The Lurking Horror
Encyclopedia
The Lurking Horror is an interactive fiction
computer game released by Infocom
in 1987. The game was written by Dave Lebling
and inspired by the horror
writings of H. P. Lovecraft
(including his Cthulhu Mythos
). Like most of Infocom's games, it was released for several platforms simultaneously thanks to the portable
Z-machine
.
The original release included versions for DOS
, the Apple II
, Atari ST
, Atari 8-bit family
and Commodore 64
. Later, it was ported to the Amiga
with the addition of sound effects, making it the first title with that feature. The effects would play at appropriate times in the game in an effort to intensify the horror atmosphere. This marked one of the few major additions to the Z-machine
with the exception of graphics; traditionally, Infocom had eschewed such changes in favor of expanding the parser capacity and overall size of game files.
Despite its relatively high sales figures, Lurking Horror was the only horror game ever released by Infocom. It is Infocom's twenty-sixth game. Infocom rated it as "Standard" in terms of difficulty.
university
. The player has braved a snowstorm to travel to the school's computer lab
to work on the report. The document is now mangled beyond repair, however; with the help of a hacker
, the player finds that the file has been partially overwritten by the Department of Alchemy
's files. Although the game begins as a quest to try to salvage the term paper, alarming events soon unfold, revealing a powerful evil within the school's depths.
What began as a mere snowstorm has strengthened into a full-force blizzard
. The player must traverse the University grounds in an attempt to recover the term paper's data. Much of the campus
is deserted and covered in snowdrifts, rendering walkways impassable. The only accessible avenues are steam tunnels and a small complex of buildings. In the course of unraveling the mystery, the player encounters demon
s, zombie
s and sinister references to a recent campus suicide
. Failing to set things right in the hidden passages beneath the school will result in a literal fate worse than death.
included extra content in their game packages called "feelies". The feelies for The Lurking Horror included:
games, which are set in the Great Underground Empire. In The Lurking Horror, G.U.E. Tech is an abbreviation for "George Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology". G.U.E. Tech's motto, seen on the student ID card in the feelies, is "Omne ignotum pro magnifico". This is a Latin
phrase meaning "Everything unknown is taken for magnificent."
Many features of G.U.E. Tech, including the steam tunnels, are modeled after MIT, which many of Infocom's developers attended. In particular, the Infinite Corridor
is a central feature of the MIT campus, and a door marked "Department of Alchemy" actually exists in Building 2 thanks to a late-20th-century hack.
In addition to maps and other information necessary to complete the game, the "G.U.E. at a Glance" booklet contains many loving jabs at technology-oriented schools like MIT and Caltech. These straight-faced jokes include "In spite of what your roommate will tell you, G.U.E. Tech does not have the highest suicide rate in the country" and "Women: There's no need to go anywhere. With a male/female ratio of 6:1, someone WILL say hello to you."
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
computer game released by Infocom
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
in 1987. The game was written by Dave Lebling
Dave Lebling
P. David Lebling is an interactive fiction game designer and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid....
and inspired by the horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
writings of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
(including his Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
). Like most of Infocom's games, it was released for several platforms simultaneously thanks to the portable
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
Z-machine
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions , and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a...
.
The original release included versions for DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
, Atari 8-bit family
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
and Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
. Later, it was ported to the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
with the addition of sound effects, making it the first title with that feature. The effects would play at appropriate times in the game in an effort to intensify the horror atmosphere. This marked one of the few major additions to the Z-machine
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions , and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a...
with the exception of graphics; traditionally, Infocom had eschewed such changes in favor of expanding the parser capacity and overall size of game files.
Despite its relatively high sales figures, Lurking Horror was the only horror game ever released by Infocom. It is Infocom's twenty-sixth game. Infocom rated it as "Standard" in terms of difficulty.
Plot
The game starts with the player trying to finish a term paper at G.U.E. Tech, a large MIT-like AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
. The player has braved a snowstorm to travel to the school's computer lab
Computer lab
A computer lab, also known as a computer suite or computer cluster is typically a room which contains many networked computers for public use...
to work on the report. The document is now mangled beyond repair, however; with the help of a hacker
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
, the player finds that the file has been partially overwritten by the Department of Alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
's files. Although the game begins as a quest to try to salvage the term paper, alarming events soon unfold, revealing a powerful evil within the school's depths.
What began as a mere snowstorm has strengthened into a full-force blizzard
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
. The player must traverse the University grounds in an attempt to recover the term paper's data. Much of the campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
is deserted and covered in snowdrifts, rendering walkways impassable. The only accessible avenues are steam tunnels and a small complex of buildings. In the course of unraveling the mystery, the player encounters demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s, zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s and sinister references to a recent campus suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Failing to set things right in the hidden passages beneath the school will result in a literal fate worse than death.
Feelies
All of Infocom's game packages since DeadlineDeadline (computer game)
Deadline is an interactive fiction computer game published by Infocom in 1982. Written by Marc Blank, it was one of the first murder mystery interactive fiction games. Like most Infocom titles, Deadline was created using ZIL, which allowed the easy porting of the game to popular computer platforms...
included extra content in their game packages called "feelies". The feelies for The Lurking Horror included:
- A Student ID Card
- "G.U.E. at a Glance", a guide for freshmen of the school, including maps of the campus and buildings and background information on the school
- A rubber centipede-like creature reminiscent of one of the monsters in the game. This was not mentioned on the package, and made for a creepy moment even before the user played the game.
Inspiration
The name of the university, G.U.E. Tech, is an obvious nod to Infocom's ZorkZork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
games, which are set in the Great Underground Empire. In The Lurking Horror, G.U.E. Tech is an abbreviation for "George Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology". G.U.E. Tech's motto, seen on the student ID card in the feelies, is "Omne ignotum pro magnifico". This is a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
phrase meaning "Everything unknown is taken for magnificent."
Many features of G.U.E. Tech, including the steam tunnels, are modeled after MIT, which many of Infocom's developers attended. In particular, the Infinite Corridor
Infinite Corridor
The Infinite Corridor is the hallway, 251 metres long, that runs through the main buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specifically parts of the buildings numbered 7, 3, 10, 4, and 8...
is a central feature of the MIT campus, and a door marked "Department of Alchemy" actually exists in Building 2 thanks to a late-20th-century hack.
In addition to maps and other information necessary to complete the game, the "G.U.E. at a Glance" booklet contains many loving jabs at technology-oriented schools like MIT and Caltech. These straight-faced jokes include "In spite of what your roommate will tell you, G.U.E. Tech does not have the highest suicide rate in the country" and "Women: There's no need to go anywhere. With a male/female ratio of 6:1, someone WILL say hello to you."
External links
- The Lurking Horror on the Amiga at the Hall of Light (HOL)
- The Lurking Horror information from the Infocom Gallery with photos of the entire contents of the game (manual, feelies, etc.)
- The Lurking Horror information from Infocom-if.org
- More information on the game, including a transcript of typical gameplay and complete InvisiClues
- The Infocom Bugs List entry on The Lurking Horror
- Ranked number 10 on Gamespy's 10 scariest games of all time list