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Anchorhead is an excellent horror IF in the tradition of Infocom's much-loved The Lurking Horror. Although not as scary as that classic, Anchorhead has more than enough atmosphere and unnerving plot twists to glue horror fans to their seat. 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. In 2018, to mark the twentieth anniversary of its initial publication, Anchorhead was made available in a special Illustrated Edition. Every aspect of the game has been rebuilt and redesigned from the ground up: The code has been rewritten in Inform 7 and compiled to the glulx format, allowing far more detail and interactivity than before. The prose has been revised and polished to reflect 20 years of accumulated writing experience. Additional puzzles, scenes, and background information to explore. Decorated with over 50 gorgeous illustrations by Carlos Cara Àlvarez. |
