Fighting Fantasy #10 - House of Hell

Title: House of Hell

Author: Steve Jackson

Illustrators: Ian Miller (cover), Tim Sell (interior)

Published: 1984

Level of previous knowledge: Extremely creepy, virtually no chance of survival, don’t go near the kitchen, demon thing. That’s about it. It’s going to be a rough ride.

Plot summary: A hapless wanderer, I’ve wandered haplessly out of the storm into a house that is not all it seems. Will I survive the night or perish at the hands/claws/hurtful insults of the horrors within?

Rules: This book introduces the FEAR score, an indicator of how close one is to being literally frightened to death. There is no mention of provisions or potions with which to restore stats, and you start this book with a -3 penalty of SKILL on account of being unarmed. Nothing to worry about then.

Adventure Log

Attempt #1

Stats rolled: SKILL 7 (4), STAMINA 16, LUCK 8, FEAR 8

Nothing to worry about at all.

Having driven my car into a ditch on a stormy night, I found myself dripping all over the porch of someone’s rather run-down detached property (by detached I mean, by several miles), wondering if they would be kind enough to let me use their phone. Which the introduction told me they don’t have. Hmmm. Deciding that creeping around outside the house at midnight wasn’t the best way to get on the owner’s good side, I rapped the knocker politely. The door was opened by a grumpy butler who invited me in and informed me that the Master was expecting my arrival. All perfectly normal.

Told to wait in a finely decorated reception hall, I soon got bored and decided to wander about looking at the paintings, disrespectfully walking mud all over the floors. Oops. My eye was drawn to the portrait of a young lady, which then whispered to me that the house was cursed, not to drink the white wine, and I should probably run for it before my inevitable death. Nothing unusual here. Still mostly unconcerned, I thought I’d just check outside to see what the weather was doing. I wasn’t trying to escape or anything, but the door security system had kicked in and I got myself slightly electrocuted when trying to open it. Silly me.

Immediately afterwards, the Master himself arrived, and put me at ease, apparently not noticing my frazzled state. The butler returned with brandy which I drank on the basis that it couldn’t be as bad as the white wine. Finding this all rather relaxing, I kicked back and warmed my feet by the fire while the Earl of Drumer prattled on about the storm and how I could stay over and watch Netflix all night. Then it was dinner time, for which I selected a main course of lamb with a glass of red wine (seriously, what kind of monster would pair white wine with lamb anyway? Oh, and something about  possible death). Not wondering in the slightest about why the Earl had waited until midnight to eat his own dinner, we had a nice chat about his family and how everyone thought they were a bunch of evil freaks but they were perfectly nice really, before it was time for the next course. Unable to avoid a choice including coffee (I guessed it would keep me awake for the Netflix binge-athon I had planned), I opted to have some fruit and more brandy, before being shown upstairs to my room, impressed with the level of service I’d received thus far.

Climbing into bed, I drifted off into a disturbed sleep, eventually waking in a cold sweat to find that someone had kindly left me a nightcap (a drink, not headwear). It didn’t smell like Chardonnay, so I downed it in one and settled back down to sleep. Just before unconsciousness took me I realised that the room was spinning more than usual and my drink had been spiked. Grrrr, that’s a star off their Trip Advisor review!

Awaking once more, I found my hands and feet were tied together. Reflecting that there must have been a grave miscommunication with the housekeeping staff as to the manner of my stay, I hopped over to the window, smashed it, and severed my bonds on the jagged glass, as well as a few of my veins. Emerging from the room, I found myself on a first floor landing, and wandered along to the corner where two doors awaited. Choosing the Balthus room, I entered to find the décor was extremely dire (heh, heh). The sight of bulging curtains was extremely tempting but given the nature of the book I assumed that looking behind anything was a good way to accumulate FEAR points, and therefore opted to investigate the wooden box on the mantelpiece. As I approached it, however, the curtains rustled alarmingly. For some reason I chose to walk right over to them rather than doing something sensible (running for my life came to mind), and was rewarded for my curiosity with a powerful blow to the chest and a meeting with the rustler, a rather unfriendly fellow guest who appeared to be a zombie. Oh, and 2 FEAR points. Barely surviving the ensuing combat (presumably my first ever combat) I bled all over the wooden box while opening it to find a key. Wondering what it was for, I tried it in the door I’d just arrived through and it unlocked – which was somewhat of a surprise because I wasn’t aware it had locked itself.

