.

Extras

(From the Infocom Home Page site)

The game contained "G.U.E. at a Glance" (G.U.E. Tech guide), a G.U.E. Tech student ID card, and a red rubber centipede (between two sheets of clear plastic).

References

  • The college you find yourself at is George Underwood Edwards Tech, aka G.U.E. Tech. GUE was the abbreviation for the Great Underground Empire from the Zork series, also published by Infocom.
  • G.U.E. Tech was based on MIT, the alma mater of most of Infocom's employees. Locations in the game are similar, along with various MIT slang.

Sound

Lurking Horror featured sound for certain systems (like Amiga). Do you want your version of LH to have sound? As of 2000, the missing sound files and a utility to upgrade your .DAT file were available via anonymous ftp from ftp.gmd.de at if-archive/infocom/missing-files, and the file was called LHSOUND.ZIP.

Unofficial Sequel

The premise and setting (radically recast as "PUE Tech") are revisited in Jason Davis's 1991 Amstrad CPC text adventure The Smirking Horror, written with the "Graphic Adventure Creator" (GAC).

Awards

  • Happy Computer
    • Issue 01/1988 - Best Text Adventure in 1987

Information also contributed by Afterburner, Adan Baratz, Belboz, Chike Mikesell and Pseudo_Intellectual

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tony Van.

Apple II added by Droog. Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit added by Kabushi. Amiga, Macintosh added by Terok Nor. Amstrad PCW added by Игги Друге. Commodore 64, Atari ST added by Belboz.

Additional contributors: Pseudo_Intellectual, David Ledgard, mo , c64fan, Patrick Bregger, theclue.

Game added November 26, 1999. Last modified March 8, 2024.