Anchorhead
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| Anchorhead | |
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Anchorhead is a
Anchorhead takes place in a fictional
Anchorhead was hailed by critics and players as one of the best interactive fiction games available due to its complex and intricate backstory and well-written dialogue and descriptions. In the 1998
Plot
The game is played through the perspective of an unnamed woman whose husband, Michael, suddenly inherits a large mansion in Anchorhead, Massachusetts, from family that he wasn't aware existed. The previous owner, Edward Verlac, killed his wife and daughter before taking his own life under mysterious circumstances. The game itself is split into 4 "days", each of which contains a set of puzzles that are required before the advancement of the next. On arriving in town, the car breaks under strange circumstances, stranding them in town without contact with the outside world. Croesus Verlac, the family's founder, has been possessing many of his male heirs in sequence, and begins to possess Michael. Croesus is attempting to summon a Great Old One named Ialdabaoloth, who takes the corporeal form of a multi-tentacled comet and is heading towards Earth at alarming rate. The protagonist sabotages Croesus' machine to summon Ialdabaoloth, saving the world. An epilogue shows that the protagonist is pregnant, raising concern that Croesus may attempt to possess her child if it is a son.
Development
Anchorhead was written by Michael Gentry, who was living in
.In 2006, Gentry announced a rewrite of Anchorhead in
The rewrite was released in 2018 as Anchorhead: the Illustrated Edition. This version features revised and polished prose, redesigned puzzles, and new puzzles and backstory, along with 51 black and white illustrations by Carlos Cara Àlvarez. Unlike previous versions, the Illustrated Edition is a commercial release, available for purchase only.[7]
Reception
Anchorhead has received critical acclaim. Praise for the game was often directed towards its attention to detail in its descriptions, which built an imaginative and convincing game world; though some criticism was directed towards its puzzles in the later half of the game, which for some meant resorting to a
In the 1998
References
- ^ a b c "Interview: Mike Gentry". Game Couch. December 14, 2006. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
- ^ a b "1998 XYZZY Awards Winners". XYZZY News. Archived from the original on 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
- ^ a b "Nominees for the 1998 XYZZY Awards". XYZZY News. Archived from the original on 2013-02-09. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
- ^ "And if a puzzle is not puzzling anymore?". L'avventura è l'avventura. April 2001. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28.
- ^ a b Bosky, Terrence (January 18, 2005). "Anchorhead Review". MobyGames.
- ^ Gentry, Mike (May 17, 2006). "Anchorhead: the first five rooms". LiveJournal. Archived from the original on February 17, 2011.
- ^ O'Connor, Alice (January 31, 2018). "Classic IF Horror Anchorhead Revised and Illustrated". Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
- ^ Kulczycki, Gregory W. (September 17, 1999). "Anchorhead review". Brass Lantern.
- ^ Short, Emily. "Aweighing an Anchorhead". IF-Review. Archived from the original on 2006-05-07. Retrieved 2006-04-05.
- ^ "IFDB Top 100" (archived), ifdb.org, 13 November 2023.
External links
- Play Anchorhead (1998 version)
- Anchorhead in the Interactive Fiction Database
- Anchorhead Game Map
- "Search-Based Drama Management in the Interactive Fiction Anchorhead"