In a rather grumpy mood, I opened the unmarked door nearby to enter another passage, I encountered a door to the Diabolus room. Thinking that it sounded rather lovely, I entered and closed the door behind me, clearly not learning anything from the previous room. Taking a quick rest, I was soon greeted by another of the house’s other guests, a bloody headless ghost who gave me 4 FEAR points by proclaiming my inevitable doom and generally being terrifying and making an awful mess.

Slightly overwrought by this point, I decided that investigating curtains was now an entirely logical thing to do and drew back the pair covering a window in the hallway. My anticipated doom was postponed when nothing relatively terrifying happened, and all I saw was a strange message written in condensation on the window – “Mordana in Abaddon”. Making a note to myself that this might be useful if I lived longer than a further five minutes, I headed back to the landing and moved onwards.

Unsure if I’d get another chance to explore up here, I ignored the main stairs down and entered another unmarked door. Behind was a store room, where I found a knife I could use in combat, and some garlic which I shoved into my pocket in case I was asked to help out in the kitchen later (maybe while still alive). Ignoring the opportunity to drink a ‘white liquid’ (not appetizing at all) I went through another door into another passage containing another door and another door. Entering the Shaitan room, I found myself in an elegant bedroom. Closing the door behind me again (duh) I heard a soft click which no doubt indicated I was once again locked in. Then an amused, disembodied voice taunted me, which was a bit scary, but luckily it wasn’t disembodied at all and turned out to be the voice of a vampire, who hypnotized me with his gaze and sank his fangs into my neck.

Conclusion: Failure. But at least I wasn’t scared to death…

Number of combats: 1

Attempt #2

Stats rolled: SKILL 10 (7), STAMINA 17, LUCK 10, FEAR 11

Waiting for my host to arrive in the reception hall again, I decided this time to peruse a painting of a posh-looking fellow in glasses. His eyes started moving, but I wasn’t scared because I totally expected it. He seemed to be trying to draw my attention to one of the doors down the hall, so I wandered over and tried the handle. Bzzzzt! Either the door was the front door again (a bit misleading, old chap!) or the security system applied to every door in the building, in which case I had better head to the kitchen and find some rubber gloves.

Sticking to the menu options which allowed me to survive dinner last time, I was shown to my room once more. Opting for a short nap, when I awoke I ignored the drugged nightcap and took the only other option, which for some reason was to batter down the door to the room. This didn’t work out very well, and while I rubbed my shoulder in consternation I heard footsteps approaching. Unsurprised that my host should investigate guest violence, I sprang back in bed and pretended to be asleep. A fellow with a distinct hunch in his back entered (there must be a word to describe him…) and left me another drink (apparently in case the first didn’t do the job) and turned to leave. Then I made my move, leaping out of the bed to attack him, before remembering I was unarmed and this wasn’t necessarily the best idea I’d ever had. Overpowering and interrogating him, I demanded he tell me how to escape the house, and he told me to use the front door. Duh. I then proceeded to wander across to the stairs in some kind of idiotic daze while the hunch-backed fellow disappeared somewhere before I realised how foolish that was. Hmmm.

Deciding to avoid going in the direction my devious hosts would want me to go, I entered an unmarked door to find myself in a familiar store room. Grabbing the knife and some garlic, I continued into another passage where I found the door to the vampire’s room, and another one called ‘Mammon’. Deciding to try the latter, I entered an unremarkable room and had a bit of a root about. Unfortunately the poltergeist within made it clear that my intrusion was unwelcome, and rewarded me by dropping a vase on my head, and then pulling the old ‘moving the bed out of the way’ trick. The chair careering across the room at me was the last straw, so I ran for it, 3 FEAR points worse off than before.

