The Hugo Trilogy

Hugo is one of those games that's apparently aged a lot better than it had any right to. Back when these first came out, they weren't generally quite as loved - I remember everyone playing them and talking about them, probably because you couldn't open a gaming magazine without a shareware hugo disk falling out of it, but no one would ever actually *enjoy* playing them. While I'm sure there was a sizable cult following back in the day (much like awful games have them now), it wasn't actually popular - just omnipresent. In terms of the problem - it's hard to know where to start. While the current versions have point and click support, and that might work great, the originals had nothing but arguably the most mentally deficient parser ever concieved. Bad parsers are a reality of these types of games, but all three in the series presented multiple moments that required the use of a *specific*, usually grammatically incorrect or contextually nonsensical word. Much of the game is spent trying to guess these words The actual puzzles also literally defined "illogical adventure puzzle". Some aren't even puzzles. Here's one for you: "What's the name of Roy Roger's dog?" That's it. The entire puzzle. No answer in game, no clues, no hints, no internet to look it up on because it's 19-fricken-90 and relatively few of us were lucky enough to have easy access to such a thing. They were ugly, even for the time. They'd kill you randomly and unfairly, even for the time. They'd dead end you after hours of play, without warning because you missed a timed event in the first three minutes of the game that had zero indicators. It's tempting to read this and go "oooh, dark souls 1990" or something, but no. These weren't "fun hard", they were just crappy games that started as a knockoff of a better game, and hid their poor quality behind punishing the player for buying them. After one play through (i.e. you can deal with the bad design), you can finish them in less than an hour each.

I enjoyed these games. They’re not for everyone, but if you’re looking for some horror adventure games that are a bit different, and you enjoy a challenge, they’re worth playing. Keep in mind they’re made by a solo developer, and there are some puzzles that can be difficult even for an experienced adventure gamer. These games don’t always play fair. One important thing to note: the GOG download, at least as of this writing, only includes the Windows re-releases from 1995. These versions add a point-and-click interface in addition to the text parser. The executables are not included either, so they can only be played in ScummVM. ScummVM uses its own UI for text boxes and the save system. The text boxes in particular are very small and don’t quite fit the style of the game. I also encountered various bugs that seem specific to ScummVM. The games are also available directly from the developer for the same price, and that includes both the Windows versions and the original DOS versions. They can be run directly on a compatible system, or you can play either version in ScummVM. It’s unfortunate that GOG doesn’t include everything for those that want to put in the effort to play them properly.

Duplicate the shortcut, right click properties on your shortcut icon, change the 1 to 2 on the target line and away you go. Exactly the same works for 3. Hope this helps!

A lovely meld of a text adventure and a 2D point and click explorer puzzle. This game is very hard, frequently frustrating, but also snarky, hilarious, and rewarding. I love this trilogy so much... warts and all. I recommend playing it with a walk thru open on another device. Try to beat it without the walk thru, but if you get stuck for more than 20 min, cheat. Sure, about 99% of the times you get stuck you could have figured it out if you'd just spent more time or tried more things, but about 1% of the time the solution is so obscure that figuring it out would be practically impossible... and that 1% makes a lot of people hate this game. I think cheating (but not after expending a fair amount of effort) is the perfect way to end up enjoying this game, rather than just being stuck forever on the many puzzles you WILL NOT figure out.

I grew up playing these. In terms of rose color glasses nostalgia factor, they get an astounding 6/5 in my book, and I appreciate the fact that they were rereleased for GOG, instead of relegated to the world of questionable Abandonware websites. However, they just don't hold up upon adult review. I don't know what anybody would see in these from a modern perspective. They should be noted however as having some degree of historical merit, since they were a success at the time thanks to Shareware, and it really was the work of just one person outside the world of the big adventure game studios. I must say though that I think the stories and characters are cute as hell, and I'll never forget my childhood nightmares of that horrible brown dog. WTF was his problem? They're kind of a noteable historical oddity, but I just don't know what value these hold with modern gamers. Like I said, 6/5 for childhood trauma, 2/5 as actual games in the world of 2019.