Anchorhead

Baf's Guide

Lovecraft-inspired gothic horror at its best: a small town full of secrets, a gruesomely deformed monstrosity, a vast uncaring force awaiting its day. Despite the overblown style typical of the genre, this game generally works, and can get quite unnerving at times (especially in some of the NPC interactions). Highly open and explorable environment (aside from an abundance of locked doors), puzzles well-integrated into the storyline (including many optional puzzles and alternate solutions), lots of backstory revealed in an impressive variety of ways. Gets a bit sticky towards the end, with many tight time limits. Has a Sierra-style time system: the day ends when a certain point in the plot is reached. Features a female protagonist, two small mazes (one optional), references to incest, and a certain amount of strong language, gore, and really bad things happening to people.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

Play This Thing!
Anchorhead is a rare achievement in interactive fiction, a well-designed puzzle-rich game that nonetheless leaves you mostly remembering the story.

Michael Gentry's game is based on the locations and ideas of H. P. Lovecraft, but the result has its own unique vision and integrity.
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Necessary Games
Overall, the experience of playing Anchorhead was incredibly rich and memorable—not for the difficulty navigating, or for the puzzles, but for the immersive experience it provided. It compared very well with any interactive experience I have ever had, and came in well ahead of the graphical adventures I have played (with the possible exception of Myst). My distaste for horror in general may have curbed my appetite slightly, but only slightly: this game manages to rise above horror, and the experience of playing it is beautiful as often as it is frightening. I would highly recommend the game, though if you have no previous IF experience beware: read the help, use the map, use a walkthrough when needed, and stick with it if you feel overwhelmed early on. It’s worth it.
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Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 8 Write a review

Most Helpful Member Reviews

Anchorhead: Better than All TV., April 9, 2010
Note: this review was written while I was in the beginning of the game. I've since finished and have added some more notes to the end.

* * *

I started ANCHORHEAD last night. It's not a new release--it won a slew of awards in back in 1998, and for good reason.

See, I've been craving an eerie game I could really sink my teeth into, and ANCHORHEAD has delivered.

The depth of its gameworld is incredible. When Earthworm Jim came out, everyone said, "It's like playing a Saturday morning cartoon!" Remember that? Well, ANCHORHEAD is like playing an excellently-written novella.

The attention to detail is incredible--you can interact with most objects you see, and the gameworld responds in a believable manner. Because of this, it's really easy to get into character. For example, I always lock the door when I leave the house. Does it do anything related to gameplay? No. But because I feel like I'm such a part of this world, I feel like I MUST act as though it is my real world, and thus--I lock up my (Spoiler - click to show)(electricity-less, sometimes frightening) house when I leave.

Here's another example: (Spoiler - click to show)It was morning in the game. I had just woken up, and my husband was in the shower. I had the feeling I'd need his university ID card later on, and his pants were hanging there right off the end of the bed. So I rifled through the pockets. Sure enough, the ID card was right there in his wallet...But in the end, I felt guilty about going through his things. So I left the card in his wallet.
Did I just lock myself out of some major puzzle or backstory? Maybe. But at least I didn't steal from my husband. That's the sort of feeling ANCHORHEAD evokes for me.

(Also, the game gave me points for soaking in a bath. :3 )

Another great thing about ANCHORHEAD: the puzzles fit. There were a number of times today where I felt like I was at a total dead end, but by taking a closer look at a couple of things, tinkering around with realistic game actions--BOOM! New paths were opened. New mysteries revealed.

And there's the other thing--with some games, you solve a puzzle...bing. That's it. Check the puzzle off your list, you're done. In ANCHORHEAD, with every new revelation you discover about (Spoiler - click to show)your creepy house (and the INSANE PEOPLE who owned it), three more unsettling questions pop up. It makes it nigh impossible to put down.

I could write tons more about how I love this, but I really want to go back and see (Spoiler - click to show)what's in the crypt behind our house. You all, you just...just try it.

* * *

Well! The final half of the game was harder for me. I probably could have figured a few of them out on my own (though for me, (Spoiler - click to show)escaping William at the slaughterhouse turned into an episode of "Guess the Verb"), but you know what it's like with walkthroughs: you can't just look ONCE.