Deciding that a vampire was at least visible and less likely to throw furniture at me, I entered his room once more, fancying a bit of revenge. Attacking him with a fearsome clove of garlic, I was able to escape into a secret passage in the back of his cupboard, which didn’t seem like a particularly good idea, but panic makes for poor decisions. A narrow passageway headed to some stairs which I descended cautiously, wondering if the vampire was aware of the secret passage at all, and somehow missed me diving into it. Coming to a landing, I opened another door into a room with an odd curtain of hazy sparkliness, which I naturally poked at with my finger. Meeting no resistance, I decided to poke my entire head through, because nothing could possibly go wrong there, to find my head emerging through a mirror into another room. Initially thinking better of it, I tried the door to one side but was unable to unlock it, so shrugged and wandered heedlessly through the curtain.

Opening a door to leave the room, I entered a passageway and went around a corner, having absolutely no idea where I was by this point. Opening another door, I found myself in an immaculate kitchen. Ignoring the alarm bells in my mind, I had a quick look around for rubber gloves but was unable to find any. Opening the pantry door, I was greeted by an unpleasant rotting fellow who could only communicate by hissing and clawing at my eyes. Managing to dispatch him without taking more than a single wound, my self-congratulation was interrupted somewhat by the clattering of pots and pans as the creature collapsed them. Grimacing, I didn’t have to wait long for the Master’s friends to show up, an odd bunch with some kind of goat fetish. Apparently resistance would be foolish, so I sensibly allowed myself to be put into a prison cell with no hope of ever escaping. Boo.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2

Attempt #3

Stats rolled: SKILL 9 (6), STAMINA 16, LUCK 7, FEAR 7

Taking the same actions as my previous self, except for this time having a chat with a painting of an old woman who informed me that I should look for a potential ally in a grey robe, I found myself once again attacking the hunchback, who after giving me the battering of a lifetime, told me that there was some kind of special occasion tonight and a man in grey was going to be punished, and he could be found in the Asmodeus room. Noting this potentially useful information, I locked the giggling wretch in the room and stepped out on to the landing.

Turning in the opposite direction to last time, I was accosted by a young woman in a bridal dress who was a bit more transparent than the average person. We had a nice chat where she told me that all sorts of horrible things were going to happen tonight, and I was likely to be a demonic sacrifice, so I should find something called the Kris knife. She was just about to tell me where to find it when she was attacked and vanquished by some ghostly dogs, and I was alone once more, to consider my options.

Heading back down the corridor I entered some kind of laboratory where I proceeded to root around for anything useful, finding a letter opener I could use as a weapon in combat. Given my pitiful remaining health I wanted to continue my search (hopefully finding some kind of potion of healing-not-poison-for-a-change) but was interrupted by voices outside. Waiting for the noise to subside, I crept from the room and moved on into familiar territory. Checking the window to read about Mordana again, I ignored an array of other rooms which I knew contained nothing of use and headed for the storeroom to find another weapon and some garlic.

This time deciding to avoid the vampire’s room altogether, I headed back out on to the landing. Trying the next door, I met an old man who immediately lurched towards me for a hug, and I obliged him. The realisation that he wasn’t breathing eventually sunk in, however, so I panicked and ran off down the landing like a lunatic, leaving the body in the middle of the floor. Subtle. Turning left down a side passage, I found a door to the Asmodeus room. Excited that my potential ally could be inside, I entered, only to find myself attacked by the man within. Managing to avoid fatal injury, I managed to persuade him that I meant no harm and asked him how to defeat the Master. He told me about the Kris knife which was the Master’s only weakness, and how it was hidden in a secret room downstairs somewhere, with a password only known to Mordana, who was unfortunately dead, but around here that wasn’t necessarily a barrier to communication. Marvelling at the arrogance of evil villains who insist on keeping the weapons that were their greatest weakness nearby, I waited for the man to leave and then inspected a heavy crate. This contained a tasty-looking goat carcass, which unfortunately was decapitated and therefore quite terrifying. On the edge of losing my sanity, I headed back out to the passage.

