Anchorhead

Anchorhead
by Michael Gentry profile

Horror
1998

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5 star:		(284)
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3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(8)
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Number of Reviews: 32
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

Pitch-perfect Lovecraftian horror, February 19, 2008

by cklepac (Seattle, WA)

If you're a fan of Lovecraft's stories, you'll be delighted at all the familiar tropes this game has on display, many of which directly or subtly reference his classics (the shopkeeper's violin is one small example). The text is moody and the locations evocative, and several parts are very chilling. Obviously a labor of love from a big fan of HPL and horror fiction in general.

The puzzles put you in the mindset of a Lovecraftian investigator, so if you enjoy researching dark histories and putting the pieces together, you'll be right at home. Taking notes on important names and dates is recommended.

The game gives you a lot of freedom early on, but it has clearly divided time segments, and you may find yourself having to restore in the late game because you didn't do some small thing you needed to when you needed to do it. In a few places I could see where someone new to IF could get frustrated, and I wasn't able to beat it without peeking at a solution once or twice, but overall the puzzles in Anchorhead are fair and don't unduly disrupt the creepy atmosphere of this well-told tale.

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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Lovecraftian Horror at its Finest, January 4, 2008

by Matt Kimmel (Cambridge, MA)

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.