Despite the harder puzzles taking me out of the game's spell, I still highly recommend ANCHORHEAD. Some actions you're forced into to turn the story's feeling away from Grandpa Lovecraft and into Uncle Steve's realm, but it felt appropriate.

Really...the epilogue. You'll be thinking about that for a while.

My favorite death: (Spoiler - click to show)Reading through the Huge Tome in the church. It summed up the horror of Grandpa Lovecraft's work in what--3 paragraphs? If ANCHORHEAD was a book I would have bookmarked this page. FOREVER.

Brilliant game with one single flaw, December 25, 2008
And that flaw is this - that compared to the rest of the game, the entire ending sequence is too easy to botch up, too easy to die in, WAY too easy to leave the game in an unwinnable situation.

There, I've said the one flaw. Now I am free to point out that this game is a shining example of what a story-driven game should be like. By story-driven, I mean it is the plot and characters that drive the game onwards, not the puzzles. The puzzles do exist, and are, without exception, some of the finest I've ever encountered. However, they serve the plot, instead of having the plot be an excuse for their existence.

I know the game has been out for years and pretty much has already been said, but having just replayed it I simply couldn't *not* come here and praise the quality of the writing, short enough and descriptive enough to make your hair stand up and your flesh crawl on the right spots in the game; the quality of the game design, where you are relatively free to wander about and discover things at your own pace without ever having to worry about unwinnable situations (until the end of the game); the meticulous implementation of the keyring, the umbrella, and all the little details that Michael Gentry felt Anchorhead could not do without; the flesh-and-blood characters, with whom an ASK/TELL system manages to feel like a *conversation*.

It is only a pity that the endgame is not as forgiving as the rest of the game - in effect, the player is taught, throughout the game, not to worry, the game will take care of you and not let you do silly things unwarned. But it's so very easy to miss a couple of actions that will make the game unwinnable. Still, within context, it is a decision that makes sense - the ending is fast-paced, and a sequence of terrible scenes, whose effect might be diminished if the game kept holding our hand.

This is one of those game that will have you breathing hard as you uncover the mystery (and such a pacing as regards the mystery! You piece it together, piece by piece, and by the end you are astounded by your own deductions - almost at no point does the game actually *tell* you anything, forcing you to make your own connections, and the result is astoundingly immersive). I am unfamiliar with Lovecraft's works, other than a sketchy knowledge of the Cthulhu mythos - which did not in any way diminish my pleasure with this game.

This game is a *must* for anyone even remotely interested in horror IF. If you like Lovecraft as well, that's merely an added bonus - and if you're unfamiliar with Lovecraft, then the story will seem more original and unpredictable... not that it doesn't already have many memorable elements in its own right, (Spoiler - click to show) in particular the tragic figure of William.

Lovecraftian Horror at its Finest, January 4, 2008
Anchorhead is most certainly a jewel in the crown of the Lovecraftian horror genre, up there with such favorites as The Lurking Horror and Theatre. First and foremost in this game comes the prose; the author has lovingly crafted a deep and memorable world, which is slowly revealed in paragraphs that give you, as a player, all the information you need, while keeping you on the edge of your seat. Additionally, the author knows well the principle behind Lovecraft's works: that nothing he writes on the page can possibly be as horrifying as what you can imagine. Hints, suggestions, and half-glimpses of the evil lurking in the town of Anchorhead are what you're treated to--not outright descriptions that inevitably fail to live up to your expectations.

There is also a depth of information about Anchorhead's world that's rarely found in interactive fiction. Details on every aspect of the town and its inhabitants can be found from a multitude of sources. This serves to immerse the player in the horrors that are unfolding, but it's not just window dressing; much of the background information is integral to the plot.

This is a primarily literary work, and although the puzzles are fun and require some thought, they're not tremendously difficult. My only complaint about the game is that not all of the puzzles are made obvious. The game progresses as you cause various events to take place, and there were a few points where I felt a bit lost because I didn't know what to do next, and therefore could not move forward in the plot. In retrospect, I could probably have figured out most of those situations by looking a bit harder, but there are one or two puzzles that require a bit of an intuitive leap--and you won't be continuing until you make that leap.

Still, this is a minor complaint about a beautifully written work of IF. I highly recommend this game to any serious player of interactive fiction, whether you're a fan of the horror genre or not.

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