The door opposite opened into a simple bedroom, which I inspected thoroughly (and extremely carefully, in case I saw a spider that would tip me over the edge). Finding nothing of interest, I turned to leave but was alarmed to hear footsteps approaching outside, Ready to ambush the visitor (well, I only lost 10 STAMINA points the last time I ambushed someone) I was disappointed when the footsteps receded once more into the distance. Despite being extremely tired (you know,, almost dead) I opted not to sleep in the bed and crept back outside. Moving on to the next bedroom, I again opted to avoid the bed and instead peered out of the barred window. I was greeted by the sight of an old man hanging from a tree by his neck, which I thought was rather decorative in a Halloween kind of way, but was unfortunately scary enough that my heart stopped right there and then. Maybe I should have had a nap after all.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2

Attempt #4

Stats rolled: SKILL 12 (9), STAMINA 17, LUCK 10, FEAR 7

With another low FEAR threshold, I decided that the best approach would be to avoid everything non-essential which gave me FEAR points last time, so I walked around the landing, only popping to the window with the writing on and the store room to grab the knife along the way. I even avoided my ‘ally’ in grey because he was a bit scary and didn’t really give me any vital information. Further around the landing, I was excited to find the Abaddon room, and entered cautiously. Inside I found an old woman sleeping in her bed. Fearful that the bed might decide to eat her or something, I poked her awake, only to find out she was dead, which was a bit of a shock (2 FEAR points’ worth). Then her eyes flicked open, which wasn’t scary at all. After a frankly justified rant about strangers poking around in her bedchamber, she set her dogs on me, which I reluctantly (ish) put down before threatening the herb garden on her windowsill. She agreed to answer a question if I could say her name, which I fortunately knew because someone had randomly graffitied it on a window on the other side of the house. I asked her about the potential secret doors downstairs that the man in grey mentioned in a previous life and I finally received some useful information about how to find the one leading to the Master’s secret sanctum. I left her to moan in peace and went back out on to the landing, where I was denied the opportunity to check the other nearby doors and went straight down the main stairs.

Choosing a direction at random, I entered a cosy room with chairs arranged around a recently-extinguished fireplace. Finding an inferior dagger, I turned my attention to the mantelpiece where a strange clock caught my eye (and my sleeve) and while I faffed about with it I failed to notice the fire sprites forming in the fireplace. Backing away desperately, I conceived a cunning plan which involved tossing the contents of a large plant pot over them, and marvelling at my own strength, I was successful in dousing both of the creatures. Back at the mantelpiece I discovered a suspicious button which I didn’t trust at all, suspecting a one-way trip to the cellar or worse.

Going through another door I found myself in a study, where a piece of paper was writing on itself, which was a bit disconcerting. The words ‘Find Shekou’ appeared, and after a moment’s thought I remembered that my previous self had discovered that this was the hunchback’s name (but only as he guided me unhelpfully past the ‘Mordana’ window and straight to the stairs). Wondering if I should head back to the room I locked him in, I had a look through some of the books on the shelf. Given a choice between black magic and hypnotism, I chose the former in case the other took things a bit too literally. Inside I found a pentacle purported to have powers over some demon worshippers, which I felt might be handy at some point. Rejecting the opportunity to root around further, as this room had already provided useful things and I didn’t want to push my luck, I left the study and tried another door. Hearing voices, I became spooked and ran for the door opposite instead.

Finding myself at a flight of stairs heading down into the cellar, I descended carefully but was soon attacked by a cloud of bats. Hiding under the stairs, I realised I was in the place where the secret door should be, and fumbled about with the wall for a while. Given a choice of passwords (and trying to roleplay slightly by ignoring the option I’d never heard of) I had a guess, and was surprised when the door opened, to reveal a small room containing a promising-looking box. Entering fearfully, I opened the box to discover none other than the Kris knife I needed to defeat the Master! Pleased with my discovery, I again rejected the idea of searching around further and backed out of the room.

