the 7th guest

A game commonly blamed for the popularization of using CD players for the data disks of games, as well as for making MIDI a popular medium for game music. The game has pre-rendered 3D graphics, allowing you to more or less move throughout the game with 3D camera shots that served no purpose except to show off. These files took up so much space that a second disk was needed to store the install files for the game, and making the best of the situation, the second disk is also a music CD, containing music by The Fat Man for the game. The game is also very good at crashing Windows; anyone attempting to suspend it (alt+tab and such) may find that their computer has simply locked up. (Use of the program DOSBox may be used to fix this problem.) It also uses live-action actors who play against a blue screen to give cut-scenes to further the plot. For its time, The 7th Guest required very expensive hardware to run, including a MIDI synth card, a VGA card and color monitor, a CD-ROM drive, and fast computer in general, reflected in Stauf's statement, "You are a glutton!" in the first puzzle. A modern computer will achieve 100% on all hardware tests, and will completely fail when it comes time to state a MIDI synth card: computers do not have hardware MIDI synths anymore; instead the operating system handles MIDI synth.

The game had a very dark and bloody plot, and as such was rated NC-17. The game itself is a puzzle game, consisting of over 20 puzzles that range from re-hashes of older puzzles, to mostly new and unique puzzles that have a tendency to confuse people forever and to no end. The puzzled are mostly well animated and difficult to solve. Fortunately, a hint book is provided, and if you can't solve a puzzle at all, the hint book will simply solve it for you. However, overuse of the hint book will result in the game locking certain rooms, preventing you from moving on.

The 7th Guest had a sequel, The 11th Hour.