Heading back up the stairs to the ground floor, I opened another door into a reception room adorned with murals and a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror. Peering at the mirror, I freaked out when I noticed I had no reflection, and briefly wondered if I was actually a continuation of the previous self who had an intimate encounter with the vampire. Closer inspection revealed that I could pass entirely through the mirror if I wished to. A quick look around drew my attention to a secret compartment in a table, inside which was a leather box. As I grabbed it, I heard voices approaching, and facing a decision between facing crazy people with evidence of theft in my hands and diving through a possibly inter-dimensional mirror, I chose the latter.

Somewhat disappointed to find myself in a tiny, boring room, I tried one of the doors which I successfully unlocked with the contents of the leather box, a shiny golden key. Entering the room beyond, I followed some dusty footprints to discover another key, this one made of iron, hidden carefully in the wall. Thinking that I must be on the right track, I opened the other door to find myself on a landing with stairs coming from above and heading below. Denied the opportunity to search upwards (and having a sneaking suspicion about where it might lead anyway) I headed downwards but clumsily slipped in the darkness and tumbled all the way to the bottom. Ouch.

Wandering down a dark tunnel, I came to a large room where forty or so nutcases wearing goat-head masks were gathered around a fire, preparing for the sacrifice of a young woman. Wondering what they did with the rest of the goats (I didn’t see any on the menu earlier), I considered my options. Direct confrontation seemed foolish (scuse me, I forgot my mask but I heard the sacrifice had been moved to Tuesday, didn’t you get the email?), so I sneaked around the wall in search of an escape route. I was spotted but the power of my pentacle kept the freaks at bay until I exited via the side passage, leaving them to their depravity.

Feeling distinctly unheroic, I entered a small passageway with two doors leading from it. Opening one, I met an odd chap called Rafferty, who was clearly terrified of me. I allowed him to blather before giving anything away and was about to tell him to calm down when he produced a knife and stabbed himself in the stomach. Oh well. Finding nothing else of interest in the room, I opened the door opposite to find myself set upon by several more dogs. Finishing them all off, I drank from their water jug but again found nothing else of interest. Back out in the passageway I could find no way out, so sensibly pressed a button described as a bell push, and was only slightly surprised that this resulted in a bell going off. Soon after I would be captured by the evil servants of the Master and there would be no escape.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 4

Attempt #5

Stats rolled: SKILL 9 (6), STAMINA 16, LUCK 8, FEAR 12

Following the same route as last time up to the room with the mirror, this time I avoided going down the dark stairs to the basement and went back out into the ground floor hallway. Spotting a familiar door leading to the kitchen, I took the door on he opposite side, which I unlocked with the iron key I’d found in the wall and opened, to find myself in the dining room once more. Checking for traps revealed nothing, so I rang for the butler and waited, intending to fool him by asking for a midnight snack or something. Instead I found myself asking him to fetch the Earl, and when he angrily arrived I just blurted out that I knew they were nasty scallywags and I was going to do something about it. I’m not sure what I expected to happen next, but they nodded to each other and came at me, threatening violence - how uncouth! Going for the more fragile-looking butler first, I managed to land a hit before he screamed loudly, literally melted before my eyes and turned into what I could only describe as an oversized demon-goat (or perhaps goat-demon would do it better justice). Restarting my heart, I dashed heroically into combat and despite my years of not training at all, managed to defeat the creature with barely a scratch to show for it. As it crashed to the ground, it knocked a load of candles on to the floor and set fire to the house, which in any good story is a sign of victory. Leaving the sobbing Earl to hug the hopefully dying beast (I’m not sure the fire would finish the job), I ran out of the house back into the creepy woods where I realised I had my mobile phone in my pocket the whole time. Silly me!

Conclusion: Success!

Number of combats: 4

Review

Writing: Steve Jackson does a great job of making this book as creepy as possible with some of the best writing in the FF series so far. Descriptions are for the most part well fleshed out and many situations are genuinely quite scary (especially when I read this as a child!) Although I often dislike the practice of telling the reader what they are thinking, it somehow works in this book to create a sense of paranoia and a feeling that you’re not entirely in control of your emotions throughout, which plays into the FEAR score. The overall plot is fun but does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity – there are lots of isolated encounters in this book with nothing to weave them together, and given that they are all in the same house I feel that more could have been done with this.

Writing: 4/5

Artwork: I really enjoyed the drawings in this one – they complement the creepy nature of the book well and add a lot to the atmosphere. I’m particularly a fan of the depiction of the zombie behind the bulging curtain…

Artwork: 4/5

Design: Describing a journey around a maze-like house full of secret passages designed to ensnare the unprepared is always going to be challenging and there are several occasions where it’s extremely unclear which direction is being referred to, or whether you’re going back the way you came, if you’ve been here before, etc. Often there are occasions where for no apparent reason you are not given the option to open a door which was right there a minute earlier, or explore a passage in one direction because the story is trying to push you onwards. And I don’t mind being moved on by the story, but I’d like it to be done more elegantly than being told that I randomly choose to ignore things, or just have them disappear as if they were never there at all.

The path to success is quite narrow with very little leeway, but I think my biggest problem with it is that the most interesting things happen when you do things that will cause you to lose. For instance most of the doors upstairs can be safely ignored and although you lose out on flavour information there is only one thing you need to do, which is to read the message on the window and then go all the way around to meet Mordana, missing a lot of potentially fun situations on the way. Downstairs is a maze, perhaps not by design but by the way directions are described, making it extremely easy to accidentally end up in an ‘all roads lead to the kitchen’ situation which is most irritating (all choices in the kitchen lead to death). On my successful playthrough I avoided the basement entirely except for getting the Kris knife from under the stairs, but there are a lot of fun encounters down there. Unfortunately all but a couple of them are on a path which ends in death regardless of your choices, which is a bit of a shame.

Finally I love the idea behind the FEAR mechanic but the problem is it actively discourages you from exploring, and once you know a bit more about the correct path you absolutely have to avoid a lot of fun encounters because they give no reward except a potential heart attack.

Design: 2/5

Fairness: I’m a bit torn here – on the one hand this book is pretty unforgiving with lots of ‘gotcha’ moments which can come out of nowhere, but on the other, that’s kind of the point of a horror-themed gamebook and I won’t mark it down too much for that. However the path to success is very narrow and not intuitive at all – there are many ways to end up in the basement but I believe to get the password to the secret room only one of them is ‘correct’ which involves falling through a trapdoor. I didn’t do this but luckily guessed the password correctly anyway, only working out the correct route by leafing through the book after winning. Also I can’t help but feel the player should be rewarded for doing things rather than not doing them!

In terms of numbers, there are very few combats involved on the way to victory but the main issue is the FEAR score – I believe there are 8 mandatory FEAR points on the path and I didn’t come across any ways to reduce it so I believe a FEAR score of 9+ is mandatory.

Fairness: 3/5

Cheating index: I may have cheated a teensy-weensy bit once when I was again redirected to the kitchen while exploring the ground floor. 1 Razaak

Average enemy stats

Successful path: 5 encounters, SKILL 8.4, STAMINA 8.2

Entire book: 31 encounters, SKILL 7.3, STAMINA 6.8

Instant death paragraphs: 20

Any player can win no matter how weak initial dice rolls: I’m pretty sure this is a LIE based on the FEAR score required to succeed but I’m happy to be proven wrong…

Final thoughts: Despite its design flaws I really enjoyed my terrifying adventure in the House of Hell. This was the first Fighting Fantasy book I ever played and may be subject to some bias but it’s a strong entry in the series and should be praised for doing things a bit differently. With some tweaks to the design it could have been something amazing.

Final score: 7/10